A message from God’s angel on Christmas Eve

Posted on December 24, 2017 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Christmas Eve

+  Luke 2:1-14  +

God has a message for you all tonight—a message to the whole world of men, but specifically to you, who are here on Christmas Eve, regardless of your motives or your intentions or your reason for coming. It’s a message that may well be familiar to you, and yet it has been sent out from heaven again, because it’s more than a bit of information to learn. It’s God reaching down from heaven to speak to you, to convict, to convince, to enlighten, and to comfort. His message is scattered throughout all the seven lessons you heard in our service, but we’ll focus on the Christmas Gospel from Luke 2.

God’s message first given through Luke the Evangelist takes us back in time some 2,017 years—or perhaps a few more—to the days of Caesar Augustus, the first real emperor of the Roman Empire, the very emperor for whom the Roman poet Virgil wrote the famous Aeneid some 20 years earlier. Caesar Augustus was the one who issued that decree that forced Joseph and Mary to leave Galilee and to journey south to Bethlehem, the ancestral home of Joseph’s family going all the way back to Ruth and Boaz, and their son Obed, and his son Jesse, and his son David, the great king of Israel. We know why they had to get to Bethlehem. Micah told us that in the lesson you heard tonight: because the Christ was to be born there. But no one had told Caesar Augustus that, nor did Mary or Joseph seem to have it mind. No, this was God working in history, behind the scenes, invisibly, turning the events of the world to get His Son born in just the right place, at just the right time—a message to the world that God is in control of everything.

While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born—the baby who had been miraculously conceived in the virgin Mary’s womb nine months earlier by the working of the Holy Spirit. He was born, so it seems, in a stable where animals were kept, and placed in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. Let’s not blame the innkeeper. We are told of no malice on his part. If the hotel is full, the hotel is full. So the little town was making room for these travelers who were compelled by Roman law to return to their ancestral homes, and it happened to be a stable. Well, not “happened” to be. God saw to it that the circumstances of His Son’s birth were special. “Special” as in, humble, unattractive, uncomfortable, but also safe and sheltered. And memorable! Who can forget the manger which served as the royal cradle of God’s Son? A message to all that God did not send His Son into the world to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many, that the Father’s will was always to humiliate His beloved Son for our sake, that we, through Him, may be lifted up, not to earthly wealth, but to the heavenly riches of God’s favor and eternal life.

God then saw to it that shepherds would the first ones to know of this birth—shepherds, who were considered to be least in Jewish society. And that has a message in it, too. A message that God shows no favoritism, that God sent His Son into the world for the lowliest of men, even for you. A message which Jesus repeated many times in His ministry, the last shall be first and the first shall be last, everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but whoever humbles himself will be exalted. Or as St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians, But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence.

All those messages of God to the world are subtle and require the rest of God’s Word to make the messages clear. But the message of the angel, the word of God spoken by the angel to the shepherds and echoed down to us through the ages, couldn’t be clearer.

Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. The birth of Jesus is a message intended to drive out fear. It’s a good message, good tidings, of great joy, intended for all people.

Still, for as clear as the message is, the world has trouble hearing it, because, even though every single person desperately needs a Savior from sin, they don’t recognize it. People today have one of two messages pounded into them from the time they’re little children: either that nothing is their fault, and they deserve to have everything they want; or that everything is their fault, and no one cares for them at all. But both of those messages are false.

God made man in His own image, good and upright and just. But that was a long time ago, and early on, mankind turned away from God to make our own rules, to do what we wanted, and look where it has gotten us. Sin has infected everything. It’s real. It has consequences. And it’s not just something ugly to see in other people. Oh, no, not something to see in other people. It’s something to recognize and to despise in yourself, whoever you are. Everyone bears the blame for failing to acknowledge our Creator, for failing to worship Him as He deserves to be worshiped, and for failing to love our fellow man as He commands in His Word. That is our fault, and so we don’t deserve to have everything we want. What we deserve—all any of us deserves—is God’s wrath and punishment.

On the other hand, the demonic notion that no one cares for guilty sinners, least of all God? That idea couldn’t be dispelled any better than with the angel’s words to the shepherds. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.

Born to you. To a world made up entirely of guilty sinners, God came. God the Son, sent by God the Father, through God the Holy Spirit. He came as promised. He came as Savior. As Jesus would one day say, “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.” And so the angel attaches this name to the infant, Savior, Jesus. This is the one—the only One—to whom the name Savior has been attached. Nothing else in the world bears such a title. Nothing else and no one else is the Savior. Only the one who was born of Mary, who is Christ the Lord, who didn’t show up out of nowhere, but has a long history already behind Him the moment He’s born, a lineage going back to David, back to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, back to Shem and Noah and Seth and Adam. But even further than that. For He is Christ, the Lord, whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting, finally born so that He could grow up and die and so destroy death and purchase heaven for all men by His blood.

After announcing the birth of this Child, the heavenly host of angels couldn’t help but sing, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace, goodwill to men. Not the peace and goodwill of “you’re going to have a wonderful life in this world,” but the peace and goodwill of “you have a God who cares for you this much, that He would enter your fallen race to suffer, not just with you, but for you, that you may become children of God.”

Let the praise of the angels be the praise of all God’s people on this Christmas Eve. And let it become the praise of those who have not been God’s people, but who have heard the message God has directed to you this night through a much humbler angel. The Savior, Christ the Lord, has been born. That makes today the day of salvation to all who hear and believe God’s message. Amen.

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Be ready for the coming Christ!

Posted on December 24, 2017 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Rorate Coeli – Advent 4

Philippians 4:4-7  +  John 1:19-28

Until the sun sets today, we’re still in the season of Advent, the time of earnest, penitent preparation for Christ’s second Advent. We’ve talked quite a bit about John the Baptist over the past several weeks. He is the traditional preacher of Advent. He helps us, by his divinely inspired testimony, to prepare for Christ’s second coming, even as he helped the people of Israel to prepare for His first.

Not for His birth, though—although John did leap for joy in his mother’s womb when the newly pregnant virgin Mary greeted John’s mother Elizabeth. No, John prepared the people of Israel for the Advent of Jesus as He was just about to step out onto the public scene and reveal Himself, by His preaching and by the miraculous signs He would do, as the promised Messiah, the Christ.

But many people mistook John for the Christ, or at least for one who was claiming to be the Christ, and that’s understandable, for several reasons.

It’s understandable, because, according to the prophecies of the Old Testament, and especially the prophecies of Daniel, it was time for the Christ to appear. World events had played out just as Daniel prophesied some 600 years earlier: the Babylonians were defeated by the Medes and Persians, the Medes and Persians by the Greeks, the Greeks by the Romans, who came in and took over the land of Israel. It was during the reign of that fourth kingdom that the reign of the Christ was to begin. Not only that, but Daniel’s prophecy of the “70 weeks,” or, as most have interpreted, 490 years from the decree to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem, were just about up. If the Old Testament was reliable at all, then the Christ had to arrive soon.

It was also understandable that John was mistaken for someone claiming to be the Christ, because there had been other preachers who showed up and made that claim for themselves, although they never made much of an impact and quickly showed themselves to be imposters.

Finally, it was also understandable because no one—no man, no priesthood, no human council—had sent John to preach. That may not sound very significant to you; today there are lots of people whom no one has sent, no one has called, but they get up in pulpits or on stages or in stadiums and claim to have a message directly from God. But in John’s day, the people of Israel were well aware that it was a rare thing for a person to be sent immediately, directly by God. And yet, here was John, preaching and even performing this new ritual of Baptism—a ceremonial washing with water for the forgiveness of sins. No one has the right to preach, no one has the right to baptize in the name of God, unless God has sent him, either through the legitimate call of the Church, or directly. The fact that John was preaching and baptizing without a human call could only mean one thing: he was claiming to have been sent directly by God, and that would fit with the Christ.

So the Jewish religious leaders, wary as they were of someone attracting crowds and exposing them for the frauds they were, sent to John to interrogate him. Who are you? And without hesitation, John confessed. I am not the Christ. Very simple. That was the first part of his testimony.

Well, again, this presented a problem. If John is not claiming to be the Christ, then why is he preaching? Why is he baptizing? Are you Elijah? they asked. You remember, I hope, what the prophet Malachi had prophesied—the last words of the Old Testament—Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet Before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD. And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, And the hearts of the children to their fathers, Lest I come and strike the earth with a curse. Actually, Jesus would later identify John the Baptist as the fulfillment of that prophecy, but not like the Jews thought, as if Elijah himself would come down out of heaven. So John denies being such an Elijah.

Are you the Prophet? they asked. They seem to be referring to the Prophet whom Moses said the Lord would one day send, but that was a reference to Christ Himself in His prophetic office. So, again, John said, No.

Who, then? That’s the second part of John’s testimony. I am ‘The voice of one crying in the wilderness: “Make straight the way of the LORD,” ’ as the prophet Isaiah said. Why weren’t the Jews thinking about this prophecy of Isaiah? It turns out they missed a lot of what Isaiah said about the coming Christ, maybe because they took Isaiah’s prophecies to be only about the return of Israel from exile in Babylon, as if Isaiah had nothing to say about the Christ as the one who would expose the sins of Israel, as the one who would be rejected by Israel, as the suffering Servant who would be led like a lamb to the slaughter, who would bear the sins of sinful men, and then be raised to life again. All of that was in the book of Isaiah, but the Jews couldn’t accept a Christ who would do those things, and so they didn’t even have this “voice of one crying in the wilderness” on their radar as the prophet who would show up to announce the Advent of the Christ.

But John was that prophet, that voice, crying in the wilderness. And you know how he made straight the way of the LORD. He preached against the sin of those who were secure in their sins. And he preached the forgiveness of sins to those who were overwhelmed by the weight of their transgressions against God and men. That was the testimony of John the Baptist. All are sinners who must fear the coming judgment of the Christ, but God will also provide safety and forgiveness for all in the coming Christ—forgiveness that is received through Baptism and faith.

The final part of John’s testimony followed. I baptize with water, but there stands One among you whom you do not know. It is He who, coming after me, is preferred before me, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to loose. Not only is the Christ about to come. He is here! He stands among you, ready to be revealed. In fact, the very next day, John would see Jesus coming and declare, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”

But I am not worthy to loose the sandal straps of His feet, says John. Because He is not like me—a mere man, a sinful man. No, the Christ is both David’s Son and David’s Lord. The Christ is both true God and true Man—another bit of blasphemy in the eyes of the Jews, a blasphemy for which they would one day crucify their Christ, because He claimed to be the Son of God, who holds the power over life and death, and who will give life to all who believe in His name.

Well, as Jesus would soon demonstrate, He is the Son of God, and He does hold the power over life and death, and tonight we’ll celebrate His birth, and tomorrow we’ll sit back in awe and contemplate the mystery of the Word made flesh. If you acknowledge your sinfulness, if you sorrow over your sins, if you know the grace of God in giving His Son for poor sinners, like you, the Son of God who was born to be sacrificed as the Lamb of God for the sins of all, if you rejoice in the Lord Christ, who came and is coming, then John’s testimony has borne its fruit again this year, by the power of God’s Holy Spirit. And you are ready to receive the Christ, whenever He comes, and ready, once again, to celebrate the good tidings of His birth. Amen.

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What to expect while you’re expecting the coming Christ

Posted on December 17, 2017 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Gaudete – Advent 3

1 Corinthians 4:1-5  +  Matthew 11:2-10

In this Advent season, as we focus on waiting for the coming Christ, we’ve talked about what the coming Christ will be like, and what will happen when He comes. He’ll come in glory. He’ll come for judgment. He’ll come with eternal salvation for those who have persevered in the faith, and with vengeance against all His foes.

But, as we’ve also discussed, that’s not how or why He came the first time. He came the first time in humility, in poverty, in meekness, not to condemn anyone, but to save everyone by His sacrificial death on the cross, and by sending out ministers in His name, equipped with His Holy Spirit, to preach His Gospel and to build His Church throughout the world until He comes the second time.

You and I have been told what to expect from Jesus. We may even take that knowledge for granted. But it wasn’t so clear for the Old Testament believers, and it’s still something that New Testament believers struggle to keep straight—what to expect from Christ here and now as you wait for Him to come, what to expect while you’re expecting.

John the Baptist knew that the Christ was coming, and that Jesus was the Christ. But the Old Testament was intentionally vague and blurry in its prophecies about Christ’s coming and often blended together prophecies of His first coming and His second coming into one great prophecy of the future, so that many Old Testament believers expected the Christ to come only once, both to make atonement for sins and to remove all wickedness from the world, to usher in the eternal kingdom of God in a visible way. John the Baptist knew that the Christ was coming, but he—or, at least, his disciples—seemed to be struggling with the lack of change Jesus was bringing into the world. His miracles were amazing. But they weren’t solving the larger problem of evil.

When John had heard in prison about the works of Christ, he sent two of his disciples and said to Him, “Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another?”

John, the great forerunner of the Messiah, as Jesus Himself testified about him, wasn’t leading a quiet, peaceful life as a prophet of God. He was in Herod’s prison, because he had preached against Herod’s adultery. He was in prison, waiting to be beheaded, even as the promised Christ walked about the land of Israel in the flesh. It’s not that John was complaining about his plight. It just didn’t make sense.

Are You the one who was to come? We’re wondering, Jesus, because it doesn’t look like You are. We were expecting bigger things at Your Advent: vengeance against Your enemies. Salvation for God’s people. The end of pain and suffering. The restoration of Paradise. As John had preached earlier about the Christ, His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor, and gather His wheat into the barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.

But where is the winnowing fan? Where is the gathering of the wheat? Where the burning up of the chaff? The wicked still prosper. The wicked still preside over a corrupt church. Meanwhile, the godly are in prison. The godly are still weak. The godly still suffer. Sickness and death still reign. The Christ is supposed to fix everything at His coming, isn’t He? How did Jesus’ actions harmonize with the promises of the Coming One?

Jesus answered and said to John’s disciples, “Go and tell John the things which you hear and see: The blind see and the lame walk; the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear; the dead are raised up and the poor have the gospel preached to them. And blessed is he who is not offended because of Me.”

Jesus helps to correct the misunderstanding of John’s disciples, still without explaining everything in detail. He tells them, stop focusing on the things I’m not doing that you think I should be doing. Focus on what you see Me doing. You see Me doing the very miraculous signs that are predicted in the Old Testament Scriptures. You hear Me preaching the Gospel to the poor—not the Gospel of riches here on earth, or the Gospel of a reasonably comfortable middle-class life, but the Gospel of the riches of God’s love for poor, miserable sinners, love that is personified in Jesus Himself, who came in humility that He might live under the Law in our place, be righteous in place of all our unrighteousness, and suffer the Law’s condemnation, so that we could be justified by faith and made heirs of everlasting riches in the new creation, when Christ comes again.

You can’t see it all yet, John, and I can’t explain it all to you yet, either. You can’t see how I will be crucified and raised on the third day. You can’t see yet how I’ll send the Gospel out into the world, or how I’ll gather My Church over the centuries, or how I’ll preserve a remnant of believers throughout the whole world all the way up to the end. All you can see and hear is Me, right now, preaching the Gospel. That’s all you should expect for now. Don’t be offended by it. Don’t be offended by Me, the humble Preacher of the Gospel. Instead, rejoice!

What should you expect from the Christ while you’re expecting His return? Maybe your life isn’t what you think it should be, what you’ve asked God to make it. Maybe things aren’t going well. Nothing’s easy. And it’s getting harder. Jesus keeps saying things that you don’t understand, or worse, that you don’t like or agree with, that go contrary to our culture and our cultural beliefs. Is Christianity really the right way?

It is. And not our culture’s twisted version of Christianity, either, but the genuine Christianity presented in the Scriptures and carried on by the Church catholic, by the churches that are faithful to the Lutheran Confessions. Because true Christianity teaches now what Christ Himself always taught: suffering here. Humility here. Humble preaching of the Gospel here, in the ministry of Word and Sacrament, as the way in which Christ will gather and preserve believers until He comes again to fix everything that is wrong.

To highlight that very point, Jesus then turns in our Gospel to the crowds who were there with Him, many of whom had first followed John the Baptist out in the wilderness.

What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind? But what did you go out to see? A man clothed in soft garments? Indeed, those who wear soft clothing are in kings’ houses. But what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I say to you, and more than a prophet. For this is he of whom it is written: ‘Behold, I send My messenger before Your face, who will prepare Your way before You.’

Think back, Jesus says, to when John was baptizing in the wilderness and you all went out to him. What did you go out to him for? Did you think of him as a prosperity preacher? No, you didn’t. Did he dress in fancy clothes and impress you with his oratory skills or with his wit? No, he didn’t. Did you expect him to adjust his message to the liking of the leadership? Did you expect him to be nice and friendly and relational, to preach a soft, sweet message of peace on earth, an easy life, an earthly kingdom of glory? No, you didn’t. You went out to him because you believed he was a prophet from God, with a message from God. And you were right. He is a prophet, and more than that, the prophesied forerunner of the Christ, sent to prepare the way for Me!

So, does it surprise you that he’s in prison, that God would let that happen to His prophet? Or even that he’s sending to Me to ask questions? It shouldn’t. What you see in John is what you should expect of every genuine prophet—a somewhat strange preacher of the truth who doesn’t fit in, who suffers for his preaching, who may even struggle to understand what he preaches, but who always points to Christ as the answer to your sin, and who always sends you to Christ to answer your doubts.

This is a lesson for us about the ministry of the Word. What should you expect while you’re expecting Christ’s return? Expect that He will keep sending ministers, prophets, preachers who will be a lot like John the Baptist, and know that Jesus expects you to listen to them. Not necessarily preachers who are nice or friendly or who tell cute stories or run a good church activity or community outreach program. No, what you should expect, if it’s a Biblical ministry, is a minister who preaches nothing but the pure Word of God, who regularly calls you—and all people—to repentance and faith in Christ, who administers the Sacraments, and, to some degree, who suffers for all of it. You should expect exactly what St. Paul tells the Corinthians to expect: Let a man so consider us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.

It’s helpful to know what to expect while you’re expecting Christ to return. Then you won’t be disappointed. Then you’ll see that Christ is doing everything He said He would do and giving you exactly what He promised to give you in this life—not comfort, not ease, not a growing church, not perfection, but the humble ministry of the Gospel, through which He Himself calls you to repentance, kindles your faith and fans it into flame, comforts you under the cross, and even enables you to rejoice. Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice! Amen.

 

 

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The trees are full of leaves. Christ is coming soon!

Posted on December 10, 2017 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Populus Sion – Advent 2

Romans 15:4-13  +  Luke 21:25-36

The trees are almost bare in Las Cruces. The hard freeze this week brought down most of the leaves, a sign that winter is coming, just around the bend. But winter won’t last forever. It never does. It won’t be long before you see the trees starting to bud again, and when they’re full of leaves, you’ll know that summer is almost here.

We go through that cycle every year. And today in the Gospel, Jesus uses that familiar picture of leaves on a tree to keep us mindful of His coming. Because, as leaves on a tree are a sign that summer is near, so there will be terrible and tragic events in this world that serve as signs of the nearness of Christ’s coming, and the end of the world.

We don’t really need to wade too deeply through the list of signs every year, because all the things that Jesus tells us to watch for have been going on around us for a very long time; they really don’t change much from year to year.

Each year there are yet more signs in the sun, in the moon and in the stars, which may be no more significant than alignments of planets and solar eclipses, like the big one that ran across our country back in August.

Each year there are yet more signs in the earth—distress of nations, with perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring, fear and dread filling the hearts of men, the love of most people growing cold. Or as Jesus adds in St. Matthew’s Gospel, famines, earthquakes, disease, wars and rumors of wars.

Each year there are yet more signs in the Church, as St. Matthew also records—persecution against Christians, the spread of false doctrine far and wide, false prophets deceiving many, and many being deceived. Apostasy, a great falling away from the truth of the Gospel. The man of lawlessness—the Antichrist—still pretending to be the head of the Christian Church and leading many astray. But also, the Gospel of Christ still being preached in all the world.

Tell me, which of these things is lacking? Which branches on the fig tree are still bare? Which word of Christ has fallen to the ground, unkept and unfulfilled? No, my friends, heaven and earth will pass away, but Jesus’ words will never pass away. The things going on around us in the world are the very signs that Jesus told us to watch for, to know that the kingdom of heaven is near. The tree is full of leaves, as in late spring. The only sign that is still lacking is the actual sign of the Son of Man coming in the clouds with power and great glory, descending from heaven for judgment, and for the final redemption of all who are waiting for Him in hope.

For as terrible as most of the signs are of Jesus’ coming, the danger that Jesus warns us of in the Gospel is not the danger posed by the signs themselves. Wars? Famines? Earthquakes? Hurricanes? Disease? False doctrine? Persecution? These things can’t harm us Christians. Not really. They can affect us. They can cause us suffering and pain. But they can’t rob us of the treasure that is laid up for us in heaven. They can’t steal Jesus away from us.

What is the danger, then? The danger is that, even though we see the signs of Christ’s coming all around us, we stop caring about what they’re pointing to.

 “But take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness, and cares of this life, and that Day come on you unexpectedly. For it will come as a snare on all those who dwell on the face of the whole earth.

It’s understandable (though certainly not excusable) that the world—those who are still wallowing in sin and unbelief—should be busy carousing, partying, getting drunk, pursuing pleasure and accumulating wealth. Their god is their belly, after all. But their behavior is awfully attractive to our own sinful flesh. The temptation to go along with the world, to think like the world thinks, to plan like the world plans—those are strong temptations for us who are so weak, according to the flesh. You know how that overarching phrase, “the cares of this life,” fills your agenda every single day. But your daily agenda will be your undoing, if you don’t keep at least one eye on the leaves of the trees, and on the thing they’re intended to remind you of, the thing that comes shortly after the leaves have budded, the coming of the Son of Man.

Watch therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man.

Watch, therefore. Watch the signs taking place around you. But don’t get caught up in them. Remember that they must happen. They’re part of God’s own plan and prophecy for this world. Remember what they’re for—to keep you looking for Jesus’ coming.

Watch, therefore. Watch out for pleasure-seeking and for getting caught up in the cares of this life, because they will weigh you down so heavily that spiritual things—God, God’s Word, your soul, Christ, His righteousness, His forgiveness—will never be able to get your attention.

And pray always. It’s hard to forget about God if you’re praying to Him regularly with a heartfelt “Our Father.” It’s hard to forget about His name and His kingdom if you’re continually praying, “Hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come.” It’s hard to forget about the danger of sin if you’re constantly praying, “Forgive us our trespasses.” It’s hard to get caught up in the cares of this life if you’re regularly praying, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”

But it’s not just about remembering to pray the Lord’s Prayer. It’s about the reason why you need to pray it. Because whether you want to acknowledge it or not, this world, with all its cares and pleasures, is ripe for judgment. The Day is coming. And the truth is, God’s Law reveals you to be unworthy to stand before God in the coming judgment, just as unworthy as everyone else in the world. But God the Father, in His great love and mercy, gave His Son into death for your sins, because He wants you to escape the destruction that is coming on the world and to live with Him in joy and peace forever. Christ is the refuge God the Father has provided against all the accusations of the Law, the only Shelter that will be safe on the Day that is coming. He has brought you into that shelter through Holy Baptism and feeds you there in the Lord’s own Supper. By faith in Christ, God has made you worthy to stand before the Son of Man, who loved you and gave Himself for you. And because He knows that you are prone to wander, He keeps sending signs of His coming, and then calls out to you in the Gospel to see the signs and remember their meaning. Here His Spirit is working. Here His power is shielding you and strengthening you to look up from this dying world and to long for the redemption that is drawing near.

Christ is coming. The signs are everywhere. The trees are full of leaves. Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

 

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Preparing for Christ’s coming with true repentance

Posted on December 7, 2017 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

Sermon for Midweek of Ad Te Levavi

Jeremiah 33:14-18  +  James 5:7-8  +  Matthew 3:4-12

The coming of the Lord is at hand, James told us in the second reading tonight. Of course, that was almost 2,000 years ago when he wrote that. So there are two ways you can hear what James says there (and, of course, Peter, Paul, John and Jesus all say the same thing). Either you hear it and say, “Ach, the Lord’s coming isn’t really at hand, then, is it? I’ll worry about getting ready for His coming tomorrow, or next week, or next year.” And I tell you, the coming of Christ will spring on such people like a trap, as you’ll hear again this Sunday. Or you can hear it and say, “This is God sending His gracious warning to me, because He wants me to be prepared. So I’d better take it seriously. It’s high time to listen to God’s Word, both Law and Gospel. It’s high time to make sure that what I believe matches with what the Bible says, time to evaluate my heart and the things that come out of it, both words and deeds. It’s high time to be living, consciously and purposefully, in repentance.”

That’s what John the Baptist is here to help with, as the Holy Spirit sets His words before us in the Gospel. John’s voice rings out every year, especially during the season of Advent where we focus on preparing for Christ’s second coming.

You heard in the third lesson what a unique prophet John was. How he dressed—in camel skins and leather belts. What he ate—locusts and wild honey. Where he conducted his ministry, out in the wilderness, along the banks of the Jordan river. And his preaching was one of repentance, in which he offered to those who confessed their sins a new ritual washing of purification called baptism, which was, as he himself confessed, a humble foreshadowing of the Spirit-accompanied Baptism of the coming Christ.

Let’s understand what repentance is. Biblically, it’s a change of mind, a change of direction, a turning from evil to good, from the hatred of God to the love of God, from unbelief to faith.

And there are two parts to that change of direction: contrition and faith.

Contrition is sadness and sorrow over sins, when a person recognizes that he has disobeyed God’s holy Law and, therefore, stands condemned before the judgment of the Law and deserves only God’s wrath and punishment. Contrition comes from looking into the dreadful mirror of the holy Ten Commandments. Because when you do, you are told that every single thought, word, and deed must be perfect, with perfect love for God and perfect love for your neighbor. Outward acts of obedience aren’t good enough. God’s Law doesn’t say, “Try to be perfect, or work toward perfection,” does it? It says, “Be perfect. Be holy.” It says that the soul who sins is the one who will die. And it declares the awful truth, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” As St. Paul writes to the Romans, By the law is the knowledge of sin. So contrition—genuine sadness and sorrow over the sins you’ve come to recognize by gazing into the mirror of the Law, together with the pangs of conscience and fear of judgment that go along with it—is the first part of the repentance.

But the second part is the even more important part: faith. Faith in God’s promise in the Gospel to forgive sins for the sake of Christ the Redeemer, who, by His perfect life and innocent death on the cross, made satisfaction for all the sins of all mankind, or, at in the words of John the Baptist, faith in the Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Contrition plus faith equals true repentance.

A lot of very sinful people were coming to John—thieves, prostitutes, even pagan Roman soldiers. They heard his preaching of the Law against their sins and it made them sorrowful and afraid. They heard of the hope that God held out to them in the coming Christ and it made them hopeful and believing. In other words, by the work of God’s Holy Spirit, they were repenting. They were confessing their sins. They were receiving John’s baptism, not as the goal, but as pointing to the goal which John himself highlights: the Baptism of the coming Christ. They were finding hope in John’s preaching, because, for as brutally honest as it was, revealing their sins to them in all their horror, it also pointed them to a real solution—to the coming Christ as the sin-bearer! To the coming Christ as that Branch that God promised to raise up to David, as you heard in the first reading tonight, to the coming Christ who is the LORD our righteousness.

But there are two main problems that plague mankind. People are either like pigs willingly wallowing in the mud of their sins—like those thieves and prostitutes and pagans were before they repented—or people are like pigs wallowing in their own imagined worthiness and righteousness. That was the case with the Pharisees and Sadducees who came to John.

They didn’t come confessing their sins. They came confessing their own goodness, a righteousness in themselves. A righteousness from their relationship to Abraham. A righteousness of their own that they thought made them more worthy of God’s acceptance than the other “worse sinners” around them. John tells them very plainly, that’s not the way to escape the coming wrath.

Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance.

In other words, you aren’t good people. You’re sinners, like the rest. And worse, you actually think you can earn your own salvation, that you deserve some credit from God. You’re venomous snakes who harm others with your false teachings, preventing them from repenting, even as you yourselves are impenitent. You’re not producing fruits worthy, that is consistent with, repentance.

The fruits of true repentance are works—thoughts, words and deeds that are consistent with repentance. For example, if you recognize that you are a sinner who has deserved only God’s wrath and punishment, as the Law declares, then you can’t go around comparing yourself to others, pretending to deserve God’s favor more than they do. If you recognize that the failure to love your neighbor is a sin worthy of God’s wrath, you can’t go around refusing to love. If you know from God’s Law that your works are tainted with sin, you can’t keep offering them to God as a reason for Him to accept you. If you know that no human being—whether it’s Abraham or the Virgin Mary or your parents—can redeem you from sin, then you can’t keep looking to Abraham, or to Mary, or to your parents, or to your church, to be your advocate before God or to get you into heaven.

No, the ax is at the root of the tree, ready to strike every tree that doesn’t bear good fruit.

The problem is, you can’t make a bad tree bear good fruit. You can’t produce good fruit unless the tree is first made good. And once the tree is made good, then the fruits will naturally be good, too. You don’t start with the fruit. You start with the tree.

How to make the tree good? We come back to repentance. Godly contrition, sorrow over sin, which shows you your dire need for refuge, for redemption, for forgiveness. And faith in Christ Jesus, seeking refuge under Him who died for you and rose again. Faith doesn’t remove your sinful flesh, but it does make you good before God, because it ties you to Jesus, who is goodness itself. If, by faith, you flee to Christ to be judged by His righteousness, not yours, then, in a sense, you’re already perfect, aren’t you?, because Christ is perfect, and you are clothed with Him by faith.

That’s what St. Paul writes to the Galatians in chapter 3: For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.

John refers to that Baptism of Christ—the Baptism of water and the Spirit—as far superior to his own baptism that was with water only. The Christ’s Baptism actually washes away sins, gives eternal life and the Holy Spirit.

And then, when you’ve been made good before God by faith in Christ Jesus, through Holy Baptism, then you are finally able to produce the fruits that are consistent with repentance, not in order to escape the coming wrath, but because, by faith, you are already sheltered from the coming wrath.

Will your new obedience as penitent believers in Christ be perfect? Not in this life. That’s why repentance is always necessary, every day, all the time, right up until the coming of Christ. Then the sinful flesh falls away and perfection comes for all believers as the Lord gathers them as wheat into His eternal barns, as John prophesied. But the opposite will come for all those who failed to repent, who failed to mourn over their sins and trust in Christ alone before it’s too late. They, he says, will be burned up with unquenchable fire—outer darkness. That’s what happens at the coming of Christ.

And, as James told us, The coming of the Lord is at hand. Whether He delays for another 2,000 years—which is highly unlikely—or whether He comes today—which is much more likely, better to be prepared too soon than unprepared too late, isn’t it? Heed the voice of John the Baptist calling out in the wilderness. Acknowledge your sins with true contrition, and take refuge in Christ with genuine faith. Amen.

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