Repeating the story of salvation

Posted on December 24, 2016 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

Sermon for Christmas Eve

We hear pretty much the same Scripture lessons every year at Christmas time, on Christmas Eve, and we even sing mostly the same hymns, rich in Scriptural texts and truth. That’s because there’s really nothing new to say. Just the same old things to keep repeating: the ancient prophecies about the birth of Christ, the actual, historical events surrounding His birth, and what it means for us poor sinners. We repeat the things we should never forget. We repeat the things that are worth repeating, and the story of Jesus’ birth is right at the top of that list of things, because it’s the story of how our fallen human race, surrounded by suffering and destined for death, was given the gift of a do-over, an alternate destiny, to be won for us by the Child born in Bethlehem.

The human race needed saving. We were all “the people who walked in darkness, who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death,” as Isaiah wrote. Because whether it’s the land of Israel, or the Middle East, or Europe, or Africa, or America, every single human being who has ever been born was born ugly—ugly on the inside. Worse than ugly. Depraved. Godless. Wicked. Every time a mother gives birth, she gives birth to a tiny idol-worshiper who is precious and sweet on the outside, but hostile to God on the inside; absolutely innocent according to human law, but already guilty according to God’s holy standards; alive according to biological measurements, but dead in sins and trespasses as God measures things. As God Himself declared about the human race way back in Genesis 8, the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth. That’s because we bear the image, not of God the Father, but of our first father Adam—Adam after he fell into sin.

Tonight we celebrate the only birth in human history where that was not the case. The Child born of Mary bore the earthly image of His father, Adam—a human body and a human soul, just like the rest of us, so that He could be a true Substitute for human beings, a Second Adam who would not turn His back on God and sin against His commandments, as the first one did; but who, by virtue of His virgin birth and His conception by the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit, bore the spiritual image—of God His Father, so that the One who would one day die on the cross would bring with Him the eternal and infinite value of the Son of God, so that He might taste death for all of us, suffer death for all of us, and give us the right to become children of God. Because we’re not born that way. But Jesus was born that way, in order that we might be reborn that way.

As Paul wrote to Titus, that doesn’t happen by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of rebirth and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that having been justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

Christmas and the birth of Christ is directly connected to Baptism, where God the Holy Spirit offers us rebirth into Christ, the rebirth that joins us to the holy birth of the holy Child born of Mary, to the alternate destiny won for us by the Child born in Bethlehem, the destiny of eternal life that we don’t deserve instead of the eternal death that we do.

Glory to God in the highest, the angels sang. Why? Why do the angels give glory to God in the highest heavens at the birth of Christ? Because it’s to the praise of God’s glorious grace that He gave His Son to save sinful mankind. The God of the angels demonstrated just how good He, how praiseworthy He is as He stooped down to take on the flesh of the very creatures who had been rebelling against Him since the Garden of Eden. That’s how great He is. This is the God whom the angels gladly serve. And He had just shown, there in Bethlehem, how merciful He is, how kind and good He is, how devoted to mankind’s salvation He is. The Creator had joined Himself to the human race in order to save the human race. Glory to God in the highest!

And on earth peace, goodwill to men. The angels weren’t singing about peace among nations or about the goodwill of people doing good deeds for one another in their communities. They were telling us about the gift that God was giving to us in the Person of His Son: peace. As Micah prophesied, this One shall be peace. Because where Jesus is, there we have a reconciled God, a God who is not angry, a God who is not coming to destroy, but a God who is gracious and kind to sinners, for the sake of Christ, who would one day die for our sins on the cross. Where Jesus is, there is God’s goodwill to men.

Where is that peace and goodwill now? It’s still wrapped up in Christ Jesus, who dwelt among men for about 33 years, and now reigns at God’s right hand. What connection has He left us to Himself? He has promised to be with us always, to the very end of the age, not just anywhere, but in the preaching of His Gospel and in the holy Sacraments. So hear the Gospel again tonight: A Savior has been born to you. He is Christ, the Lord. Believe that, believe in Him, and you have Him as your Savior, as your Substitute, as your Redeemer from sin, from death, and from the devil.

That’s the story we hear over and over again at Christmas, and really, throughout the year. And we’ll keep hearing it and keep repeating it, because the way to peace, the way to joy, the way to heaven, the way to God begins and ends with the Babe who was once wrapped in swaddling cloths and laid in a manger. Amen.

 

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The ministry of making straight the Lord’s way

Posted on December 18, 2016 by Rev. Paul Rydecki


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Sermon for Rorate Coeli – Advent 4

Philippians 4:4-7  +  John 1:19-28

It’s the Sunday before Christmas, the last Sunday in this penitential season of Advent. We’ve had to practice some discipline in holding off the Christmas decorating and celebrating, so that this season of Advent might fulfill its godly purpose of preparing us for Christ’s second coming. Today, the Apostle John fulfills that purpose in his Gospel by pointing us back to John the Baptist.

Who are you, John? Who are you?, the delegation from Jerusalem asked. We know part of the answer to that question from Luke’s Gospel, who tells us about how John came to be born of the priest Zacharias and his wife Elizabeth in their old age.

But that’s not what the delegation from Jerusalem was asking. They may have known who John’s parents were and where he came from. They knew what he was preaching and what he was doing there in Bethabara, beyond the Jordan, where John was baptizing. But they were wondering what John was claiming about himself, if he was claiming to be someone important—someone who might threaten their position and their power in Israel. They knew he had a large following of people going out to hear him on a regular basis, many of whom were also baptized by him. They knew that there were rumors flying among the people, “Could this be the Christ? — The Savior promised throughout the Old Testament?”

John made the good confession. He made it firmly and openly so that no one—including John’s own followers—should make any mistake about John: I am not the Christ. So that means, no one should be looking to me as the Savior. I am not the fulfillment of the Old Testament. I am not the Righteous One, the promised Seed of Abraham, the one who will judge the earth, the one who will rule at God’s right hand over all creation, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. The Christ is all those things, but that’s not who I am.

What then, John? You must still be claiming to be someone important. You wouldn’t take up this prophet’s mantle and be out here preaching in your own name. Are you Elijah? That seems like a strange question, asking John if he was the Old Testament prophet who lived hundreds of years earlier. But remember, Elijah never died; he was taken to heaven alive, in a whirlwind and a chariot of fire. And the prophet Malachi had promised that Elijah would come before the Christ would come.

No, John answered, I’m not Elijah. And he wasn’t. Elijah remained in heaven. But John was “the Elijah” Malachi had prophesied, as Jesus confirmed and as the angel Gabriel pronounced to Zacharias, the prophet who was sent in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children,’ and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.

Are you the Prophet?, they asked him. No. The Jews at that time were misreading a verse from the book of Deuteronomy, where Moses prophesied that God would send a prophet like him, from among their brethren. They thought this prophet was coming, in addition to the Christ. What they failed to understand was that “the Prophet” about whom Moses prophesied was the Christ, to be raised up from among their own brethren in Israel—a man, who, like Moses, would be sent from God to redeem them from slavery, to lead them and to reveal God’s will to them, and to whose word they must listen. John was certainly a prophet, and, as Jesus called him, more than a prophet. But he wasn’t THE Prophet. That was Jesus.

Who are you, then, John? We need an answer. What gives you the right to preach? What gives you the right to tell people they are sinning against God, to call them to repent, to announce the forgiveness of sins? To speak in God’s name at all? They had a point. You don’t just get to get up one day and decide to go out and tell people stuff in the name of the Lord. You don’t get to go out and act like a prophet and a herald of God to your countrymen, unless it’s your God-given vocation to do so.

But it actually was John’s God-given vocation to do so. Like few other men in history, John was directly called by God, as the angel Gabriel announced. He wasn’t preaching from his own desires or with his own thoughts or on his own authority, nor was he trying to get people to focus on him or to praise him or to cling to him. He said: “I am ‘The voice of one crying in the wilderness: “Make straight the way of the LORD,” ’ as the prophet Isaiah said.” The Jews were expecting the Christ to come, and Elijah, and the Prophet. But they didn’t seem to care about this voice of one crying in the wilderness, about whom Isaiah had prophesied. Even after John reminds them of this passage from Isaiah, they don’t care. Why?

Because the coming of those other men they thought of as glorious and spectacular. They were expecting God to come to Israel and tell them what a great job they were doing, compared to all those terrible foreigners and Gentiles, who were pagans and idolaters. They were expecting God to come and wipe out the Romans and make the nation of Israel the ruler over all the other nations. But this voice of whom Isaiah wrote—his message is not so sweet, and certainly not glorious or spectacular. Make straight the way. But that means, the way is not straight leading up to the Lord’s coming.

And of course, it wasn’t. The hearts of the Jews were, for the most part, stuck on external things, earthly things. They didn’t even notice how they were mistreating one another, becoming more and more self-centered and selfish, more and more concerned about their government, their possessions, their food and clothing, their tithing and their religious rituals that had lost their meaning. God’s commandments were being reinterpreted to allow them to get away with anything they wanted. And the people of Israel had become either haughty and merciless toward their neighbor on the one hand, or secure, open sinners on the other. In that condition, they would never be ready for the Advent of Christ. (And their condition then sounds all-too-familiar to us now, doesn’t it?)

So John preached. He preached against all of it: open sins and secret sins, arrogance and works-righteousness. The idolatry of possessions, the idolatry of their own bodies and pleasures, the idolatry of government, the idolatry of manmade “truth,” the idolatry of self. Make straight the way of the Lord! Hear His Word! Repent before it’s too late! The Lord is coming! Let Him find you humbled! Let Him find you penitent! Let Him find you troubled and sorrowing over your sins! Let Him find you acknowledging your guilt and seeking His mercy when He comes!

But the Pharisees and the priests didn’t want to humble themselves, and they didn’t want to be lectured by a nobody out in the desert. What they wanted was for John to admit that he was nobody, that he had no right, no authority to preach repentance to Israel. Why then do you baptize if you are not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet? John’s answer was perfect: “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.” In other words, in the grand scheme of things, I am nobody. I’m not the one you should be worried about. The Christ is coming. In fact, He’s here already and you don’t Him. He is the One to whom you will answer. He is the One who has come to save you sinners from your sins. But take warning. If you refuse to repent and believe in Him, He will not be your Savior. He will be your Judge.

That’s how John made straight the way for the Lord’s first Advent. Is the way straight for His second Advent? John’s preaching, which is still echoed now by Christian preachers, will see to it that it is, because this is the Holy Spirit’s ministry. The Holy Spirit, through the ministry of the Word, is making the way straight for Christ’s coming every time repentance is preached, every time the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed in Christ’s name, every time a sinner is baptized into Christ, every time the Lord’s body and blood are offered to penitent sinners. The world, as a whole, will not be straight, will not be ready, will not be right. But to all who heed God’s call to repent and believe in Christ, the way is straight, and you can expect His coming with joy, as Paul wrote in the Epistle: Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice! Let your gentleness be known to all men. The Lord is at hand.

And if, in this way, you’re prepared for His second Advent, then you’re also properly prepared to celebrate His first Advent at Christmas. Amen.

 

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Some things made right immediately, all things eventually

Posted on December 11, 2016 by Rev. Paul Rydecki


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Sermon for Gaudete – Advent 3

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

People expect a lot from Christmas. And I don’t just mean a lot of presents. They expect treats and goodies, lights and decorations and festivities. They expect certain songs to be played and sung. They expect vacations and family reunions and time with friends, and they expect—or at least, really wish—for those reunions to be happy and fun. (Some people expect snow for Christmas, although, for us, it would be more of a surprise than an expectation.) But it’s more than those external things, isn’t it? It’s a feeling they’re after, maybe the return of a feeling they vaguely remember from times past. The feeling that everything is OK. A feeling of peace. A sense of belonging. The return of joy. No wonder the build-up to it lasts for weeks, or months! No wonder Christmas time can be the most depressing time of year for many people! Because the expectations are so high—too high for any holiday to fulfill. As long as you live in this world, you can’t escape the reality of sin—the sins of others, and your own sins, too. You can’t escape the reality of suffering and death.

But that doesn’t mean there can’t be joy. For the Christian, sin and suffering and death are conquered things—things that have been conquered for us by Christ. And we don’t need for everything to be made right right now. It’s enough that some things—the most important things—are made right immediately, knowing that everything with be made right eventually. That’s the true secret to joy.

But we all need to be reminded of that on a regular basis. Even John the Baptist, the great prophet and forerunner of Christ, needed some reassurance. Why?

We hear in the Gospel that John was in prison. You may remember why. He had spent the last year or two of his life preaching repentance and a baptism for the remission of sins—a necessary preparation before Christ began His public ministry. He had faithfully proclaimed the word of the Lord to Israel. He had preached that the coming One—the Christ—would baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 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. And then, when Jesus appeared on the scene, John began pointing everyone to Jesus, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.

In the course of preaching against Israel’s sin and impenitence, John struck a nerve with King Herod, accusing the king of adultery because he had married his brother’s wife. So Herod arrested John and put him in prison—an imprisonment that would soon end in John’s beheading.

As John sat in Herod’s prison, waiting to die, he began to have some questions. If Jesus was the Christ, as John had announced, where was the baptism of fire? Where was the winnowing fan and the cleaning of the threshing floor? Why was the wheat not being gathered into His barn? Why was the chaff not being burned up with unquenchable fire? In other words, the Christ is supposed to make everything better, make everything right. But everything isn’t better. I wasn’t wrong about Jesus, was I?

So John did the wise thing, the faithful thing. He sent two of his disciples to Jesus to ask Him the question. He trusted, but he didn’t understand. So he asked: Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another? Is there another Christ coming to make things right, to put an end to the wicked and impenitent and to rescue the believers out of this sin-filled world?

Now, Jesus could have simply answered, Yes, I am the Christ. Expect no one else. But instead of claiming it, He demonstrated it. At that very moment when John’s disciples came to Jesus, Luke’s Gospel tells us that Jesus cured many of infirmities, afflictions, and evil spirits; and to many blind He gave sight. Then Jesus told them, 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.

First of all, Jesus is making some things right right now. He was performing miraculous healings that no one else could do or had ever done, doing the very things that the Old Testament promised that the Christ would do. As Isaiah wrote, Say to those who are fearful-hearted, “Be strong, do not fear! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God;   He will come and save you.” Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the dumb sing. Jesus pointed John to the Scriptures, which pointed to Him as the Christ because of His deeds.

But then there was that other part of what Jesus was doing: the poor have the gospel preached to them. Understand what that means. The Gospel—the good news—that Jesus was preaching to the poor had nothing to do with taking them out of financial poverty. These were the “poor in spirit,” as Jesus called them in the Sermon on the Mount, those who recognized the poverty of their sinfulness, who humbled themselves before God, because they knew they deserved nothing from God but wrath and punishment. To them, and only to them, Jesus preached Good News: the forgiveness of sins through faith in Him. That to all who look to Jesus for salvation, salvation is given fully and freely—eternal life that begins right now, reconciliation with God the Father that begins right here, right now, as sinners are brought to God the Son by God the Holy Spirit. All things necessary for our salvation are done by Christ. All the riches of heaven are donated to the poor who trust in Jesus. Those are the things—the most important things—that Christ was preaching, and that Christ was actually doing.

As for the rest—the end of suffering, the end of death, the punishment of the wicked and the final redemption of the righteous—well, John would just have to trust that Jesus the Christ will take care of those things, too, in His good time. None of the Old Testament prophets, including John, could fully appreciate God’s New Testament plan. His plan wasn’t for Jesus to come only once, to pay for sin and to judge the world and do away with the wicked all at one time. His plan was always for the Christ to come twice, the first time to pay for sins with His death and usher in the age of the preaching of the Gospel to all creation, building His Church throughout the world by the preaching of the Gospel; and the second time, at the end of the age, to take care of the rest. John had waited his whole life for Jesus to appear, and he got to see Jesus, but he would never get to see the rest of the story unfold.

But you might. You’ve already seen the vast majority of the story unfold: the death and resurrection of Christ, the preaching of the Gospel, the building of the Church throughout the world over these last 2,000 years. You’ve seen far more than John was ever given to see. And you may well live to see the second Advent of Christ at the end of this age. Or He may delay a little while longer. In either case, as Jesus said to John, blessed is he who is not offended because of Me.

You won’t understand all the plans that God has for this world, or for your life. You won’t know the day of His coming before He comes. And you won’t escape the reality of this world’s sin, suffering and death, until you actually escape from this world. Don’t stumble because of that. Don’t be offended because of Jesus—because the cross you bear as His disciple is heavy, because He isn’t making everything right right now. He never promised to do that. But He has made some things better right now. He has given Himself as the atoning sacrifice for your sins. He has given you the ministry of the Word, where God Himself speaks to you through men whom He has made, as Paul wrote in the Epistle, “stewards of the mysteries of God.” He gives you His body and blood now. He hears your prayers. He has promised to hold you up, as His dear child, even in your darkest hour. And He has given you the promise of everything being made right at His Advent. You already have that promise, even though you don’t yet have the fulfillment. Let that be your source of joy, at Christmas and always. Amen.

 

 

 

 

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Signs that the Day is near

Posted on December 4, 2016 by Rev. Paul Rydecki


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Sermon for Populus Sion – Advent 2

Romans 15:4-13  +  Luke 21:25-36

Where is planet earth headed? What’s coming for our human race? There seems to be a growing uneasiness in men’s hearts about the future of our world. Renowned physicist Stephen Hawking—an atheist—recently gave our planet an expiration date, more or less. Within a thousand years, he says, the earth will be uninhabitable for humans. So we’d better get to Mars and figure out how to colonize inhospitable planets! We’d better find another home, somewhere in the galaxy, because this one’s days are numbered!

A lot of people know, or sense, that something dreadful is coming. Apocalyptic visions of catastrophe and destruction, either for our race, or for our planet, or both, are commonplace. Whether it’s due to climate change, or war, an unfortunately aimed asteroid, the loss of the ozone layer, solar radiation, the degradation of earth’s magnetic field, super volcanoes, or alien invasion, the people of earth seem to suspect that something dreadful is coming on the earth.

Of course, we Christians know their suspicions are warranted. Something dreadful is coming—the Day of the Lord, when He comes for judgment, to wipe out, not just the earth, but the heavens, too. And leading up to that dreadful Day, there will be any number of signs, which the Lord Christ told us about nearly 2,000 years ago.

What should we be watching for, leading up to that dreadful Day? What are these signs? Luke’s Gospel mentions several of them, and Matthew’s Gospel, chapter 24, mentions others. Combined, there are nine signs that should keep us awake, focused and ready for the Day of the Lord—nine signs that sound the alarm: The end of the age is coming!

#1: There will be signs in the sun, in the moon, and in the stars. What does that mean? Asteroids? Sun spots? Solar and lunar eclipses? Supernovae—stars exploding? Maybe. If so, we’ve been seeing these signs for a long time. But Matthew’s Gospel puts these signs in the heavens at the end, after the other things have taken place, just as the Last Day arrives. He writes: Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven. So I’m of the opinion that the heavenly signs Jesus refers to won’t happen until the very end.

#2: There will be distress of nations, with perplexity. Anguish and anxiety, stress and unrest. Not for everyone, not all the time. But enough that it’s noticeable. Have you noticed a growing amount of anguish and anxiety in the world, stress and unrest? It’s not hard to find.

#3: The sea and the waves roaring. To those signs in nature, Matthew adds earthquakes, famines and pestilences. Heard of any of those things recently?

#4: In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus speaks of wars and rumors of wars, nation rising up against nation and kingdom against kingdom. Tell me a time when that hasn’t been around! When I was growing up, several conflicts and two World Wars had already come and gone just in the 20th Century, and it was the Cold War and the constant rumor of WWIII and nuclear holocaust. Today it’s cyberwarfare, the Middle East, monetary crises, and growing tensions among the super powers.

#5 Men’s hearts fainting from fear and the expectation of those things which are coming on the earth. Do you see that happening? The suicide rate just keeps rising. The global panic over global warming—or is it global cooling? or is it climate change? Over the past 40 years the terms have changed, and the end of life on earth has been predicted multiple times. It’s a wonder we’re still here! To be frank, many climate change alarmists are just hypocrites pushing an insidious agenda to cripple capitalism and to promote socialism and fascism. But many are truly alarmed. Their hearts are fainting from fear and the expectation of those things which are coming on the earth. They just don’t believe what Jesus says about what’s really coming on the earth.

#6: Matthew writes that Christians will be hated, persecuted, and put to death. We saw such rabid hatred of Christians in the first few centuries after Christ. We saw it again, to a degree, at the time of the Reformation. But I would suggest that never before in the Christian era has Christianity been as widely and as openly hated as it is today. And you can think of all sorts of examples, big and small, from creation-believing students being ridiculed by their teachers, to bakers and photographers being fined, to synodical suspensions of pastors, to Christians in other parts of the world having their heads removed and their bodies burned. See the signs for what they are.

#7: Matthew mentions the great dissemination of false doctrine and false prophets, many Christians falling away from the faith and many being deceived. There have always been plenty of false teachings and idols in the world. But this false doctrine is a sign within the external Christian Church. It’s true, some churches split over non-doctrinal reasons. But the vast majority of Christian confessions or denominations around the world exist because of differences in doctrine. And any doctrine that is different than that which was passed down to us from the Prophets and Apostles, working under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is false and even demonic. The very existence of so many different churches is a sign that Christ is coming soon.

#8: Jesus says that lawlessness will abound, and because of it, the love of most will grow cold. We see such things happening. We see the lawless side, for example, when people target and kill police officers and loot and burn down businesses. We also see love growing cold as people react to such lawlessness with hatred and rage of their own.

And finally, #9, the one sign of Christ’s coming that’s pure and pleasant and sweet: Jesus says, This gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come. Well, look at that! The Gospel of Christ is still being preached. It has reached into all the world, and it will continue to be preached until the end of the world, no matter how much the devil and the world try to snuff it out.

All the signs are there: this world is coming to a close. The leaves on the fig tree have sprouted. Summer is almost here. None of the signs that we see taking place should give us reason either to fear, or to complain, or to indulge in self-pity—or worse, in revenge. None of it. None of the signs that we see taking place around us should cause us to panic or to try to reverse the course of the world or to save the planet. The planet is unsalvageable. Our race is unsalvageable, un-savable—

Except for the one and only salvation that God Himself has provided: that all men should repent, believe in Christ crucified, and be baptized for the forgiveness of sins, now, before it’s too late, before the great and dreadful day of the Lord comes. And for those who have been baptized, God continues to provide for our salvation with daily forgiveness of sins in His Church, with the preaching and teaching of His Word, with the Holy Supper that gives us the body and blood of Jesus to keep renewing us in faith, in hope, and in love all the way up to the day of His coming.

But what can happen? Men can reject the Word of Christ, even those who were once counted among His people. We have a vivid reminder of that held before our eyes: Jesus says, this generation will by no means pass away till all things take place.

To what generation was He referring? Clearly many generations of men have come and gone since then without the end having come. For the most part, the phrase “this generation” in the Gospels refers to the unbelieving Jews, the physical descendants of Israel who were once the Church of God, but then stopped being the Church of God when they refused to believe that Jesus was God’s Son and their promised Messiah, when they refused to repent and look to Him for salvation. Many of them have been converted to Christianity, but many more remain unconverted and hardened in their unbelief, and you can expect them to remain in that state until the end of the world, as a tragic warning for Christians of what happens when you’re not ready for Christ’s coming.

Heaven and earth will pass away, Jesus says. Sorry, Stephen Hawking, Mars and the rest of the galaxy will offer no shelter from that day. It’s not only the earth that will be destroyed. Heaven and earth will pass away. But My words will by no means pass away. Isn’t that the reason to keep hearing and learning the Word of Christ? His words will outlast even the earth itself. His promises will never fall. His truth will never change or become obsolete.

In that Word, Jesus pleads urgently with His dear people, 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. Carousing can include partying, becoming obsessed with sports, entertainment, obsessed with food, obsessed with clothing and style. Drunkenness includes overindulgence in drink, in drugs, in sex. Cares of this life includes just about everything else: technology, education, career, retirement, buying Christmas presents, etc. It’s easy to become weighed down with all these things and to put the Last Day on the back burner of your heart.

So watch 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. How do you escape all these things? By being preserved in faith and in watchfulness until the end, whether that end means our death before the Last Day, or our being preserved in faith if we’re still alive on earth when the Last Day finally comes. How do you stand before the Son of Man? By faith in Him who died for us and rose again. That’s all. Faith in Him now will make us worthy to stand before Him then. And for those who believe in Christ Jesus, there is nothing to fear or dread on the Day of His coming. Instead, Jesus says, When these things begin to happen, look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption draws near. Christ, our Redeemer, has already paid for our sins and reconciled us with God through faith and made us children of God through Holy Baptism. Only the final redemption awaits, when this planet is destroyed and the rest of the human race is cast out into eternal torment. For those who are found believing in Christ at His coming, there will be no punishment and no condemnation. Only the redemption of our bodies, the destruction of sin and death, and the beginning of a new and glorious life in the New Jerusalem, the home of righteousness. 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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Nearer now than when you first believed

Posted on November 27, 2016 by Rev. Paul Rydecki


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Sermon for Ad Te Levavi – Advent 1

Romans 13:11-14  +  Matthew 21:1-9

The new Church Year begins today—and it does not begin with Christmas. The world, for its own reasons, is anxious to celebrate Christmas—or rather, its idea of Christmas, which has nothing to do with the virgin-birth of God’s own Son in human flesh, who was born to die for our sins and to make peace with God through His blood, shed on the cross. Many Christians, too, are anxious to celebrate Christmas, but many love Christmas more for secular reasons than for the Mass it’s intended to be—the gathering of the Church around the Word and Sacrament of the Word Made Flesh. I fear that many Christians will end up skipping the Mass part of Christmas entirely, even though Christmas falls on a Sunday this year. (Don’t you be among them!)

No, the Church Year begins, not with Christmas, but with Advent, an earnest season of penitence and preparation. But even so, it’s not a preparation for Christmas. It’s a preparation for the Advent—for the arrival—of King Jesus on the Last Day. It’s funny, we just went to see the movie entitled Arrival, about the arrival of…aliens. There are many such movies, of course, because human beings seem to be anticipating the arrival of someone from the heavens. They foolishly think it will be aliens from another planet who come to visit, willfully ignoring the words of Jesus that He is the One who will arrive, to bring salvation to His waiting people and destruction to His enemies.

It’s true, the King has delayed His second Advent for a long time—as He said He would. And as the years go by, people doubt His coming more and more. “Where is the promise of His coming?” So it’s all the more important that we awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed.

The Gospel points us to Jesus’ first coming into Jerusalem almost 2,000 years ago at the beginning of Holy Week. Zechariah’s prophecy foretold it: Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your King is coming to you; He is just and having salvation, lowly and riding on a donkey, a colt, the foal of a donkey. Hail the King, about to die as a ransom for all our sins. Hail the King, who comes lowly, to save.

That salvation has three parts to it. The first part was accomplished by the end of that Holy Week. The King saw our race corrupt with sin, oppressed by the devil, weary, confused, lonely, guilty, sick, and dying. So the King gave His life for the world. He suffered for our sins. He allowed the full weight of mankind’s disobedience to be heaped onto Himself and punished, so that we wouldn’t have to be punished.

He was humble and lowly when He first arrived in Mary’s womb, and He remained humble and lowly all the way up to the gates of Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. He allowed Himself to be tempted by the devil, mistreated, mocked, rejected, or sometimes just ignored by men. But even in His lowliness, even in His humility, He was recognized by some as the King He was, as the Christ, the Son of the living God. By them He was thanked, He was praised, He was hailed with songs of Hosanna to the Son of David! ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD!’ Hosanna in the highest!

The second part of the salvation that the King came to bring is the part that has been going on ever since His resurrection and His ascension into heaven: to call men out of darkness into His marvelous light; to send forth His Spirit, who comes still today to teach the world who God is, what God has done for us, and what great things God has promised to those who believe in Jesus. He comes to convict mankind of sin, to bring sinners to repentance, to lead the penitent to look to Christ, the King, for mercy and help.

But all of that is still done in lowliness, in humility. Christ still rides into His Zion, His Jerusalem, His Church, on a “lowly donkey,” that is, through the humble means of grace, through the preaching of men, through water and bread and wine. But preaching can be ignored and disbelieved, and Baptism and Holy Communion can be twisted and emptied of their saving power. The King still allows Himself to be mistreated, mocked, rejected, and ignored in His members. But at the same time, just like it was 2,000 years ago, the King is recognized by some in His lowly Word. He is still praised and thanked by His people as He comes. We still rejoice at His coming, even though our joy is subdued by the realities of living in a sinful world. We still sing with thankful hearts, Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!, even though our thanksgiving is still hindered by our thankless flesh.

But the third and final part of the King’s salvation is coming soon. That second Advent is almost here. There will come a day when the King no longer comes lowly or humble. He will come in glory. He’ll come to Zion riding on a cloud. He’ll exalt His Church, even as He Himself has already been exalted, and there will be no more oppression, weakness, weariness, loneliness, guilt, or sickness, or dying. There will come a day when His believers will welcome Him into His Church with shouts of thanksgiving, unhindered by any grief or sorrow, pain or sin. The King’s first Advent on Palm Sunday is a foreshadowing of that great second Advent on the Last Day.

That’s the day Christians live for, and sometimes you need to be reminded of that. You don’t live for Thanksgiving Day, or for Christmas Day, not for a shopping day, or a birthday, or a wedding day, or for spending good days here on earth with family or friends. No, the image that the Scriptures constantly hold before the Christian’s eyes is of the crucified, risen and ascended King coming to Zion in righteousness, with rewards of grace for His people and with vengeance for His enemies.

The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly, as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts.

Those words of the Apostle Paul are just as urgent today as they were when the he wrote them to the Roman Christians. There is an imminent arrival—an Advent of the King—for which we must be prepared, with repentant hearts, with prayer, with zeal to hear and to know and to learn the Word of God, and with lives of obedience to all of God’s commandments. Now, in this new Church Year, is the time to prepare. Now is the time to wake up. Now is the time to love one another. For now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. Amen.

 

 

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