The Christian celebration of Christ’s circumcision

Posted on January 1, 2017 by Rev. Paul Rydecki


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Sermon for the Feast of the Circumcision and the Name of Jesus

Galatians 3:23-29  +  Luke 2:21

Happy 8th day of Christmas! The world moved on from Christmas already as of last Tuesday. But we haven’t moved on, have we? On the 8th day of Christmas, we celebrate what happened on the 8th day of Christ’s birth: His circumcision, and His naming ceremony. Why on earth has the Christian Church made this a part of the Christmas season? Why on earth make a big deal about the removal of a piece of skin from a little boy? Because that little boy was our Lord Jesus. He was the One who endured this momentarily painful procedure on the 8th day of His birth. And He endured it, because God had made it a big deal under the Old Testament. Without this event in the life of Jesus, He would never have been able to institute the New Testament in His blood. He would never have been our Savior from sin. So, if you would understand who Jesus is and why He came, and what the benefit is for us in being His Christians, then you have to understand this Biblical practice that was so important to God’s Church for 2,000 years before the birth of Christ, and that still has a spiritual significance for us, 2,000 years later.

As you certainly remember, circumcision was not a practice that the Jews just decided on their own one day to institute. God instituted it. God commanded Abraham, back in Genesis 17, I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your seed after you in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and your seed after you. Also I give to you and your seed after you the land in which you are a stranger, all the land of Canaan, as an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.” And God said to Abraham: “As for you, you shall keep My covenant, you and your seed after you throughout their generations. This is My covenant which you shall keep, between Me and you and your descendants after you: Every male child among you shall be circumcised; and you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between Me and you. He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised, every male child in your generations, he who is born in your house or bought with money from any foreigner who is not your descendant. He who is born in your house and he who is bought with your money must be circumcised, and My covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant. And the uncircumcised male child, who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that person shall be cut off from his people; he has broken My covenant.”

If you want God to be God for you, if you want to inherit the promises made to Abraham and to his seed, if you want to be a part of the people of God at all, then you—if you’re a male 8 days old or older—must be circumcised; that’s the way it was from the time of Abraham till the time of Christ. It was the sign of the covenant God made with Abraham.

It seems like a foolish sign, doesn’t it? Human reason sneers at such a practice. What does this removal of a bit of skin have to do with a person’s spiritual state, with a person’s relationship with God, with a person’s eternal future? Well, God likes to spit in the face of our fallen human reason. It deserves it. He chooses things that human reason can’t grasp. He attaches His best promises to things that seem the humblest and the smallest and forces us to live by faith and not by sight, so that only those people benefit from God’s promises who trust in His Word, not in their own reason or strength.

Our Lutheran Confessions (printed on the back of your service folder) identify well the purpose of circumcision: (a) that Abraham might have a written sign in his body—a permanent mark on his body to remind him of the covenant God had made with him, to remind him that he was to fear and love God as one who had been made an heir of eternal life; (b) so that, admonished by this, he might exercise faith—so that he would keep trusting in God’s Word and in God’s promises all his life; and (c) that by this work he might also confess his faith before others and, by his testimony, invite others to believe. Obviously circumcision was a private kind of mark; no one would see it. But Abraham would tell other people of the covenant God had made with him, of the promises God had given to all those who were connected to Abraham, and he could use himself as an example of one who had been marked, according to God’s Word, for eternal life as a participant in God’s covenant, inviting others, including his own descendants to believe in this God and to join Abraham in this covenant of grace.

Abraham circumcised Isaac, the son whom God promised, on the 8th day of his birth, and so it continued among Abraham’s descendants until the practice was codified in the Law of Moses some 400 years later. It physically marked a man (and his family!) as belonging to the people of Israel, and it signified that the whole life of the circumcised should be lived under the Law.

By the time of Jesus, the Jews had begun to abuse the sign of circumcision. They had turned it into a meritorious good work—something that they did that made them worthy to be God’s people, worthy to inherit eternal life. They put their faith in their physical descent from Abraham and from their obedience to the Law that God had given to Abraham and to Moses. They boasted that, just as Abraham was justified by his good works, beginning with circumcision, they, too, would be justified by their good works.

It was the especially the Apostle Paul who demolished their false faith in Romans 4, where Paul points out that, according to the book of Genesis, Abraham was justified long before he was ever circumcised. He was justified, not by any work of his own, but by faith alone. Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness…He received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while still uncircumcised, that he might be the father of all those who believe, though they are uncircumcised, that righteousness might be imputed to them also, and the father of circumcision to those who not only are of the circumcision, but who also walk in the steps of the faith which our father Abraham had while still uncircumcised.

But none of that faith would matter, unless the sign of circumcision had been fulfilled and then set aside by Abraham’s true Seed and Heir.

So along came the baby, born of Mary, exactly one week after he was born, still without a name, because Hebrew boys weren’t given their name until after they were circumcised. And Mary and Joseph fulfilled for their Son what the Law required. Since He was the long-promised Seed of Abraham, this was the day that the whole Old Testament had been foreshadowing, the day when the Son of Abraham would be brought under the Covenant, under the Testament, under the Law that God had given to Abraham and to Moses, with all of its promised blessings for obedience, and with all of its promised curses for disobedience. This was the day that the Son of God entered into the Old Testament, to fulfill it and, later, to replace it with a New and better Testament: the New Testament in His blood—blood that was first shed on this day of His circumcision, a token of the blood that would be spilled about 33 years later on the cross.

What does all of this mean for us? It means that the baby Jesus, on the day of His circumcision, embarked on a lifelong journey of obedience to the Law, not as an example to us, but as a Substitute for us. As Paul wrote to the Galatians in chapter 4, When the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.

And how do we receive that adoption? You heard it this morning in the Epistle: 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. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

As those who have been baptized into Christ Jesus, believing in Him as your Savior from sin, you now inherit everything that Christ inherits, both as the Son of God and as the Son of Man, and that is…everything. But first and foremost, it’s the ability to call God your Father. He is not only the God and Creator of the universe. He is God for you. He claims you as His own son—as members of the one body of Christ. That’s why it doesn’t matter if you’re male or female, Jew or Greek (or any other race), slave or free, rich or poor, because, in God’s sight you all wear Christ Jesus as a garment; you are all clean, holy, perfect heirs of heaven through faith in Him.

Now circumcision has been set aside as the entrance into God’s family and as the mark of His adoption. It has been set aside and replaced with Holy Baptism. Listen to how the Apostle Paul makes the connection between circumcision and Baptism as he writes to Gentile Christians in Colossians 2: In Christ you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.

Circumcision used to be all-important for people to receive God’s forgiveness. It was all-important for Christ, in order for Him to be our Savior. But now, circumcision no longer counts for anything. Now, if you would have God for your God, if you would be counted among His children, then you must believe and be baptized in Christ Jesus, the Son of God and the Son of Abraham. And if you have already been baptized, then you must keep using your baptism, as a sign and seal of the forgiveness of sins that is yours through faith in Christ, and as a constant reminder that, as a member of the New Testament in the blood of Christ, you are to live, not as pagans, not as atheists, not as idolaters who will perish in the judgment, but as baptized children of God who will live eternally with Him, and with your fellow baptized. As Paul wrote to the Galatians in chapter 5, Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing, but keeping the commandments of God is what matters…For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but faith working through love.

That is the calling of the Christian: to be baptized, and then to live as baptized members of Christ, in love—in self-sacrifice, in self-denial, in devotion to God’s Word and in service to our neighbor, not in order to earn our salvation, but because we have been made members of Christ Jesus. Jesus. Savior. The name that was given to our Lord on the 8th day of His birth. Jesus. The name assigned to that child from eternity and proclaimed by the angel Gabriel to Joseph. Jesus. The name that is above every name, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. Happy 8th day of Christmas! Amen.

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Rejoice in the Father’s greatest gift

Posted on December 25, 2016 by Rev. Paul Rydecki


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Sermon for Christmas Day

Hebrews 1:1-12  +  John 1:1-14

Dear Christian friends: You know what Christmas is about, or else you wouldn’t be here this morning. Christmas is not really about family, although it’s a great blessing to spend it with family, when and if you can. Christmas is not about decorations or traditions or food, although those things are nice, like icing on the cake or the cookies. Christmas is not about presents or gifts, except to the extent that giving and receiving gifts allows us to show one another just a tiny bit of the love that the Father has shown to us, because, of course, Christmas is about the Father’s greatest gift of love, which the Apostle John carefully unwraps for us, more and more, every year in the Gospel. Once again this year, we gather together around the Christmas tree in God’s house, to let the Holy Spirit hand out the Father’s greatest gift to you and for you, the gift of His eternal Son, born in human flesh.

The angels revealed much about the Father’s gift on the night of His birth: He is a Savior, who is Christ, the Lord. John reveals even more. He is “the Word,” made flesh. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. God had so much to reveal to mankind about Himself. The creation itself reveals a plenty. But still not the most important things, like, who God is, what He demands, what He promises, and on what basis. The Old Testament prophets revealed much of that as God’s Spirit inspired them to write down in words the truth of God. But there is just no substitute for direct communication, for meeting someone in person. And yet, after the fall into sin, direct communication with God as He exists in His majesty was simply not possible for sinful human beings; a terrible rift had been opened between the holy God and sinful man. So, God designed, in eternity, a way to speak to us directly, to show us His heart, what He is like, what He commands, and what He gives. God the Father gave His only-begotten Son, begotten of the Father before all worlds—to share our humanity, to be born into our world. So badly God wanted to teach us about Himself that He joined Himself forever to our race. So badly God wanted to redeem sinners and to make them His children that He gave His Son to become our Brother, our sacrifice, the innocent for the guilty. That is the Word of God.

That Word of God, as St. John describes, was the very One, the very Word whom the Father used to create all things. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. When the Father said in the beginning, “Let there be light,” it was the Word of God, who later became flesh, who brought the light into existence, and everything else that the Father spoke. The Baby lying in the manger was not so helpless, nor was the Man who would one day hang on the cross. He was the Maker of the manger and of the cross, the Maker of His mother Mary, the Maker of the humble circumstances of His birth, even the Maker of His own human flesh. Even as He lay sleeping in Mary’s lap, the Word-made-flesh was upholding all things by the word of His power.

In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. As Jesus would later say, I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. And how do we sinners, destined for death, have that life? The Life had to take on human flesh, so that the Life could die a human death. But when the Life took up His life again, He became the source of the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation to all who believe in Him as the Life-giver.

And how do we believe in Him who is the Life and the Light of men? That we cannot do on our own, by our own power, by our own reason or strength. As John wrote, the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. We’re all born in that darkness. We’re all born spiritually blind, unable to see the Light of Christ, unable to comprehend His light, unable to receive Him. If we are to believe in Him, He has to work faith in us.

How does He do that? You know. He does that through preaching. Faith comes by hearing, by preaching. When the Word of Christ is preached, when the Gospel of the Word-made-flesh is proclaimed, there is Jesus enlightening blind eyes by His Holy Spirit.

The apostle talks about that. He mentions the very first preacher sent from God to point to the Light: John the Baptist. There was power in John’s testimony, power to enlighten blind eyes, to turn sinners to repentance and faith, power “that all through him might believe.” That was always God’s intent, that all men might hear the Word and believe in the Word.

The true Light which gives light to every man was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him.

Not all men did believe through John’s preaching. The world didn’t know the Father’s greatest gift. It didn’t recognize the Father’s greatest gift. It didn’t want the Father’s greatest gift. Why? Because it appeared too small, too weak, too humble.

To some, the humility of Jesus was offensive. From His lowly birth in Bethlehem to the suffering He endured on the cross, it all seemed like foolishness to most people—it wasn’t the gift they expected from God, not the gift they wanted, not the glorious kind of salvation they were seeking.

And yet, to others, the humility of the One born of Mary, the humble way in which He led His whole life, from His lowly birth to His humble suffering and dying on the cross, and the humble means by which He works faith—the Gospel, Baptism, Holy Communion—makes Him accessible to lowly people, like you and me. It shows God’s love for everyone. It allows the worst sinner and the lowliest man or woman or child to see that God came for him, too, that God suffered for him, too, that God is eager for him, too, to repent and believe in Christ Jesus, to receive the Father’s greatest gift.

Now most people still didn’t receive Him when He dwelt among men, and most people still don’t receive Him as He dwells among us in Word and Sacrament. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. This is what Christmas is all about. This is why you’re here this morning. Because, not by your bloodline, not by your own will, not by the will of your earthly father, but by God’s grace, working through Word and Sacrament, you have been reborn as children of God. You have been brought to see the Light of Christ, to trust in Him for the forgiveness of sins. You know that Jesus is real, that His birth of the virgin Mary was real, that His divinity is real, and that He is really present here and now, to give Himself to you in this Word that you’re hearing, to give His own body and blood in the Sacrament of the Altar.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. The Word no longer dwells among us in the same way that He did during His 33 years on earth, nor do we behold His glory in quite the same way. But His grace and His truth remain unchanged. The fact of His birth, the fact of His life, the fact of His death and resurrection can never be erased. And if you are willing to receive Him where He still offers Himself, in Word and Sacrament, then the Father’s greatest gift of love is poured out into your lap, and God is still with you and God is still for you. Let us rejoice in our Father’s gift, and give Him thanks with our lips, with our lives, and with our love—for Him, and for one another. Amen.

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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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