Heed the testimony of John

Posted on December 20, 2015 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

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Sermon for Rorate Coeli – Advent 4

Isaiah 40:1-8  +  Philippians 4:4-7  +  John 1:19-28

Every year we hear the testimony of John the Baptist on this Sunday before Christmas, and rightly so. John was sent to prepare the way for the Christ, and even today the Holy Spirit speaks to you through John’s testimony. The testimony of John recorded in today’s Gospel is very simple and straightforward. He confesses plainly what he is not. And he does not deny what he is. And just as it was in the days of John, so it is also today. God demands that everyone must pay attention to the testimony of the baptizer.

Remember who John was: the son of that elderly, godly couple Zacharias and Elizabeth, who were surely dead by the time John was thirty years old and began to attract the attention of all Jerusalem. He lived out in the wilderness alone. He wore camel’s skin for clothing. He ate wild locusts and honey for food. And in his whole life he probably never cut his hair or shaved his beard, like Samson in the Old Testament. He would have appeared strange to the people of Jerusalem.

But the strangest thing about John was not his appearance. It was his preaching and his baptizing. John was preaching a powerful message of repentance and drew large crowds out into the wilderness where he was, on the banks of the Jordan river. And baptizing people for the forgiveness of sins was brand new, not commanded in any of the Old Testament Scriptures. Something new was happening. So the religious leaders felt they needed to investigate. Who are you?, they asked.

The other John, John the Evangelist, in his Gospel, made a big deal about John the Baptist’s testimony to the Jews that day. He confessed, and did not deny, but confessed, “I am not the Christ.” Remember, there hadn’t been a prophet in Israel in some 400 years, since the days of the prophet Malachi. And Malachi had prophesied that the Lord Himself would come to Israel, referring to Christ the Savior. In fact, if there were any around who remembered, about 29 years earlier, there had been a stir around Jerusalem when some wise men came from the East looking for the Christ who had been born. But no one had heard about Him since. Could this John be the Christ? But John confessed the truth: I am not the Christ.

Are you Elijah? You remember Elijah, that powerful Old Testament prophet who performed many miracles and who preached against the wicked rulers of Israel. John probably did sound a lot like Elijah. And remember, Malachi had prophesied in the very last verses 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. But John confessed that he was not Elijah. Why does he say that, when the angel Gabriel had told John’s father that John would come “in the spirit and power of Elijah,” and Jesus Himself would later confirm that John was the Elijah who was to come? Because the Jews weren’t expecting an Elijah, but the Elijah, the same one who was taken up to heaven in a whirlwind, accompanied by a fiery chariot.

Are you the Prophet?, they asked. They may have been referring to the Prophet that Moses said would come back in Deuteronomy 18: The LORD your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your midst, from your brethren. Him you shall hear. But the Jews rightly understood that the Prophet Moses talked about was the Christ, and they had already learned from John that he was not the Christ. So they may have just been asking, are you a prophet? And John said, no. How could he say no, when he was clearly sent by God to preach God’s word? Because the office of the Old Testament prophets was to prophesy about future events. The prophets all had one basic job to do: To declare to the people of Israel that, “Someday the Christ will come!” And that was not John’s office or his testimony.

What was John’s testimony? The Jews asked him, Who are you, then? And he did not deny who he was: I am ‘The voice of one crying in the wilderness: “Make straight the way of the LORD,” ’ as the prophet Isaiah said. Oh, that changes everything. John is not just one prophet among many. John has a special role to play in God’s plan of salvation. He is the voice that announces the arrival of the LORD. And, by the way, here’s another passage that proclaims the divinity of Christ. John was specifically preparing the way for the Christ. And he says, make straight the way of the LORD—that’s the Lord God. That’s Yahweh or Jehovah. Those who claim that Jesus is not true God, or that Jesus is not Jehovah, have to also deny the testimony of John the Baptist.

But how is the way of the Lord made straight? That’s what John has been preaching all along. Repent! That was his message to everyone, to tax collectors and harlots, to kings and rulers, to Pharisees and religious leaders, to all of the people of Jerusalem, to everyone within the sound of his voice, John cried out, “Repent!” You are not good enough to enter God’s kingdom—any of you! You have not kept God’s commandments well enough to be saved by your obedience—any of you! You are all corrupt, you are all sinners, you all deserve God’s wrath on the day of wrath. And yet, you are all—every one of you—being invited by God to have your sins washed away and forgiven for free. You are all being given a Savior from sin, because God wants you all to enter His kingdom. God is providing peace and rest and hope for all of you—for everyone within the sound of my voice. But you have to listen! You can’t deny your sinfulness or go on willfully living in your sins. You can’t trust in yourself. You can’t trust in anyone but in the Lord Christ.

That’s the testimony of John. But that’s not what the Pharisees and those who were sent by them wanted to hear. They didn’t believe John’s testimony. They didn’t believe that they were included among the sinners of the world who needed to be saved by the Christ. And so they didn’t recognize John the Baptist as anyone they needed to pay attention to. They asked him, saying, “Why then do you baptize if you are not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?”

So he told them, 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, I am carrying out my God-given duty. But it’s not about me. It’s about the One who is coming after me—not coming long after me, not coming someday, but He “stands among you.” The Christ is here. Now. The LORD is here. And I am pointing you to Him, whether you believe me or not. God has made me a voice to tell you where to find Him, now that He has come, and how to benefit from His coming, by repentance and faith in Him.

That was the testimony of John. And that is the testimony of every New Testament preacher. You are all sinners. And you are all commanded to repent of your sins, and you are all invited to enter the kingdom of God for free, by faith in the Christ who has come. Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. He is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. Repent and believe in Him. Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of sins.

But where do you find Him, this Christ the Savior, Christ the Lord, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world? No longer will you find Him in a manger, or on the banks of the Jordan River. No longer will you find Him out in the desert. And you certainly won’t find Him in that sinful place called your heart. You will find Him, together with the peace and hope and forgiveness that He brings, in the Sacrament of Holy Baptism where He covers a person with His own righteousness, and in the Sacrament of His true body and blood that He instituted for Christians to eat and to drink. Here in this Gospel Christ comes to save sinners from their sins and to raise up for Himself a holy Christian Church—holy, because the members of it have had their sins forgiven by God, and also holy, because its members are being renewed daily by the Holy Spirit to lead holy lives in this unholy world.

Most people didn’t heed the testimony of John the Baptist, but some did, including some of the worst sinners in Israel. And they rejoiced at the coming of Christ, because they found forgiveness with Him. They found God to be a good and merciful Father who gave His Son into death for their sins. Most people today don’t heed the testimony of John the Baptist, either. Most don’t believe in Jesus as the Christ; most don’t believe that God came to earth on that first Christmas, or that God is coming to earth again on the Last Day, or that God still comes to earth through the Gospel and will be here in person among us on Christmas Day, giving His very body and blood in the Mass that is Christ-mass. But some believe. And for you who believe, this is your hope. This is your comfort. This is your time to rejoice. Amen.

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Waiting and rejoicing in this age of the ministry of the Word

Posted on December 13, 2015 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

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Sermon for Gaudete – Advent 3

Malachi 3:1-6  +  1 Corinthians 4:1-5  +  Matthew 11:2-10

Two weeks ago we heard how Advent is a season of waiting, waiting for Christ to come, how waiting for Christ characterizes the Christian life on this earth. The Old Testament saints spent their whole lives waiting for the Christ to come, and generation after generation after generation passed away without seeing His coming.

Imagine the joy for those believers in Israel when the Christ finally came, when God’s ancient promises were finally fulfilled and the Seed of the woman was born. Imagine the joy of John the Baptist, who knew, from his parents, who heard it straight from the angel Gabriel, that he had been given a special role in God’s plan of salvation, to be the messenger who would “prepare the way before the face” of the Messiah, as Jesus also announces about John in our Gospel.

Well, John carried out his role faithfully. He preached strong words of repentance to Israel. To the penitent he cried out, “Come and be baptized for the forgiveness of sins.” And he comforted them with the Gospel: the Christ is coming! Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! To the impenitent he cried out, “You brood of vipers!” Repent or watch out! The Christ is coming, all right. 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. Or as we heard this morning from the prophet Malachi. Then the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple.  But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner’s fire And like launderers’ soap.

And then Jesus the Lord did show up on the scene, just as John and Malachi had foretold, but Jesus’ coming may not have been quite what John expected. Where was the “refiner’s fire”? Where was the harsh and abrasive “launderers’ soap” that cleanses away the wicked people from the world? Where was the judgment of the wicked? Where was the punishment of those who refused to repent at John’s preaching? Instead, Jesus used only words. No lightning was called down from heaven against the wicked. (In fact, Jesus once forbade His disciples to do that when they wanted to call down fire from heaven on the cities that rejected Jesus.) No judgment wiped out the ungodly. Just words. Words of judgment and warning, to be sure, against those who would not repent. But no deeds of divine retribution. No tearing down of the rich and the mighty from their seats. No raising up the poor out of their financial poverty. The only deeds Christ did during His entire ministry were acts of healing; acts of temporary providence, like the feeding of the 5,000 and of the 4,000; and the tireless preaching of the Gospel of salvation from sin and guilt and death, by faith alone in Him.

Hmm. John sat in Herod’s prison waiting for his execution. And Jesus was out there, doing what? Preaching and teaching and healing individuals, but not fixing any of the big problems in the world. John sent his disciples to ask Jesus, Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another? Jesus wasn’t doing what John expected Him to do. I don’t mean to say that John was disappointed in Jesus, or that John was looking for some kind of earthly, social justice from Jesus. Not at all. But it seems that John didn’t fully understand yet that God’s plan of salvation wasn’t going to be fulfilled all at once, even with the coming of the Christ. The Christ didn’t come into the world to execute final judgment on it. God’s plan was bigger and better than that. As Jesus once told His disciples, the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives but to save them.

And He was saving 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. Jesus was fulfilling what the Old Testament Scriptures said the Savior would do. He was performing physical, outward healings as a sign of the spiritual, inner, hidden healing He was also doing by the power of the His Word: He opened spiritually blind eyes to see how dark their sin truly was and to see the light of Christ, the Savior from sin. He took those who were spiritually lame and unable to stand before God and walk in the way of righteousness, and He made them able to stand before God by faith in Christ and to walk in newness of life, to walk in righteousness, guided and empowered by God’s Holy Spirit. Jesus took the spiritual lepers who were contaminated and corrupted by sin and cleansed them by His Word of forgiveness. He took the spiritually deaf, who couldn’t hear truth in God’s Word and opened their ears to hear and believe His Gospel. He took the spiritually dead, who were dead in sins and trespasses, and made them alive by grace, through faith. And He preached good news to the spiritually poor, to the penitent sinners, that God had given them His Son for a Savior, and together with Him, God would freely give them all things.

So what about all the Old Testament promises of the Christ coming and putting an end to suffering for His people and condemning the wicked and destroying death once and for all? That promise will be fulfilled by Jesus, too. But not yet. Not all at once.

First, according to God’s plan and divine decree, comes spiritual salvation, and that plan includes time—time the Gospel to be preached in all the world. God’s plan was for His Son, His Messiah, to suffer at the hands of sinners, to take our guilt upon Himself, to die for His enemies, and by His blood, to reconcile sinners to God—here, in this life, in a spiritual, hidden way. To redeem fallen mankind from the power of sin, death, and the devil. But Christ didn’t come to sweep His people up immediately into heaven or to impose peace on the earth or to get rid of all the wickedness from the earth. His plan included hundreds—even thousands—of years during which the Gospel would be preached, bringing sinners to faith, one by one. And during that time, Christians would have to wait, not in Christ’s glorious kingdom, but in His spiritual kingdom of grace, which means waiting for Christ here on this sinful earth and suffering in humility until He comes again in glory.

The kingdom of Christ remains hidden now, during this age, within the ministry of the Word. He rules behind the scenes. He comes to earth and to the hearts of men with words. He comes with humble words of preaching and teaching, words connected to outward signs of water and bread and wine. He doesn’t come with any “refiner’s fire” but the fire of His Word, or with any “launderers’ soap” except for the abrasive force of His Law as it exposes and condemns our sin, and with the cleansing power of His Gospel as it drives us to Jesus and pronounces forgiveness upon everyone who trusts in Jesus alone.

As Paul said to the Corinthians in today’s Epistle, “We,” that is the apostles and the ministers of the Word, “are stewards of the mysteries of God,” those entrusted with the responsibility of preaching the Word of Christ and administering the sacraments of Christ to the people of Christ. It’s God’s way of dealing with His people during this age, between the first and the second coming of Christ. This is how God punishes sins in the rebellious, through the Word. This is how God forgives sins to the penitent, through the Word. This is how God sustains and strengthens His people to endure hardship and suffering and persecution and death—by means of this ministry of the Word. This is God’s plan for this age.

So Jesus sends word back to John: Blessed is he who is not offended because of Me. What does that mean? It means Jesus may not do all the things one expects Him to do. It means that a person may stumble over Jesus and His plan for this world that includes suffering both for Him and for His Christians. A person may give up on Jesus because he wants earthly peace and comfort and isn’t content with the humble working of Jesus through the ministry of the Word. But blessed is he who does not stumble over Jesus, because He really does know what He’s doing. And He and His Church really will triumph in the end.

Those words of Jesus sustained the faith of John the Baptist and enabled Him to persevere until the end and to face his suffering—and even his executioner—still trusting in Jesus as his Savior, still confessing Christ as the Lord. The word of Jesus will do the same for you. So rejoice in the Lord always, even though His kingdom is hidden from your sight. Rejoice even now as He carries out His mighty plan of salvation in this age through the blessed ministry of the Word. Amen.

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Signs that point to Jesus’ Advent

Posted on December 6, 2015 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

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Sermon for Populus Sion – Advent 2

Micah 4:1-7  +  Romans 15:4-13  +  Luke 21:25-36

People are always looking for signs from God, aren’t they? A sign, showing them what to do in a given situation, what decision to make. A sign, showing them that God is there, that God is real, that God cares. Or, sometimes, people take tragic events as signs that God doesn’t care, that God isn’t real. The people who seek signs all over the place are usually the same people who ignore the biggest, most impressive signs of all: the cross of Christ, and the word of God, where He reveals Himself and His gracious will to us, where He tells us specifically what signs He has given and why He has given them, and, in some cases, what signs He will give and why He will give them.

Take the rainbow, for example. There’s a sign, given by God, that has been completely coopted and twisted by wicked men into the sign of their support for the depravity that is homosexuality. In reality, the rainbow is a sign, defined by God, that points to His promise never again to destroy the world with a flood, His covenant with all flesh that, While the earth remains, Seedtime and harvest, Cold and heat, Winter and summer, And day and night Shall not cease. Every time you see a rainbow, it should point you to that promise, like a sign.

Now consider for a moment, what were the signs pointing to Jesus’ first Advent? What were the people of Israel to be watching for, as signs from God that the Christ was soon to come? Well, they were to expect a time of peace in the land of Judea. There would be a forerunner coming soon before the Christ, one who would come in the spirit and power of Elijah. And the people were to be watching King David’s line of descendants carefully, because at the time of the Christ’s coming, there would be no son of David sitting on the throne of Judah, and yet a virgin from David’s line would conceive and bear a Son who would sit on the throne of His father David, and Bethlehem would be His birthplace. Shepherds were given a special sign: a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger. All those signs were present at the time of Christ’s birth, though not everyone in Israel, much less everyone in the world, took notice of them.

Just last week we heard of another sign that pointed to Jesus’ coming: the King of Israel riding into Jerusalem on a donkey. Today we are told by Jesus—in words that He spoke to His disciples just a day or two after He rode into Jerusalem on that donkey—about some other signs to be watching for, signs that point to Jesus’ second Advent.

Now, when Jesus actually comes at the end of the age, no one will miss it. “Every eye shall see Him.” His coming will be “like lightning that comes from the east and flashes to the west.” He won’t come in secret, and He won’t come little by little, so that you can see Him coming in the distance for days or weeks or months. When He comes, it will be sudden and unexpected, like a thief who breaks into a house in the middle of the night. But for those who listen to Jesus and believe what He says, there will be plenty of signs pointing to His coming.

Jesus speaks of signs in the heavens, in the sun, moon and stars. What are these signs? Are they spectacular events no one has witnessed yet, or are they somewhat common occurrences? If we use Jesus’ other signs as a guide, then they are relatively common occurrences. Just as Jesus predicted that earthquakes, famines, pestilences, wars and rumors of wars would be signs pointing to His coming, and those things have happened repeatedly over the last 2,000 years, so things like solar eclipses, lunar eclipses, shooting “stars,” comets, solar flares and ominous asteroids are all signs—signs that God built into nature, into the creation itself, for a purpose, to lift our eyes up to the heavens and to warn us that the end of this earth is coming. Jesus is coming soon.

Jesus speaks of signs on the earth, signs in the wind, in the water, in the weather, in the climate. Every natural disaster—every storm, really, points to the end of this world and the coming of Christ. And for as much as I think most of the hype about “global warming” and “climate change” is simply false and an evil scheme designed to dominate people and take advantage of their fear rather than to save the planet, there’s no arguing the fact that many people in the world are truly distressed about variations in weather patterns, and honestly afraid of what’s coming on the earth. That fear, that foreboding is one of the signs Jesus predicted.

But most people in the world do not listen to what Jesus said about these things. Most people do not take these signs to heart or view them as signs, so they busy themselves trying to keep the universe from dying, trying to postpone the destruction that’s coming on the world, or they simply go on with life as usual, which Jesus also predicted. Earlier in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus said plainly what people would be doing right up until the day of His coming: Eating and drinking, marrying and being given in marriage, buying and selling, building and planting. We shouldn’t imagine that the days leading up to Jesus’ second Advent will be so horrendous and “apocalyptic” that everyone will be cowering in fear. No, it won’t be that bad. It won’t be that “unusual” at all.

Some of the other signs Jesus mentions that point to His coming are the abundance of false doctrine and false teachers that will be around in the days before He comes, leading many people astray. And never in the history of the world have so many false teachers been active as are active now, corrupting people’s minds with godless, wicked religions like Islam and modern Judaism, and corrupting the preaching of the Christian faith, too, making it almost unrecognizable in many denominations, turning sound doctrine and historical Christianity into an oddity and making it almost impossible to find on the face of the earth. Surely Jesus is coming soon!

The persecution, targeting and killing of Christians is another sign. Is that happening? “Lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold.” Is that happening? The spread of the Gospel of Christ into all nations is another sign. Is that happening?

Yes, all the signs are pointing to the imminent arrival of Jesus. The kingdom of God is near. What will you do?

Jesus urges you, 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. People are so afraid of doomsday prophecies and catastrophes and apocalyptic tribulation. What people should be worried about is business as usual. What people should be afraid of is a day-to-day routine, where you go to school, learn a trade, get a job, have a family, have some fun, plan for retirement, enjoy retirement, see the doctor, take your medications, and then get your estate and your burial plot in order. That day-to-day routine should scare the hell out of you. Because those are the “cares of this life” that will weigh your heart down, if you let them, so that Christ and His kingdom become little more than an afterthought. And you will not be prepared for His coming.

It’s not in vain that Jesus earnestly pleads with His disciples, 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. You and I know how easy it is to get weighed down with the cares of this life, whether it’s the day-to-day routine, or Christmas preparations in our homes, or the sin that so easily entangles. Let Jesus’ warnings and signs bring you again to repentance and watchfulness. Let them stir up your faith and also your prayers. And don’t forget the chief signs that Christ has given us here below: the signs of Baptism and Holy Communion, where God indicates to us what His will is for us. He wants us to be washed clean of sin in Holy Baptism and then to trust in Christ constantly, who washed away our sins when we were baptized. And in the Sacrament of the Altar, Christ again gives us a sign and seal of His forgiveness, His very body and blood once given and shed on the cross, and now given to believers to forgive us again and again and to strengthen us for the difficult days ahead until the coming of Christ.

Thus prepared, you have nothing to fear as the signs of Christ’s coming unfold all around you. Let the unbelieving world live in fear and distress. You have been brought into the kingdom of Christ, His Bride, His Holy Church. You know a Father in heaven who is gracious for the sake of Christ and who has promised to guard you and keep you until the end. You know the Savior who will be the Judge on the Last Day, and you already know His verdict for all who trust in Him. While the rest of the world lives in fear, pretending that all the signs don’t actually point to Christ’s coming, you have every reason to rejoice, because as the world falls apart around you, you have made it onto the lifeboat, as it were. Only keep watch, as Jesus told you to do. He didn’t say it in vain. His Spirit will continue to use those words as the lifeline that will keep you safe, trusting in Christ all the way up until He comes. And so, by faith, you will be counted worthy to stand before the Son of Man. Amen.

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Christ’s first Advent paves the way for the second

Posted on November 29, 2015 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

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Sermon for Ad Te Levavi – Advent 1

Jeremiah 33:14-18  +  Romans 13:11-14  +  Matthew 21:1-9

Today we enter the season of Advent, the season of waiting, as the Church waits in hope for the Advent, for the arrival of Jesus. The Church of the Old Testament waited for about 4,000 years in all for His first Advent, ever since God promised Eve in the Garden of Eden that her Seed would come and bruise the head of that ancient serpent. Or, if we count from the time of Abraham, with whom God made that first Testament, then the Old Testament Church waited about 2,000 years for the Heir of the Covenant to come. The Church of the New Testament has been waiting for about 2,000 years on the other side, waiting for Jesus’ second Advent. That’s a lot of time spent waiting, isn’t it?

Oh, it’s not a sit-around-doing-nothing kind of waiting. It’s not a sit-there-on-your-smartphone-looking-for-a-distraction kind of waiting. It’s a go-on-with-your-earthly-life kind of waiting, but always arranging that earthly life with the goal of being prepared to meet Jesus, always with an eye toward the Advent of the King.

Now, in spite of all the time that the Old Testament Church spent waiting for the Messiah to arrive, most of that Church, even most of the believers in the congregation of Israel, weren’t prepared for what Jesus actually came the first time to do. Jerusalem was prepared for the Christ to come on the clouds, with great glory. Jerusalem was prepared for an Advent of Jesus that would usher in an age of peace, and age of safety, an age in which the Christ would take control of this world, get rid of all the lies, all the immorality, all the violence, all the sickness, all the death. Don’t you yearn for that kind of Advent, too?

Here’s the problem with that, and it affects us, too. We get so wrapped up in all the evil going on around us in the world, we’re so eager for Jesus to come and make our life better that we begin to forget about the evil that dwells inside of us, about the real root of all the wickedness that infects our world: sin. And not just the sin of all those murderers and abusers and greedy people out there, but the sin that infects each one us, the sin that separates us from God, the sin for which we, too, deserve God’s wrath and punishment. Your main problem—the problem with which you were born and the problem that has to be solved or you will perish eternally when Christ comes—is your record of sins against the holy God. Many people, assuming themselves to be good people, foolishly long for Christ to come on the clouds with salvation for all the good people of the world and with judgment toward all the bad people. What they will learn with horror when Jesus comes is that there never were any “good people” to begin with. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

What you need is what Jerusalem needed, not for Christ to come immediately on the clouds, but for Christ to come riding into Jerusalem on a donkey. What Jerusalem didn’t understand, and what Christians today too often forget, is that there had to be two Advents of the Messiah, two separate arrivals of Emmanuel, one in which He would suffer, another in which He would put an end to suffering for His elect; one in which He would ride into Jerusalem humble, lowly, riding on a donkey, another in which He would come to His waiting Jerusalem riding in on a cloud and with great glory; one in which He would earn salvation for mankind by being beaten, tortured, and crucified, another in which He would forever save His believers out of this dark world and bring them safely into His glorious kingdom; one Advent whose symbol is the cross, another whose symbol is the crown.

You see our Advent paraments? The cross and the crown? Let them remind you throughout this season of the two Advents of Christ, because the Church celebrates them both during this season. Each Advent is critical for our salvation, and each one is meaningless without the other.

If Christ only came in glory to rid the world of wickedness, if He didn’t come to die for our sins, then His coming in glory would mean death and destruction for all of humanity, because no man deserves to enter with Christ into His glorious kingdom. No one loves and honors God as he should. No one loves his neighbor as he should. All have earned God’s wrath and condemnation. Christ had to come as a man—a humble man, like us, subject to God’s holy Law, like us, subject to hunger and thirst, subject to ridicule and rejection, subject to suffering, subject to death. Christ had to come to Jerusalem, humble, riding on a donkey, to suffer and die in our place, to earn a place for us and for all men in His glorious kingdom.

Or, if Christ only came to suffer and die and isn’t coming again in glory, then death wins and this world goes on in its perversion and depravity forever.

Or, if Christ had combined His Advent to suffer and His Advent in glory in one grand event 2,000 years ago, then hardly anyone—and certainly none of us—would enter His glorious kingdom, because the only way Christ’s merits get applied to anyone is through faith in Christ, and the only way anyone is converted to faith is through the preaching of the Gospel. The whole purpose of this New Testament era is for the word of the Gospel to go out into the kingdoms of the world so that the seed of the Gospel may be planted and grow into a bountiful harvest of souls at the second Advent of Christ. You and I are only members of Christ’s Church because His second Advent was separated from the first long enough for you and me to hear the word and be baptized into the New Jerusalem.

It took 2,000 years, from the time of Abraham, for the Church, for Zion, to see her King coming to her in His first Advent, riding down the Mount of Olives and up to the gates of Jerusalem on a donkey, having salvation. It may not have been the kind of salvation Zion expected, but it was exactly what she needed—a King so full of love and grace that He would take on human flesh, live among sinners as a Servant-King, and then let His people abuse Him and hang Him on a cross in order to atone for their sins.

Now, 2,000 years later, we wait for His second Advent in hope, but only because His first Advent gave us the hope of a loving Father in heaven to whom we have now been reconciled by the blood of His Son. The Advent with the cross paved the way for the Advent with the crown. Behold, your King is coming to you, Zechariah prophesied, but this time it won’t be lowly and riding on a donkey. This time it will be with great glory and with long-awaited salvation for His people. His Advent is nearer now than when we first believed. And even though we can’t see Him quite yet, even though He is just beyond the horizon, we know it won’t be long now, and so we join our song to the Church of every age, Hosanna to the Son of David! ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD!’ Hosanna in the highest! Amen.

 

 

 

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Don’t be a fool! You didn’t build that.

Posted on November 25, 2015 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

Sermon for Thanksgiving Eve

Deuteronomy 26:1-11  +  Luke 12:13-21

You’ve come to the Lord’s house tonight to give Him thanks, to recognize His goodness to you, to acknowledge Him as the Source and Provider of all you have. That’s the way it should be. Christians should celebrate Thanksgiving differently than the rest of the country. Millions of Americans view Thanksgiving as nothing more than extra vacation days, extra family time, a traditional meal, or, at best, a time to feel grateful to some generic, unknown god who only barely resembles the God of the true Christian religion. Thanksgiving Day is mostly a day filled with idolatry, just like Christmas has become.

But God has made Himself known to you in the person of Jesus Christ, in the word of the Gospel. You’ve come to worship God in the only way He can be worshiped—through faith in His Son, Jesus Christ. So worship Him this evening, not only with your prayers and praises, but also by hearing and heeding His word as the Lord Jesus repeats a warning to you in the Gospel. Don’t be a fool! You didn’t build that.

That has become a common slogan in our country by a certain political party and its leader. Whether it’s a home or a business or wealth that’s built up over a lifetime, we are told, “You didn’t build that. That wasn’t your doing. It was only made possible by your fellow countrymen helping you along, every step of the way, and ultimately, the government gets credit for all that you think you built.” Well, that’s not only ridiculous. It’s sacrilegious. The credit for all that you have goes, not to the government, not to your fellow countrymen, not even to you. It all goes to God. Let’s turn to the parable to see what Jesus is talking about.

What a tragedy it was, when that man from the crowd approached Jesus and said to Him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” Oh my. The Son of God comes to earth, takes on human flesh, and walks among us for a short moment in human history in order to reconcile sinners with God and hand out the forgiveness of sins and eternal life as a free gift, and all this man has on his mind is the money he thinks his brother is cheating him out of. He’s mad. He’s angry. Maybe Jesus can finally do something useful and be a referee for their family squabble. Maybe Jesus can create some social justice here on earth and get the wealth out of the hands of those evil rich people who are cheating the poor people out of their well-deserved happiness.

“Man, who made Me a judge or an arbitrator over you?” Jesus asked. Jesus was actually angry that someone would look to Him to institute social justice or to enforce income equality. That is not why He came; that is not the Christian Gospel. On the contrary, He came to warn sinners about God’s wrath and condemnation for their sinful fixation on themselves and their rights and their money and their property. Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses. And so He tells a parable that strikes at rich and poor alike, because the rich can be corrupted by their possession of wealth, and the poor can be corrupted by their longing for wealth. Greed and selfishness are a human problem, transcending all social classes.

The parable is about a rich man who gets even richer. A superabundant harvest gives him so much extra wealth that he decides to tear down his storage barns and build even bigger ones. He congratulates himself on how rich he has become, and he makes plans with himself to make an early retirement so that he can enjoy all his money. He’s very happy with himself, so happy that no one else gets even a moment of thought or care or recognition: not his neighbor, and certainly not God.

“You fool!” God said. This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will those things be which you have provided? The rich man reasoned, I built all this. I worked hard and my hard work paid off. So now I’m going to sit back and enjoy the well-deserved fruits of my labors. But what did he forget? He forgot that God brought his ancestors into this land after redeeming them from slavery in Egypt. He forgot that it was God who gave his ancestors the land, God who saw to it that he was born just where and when he was so that he could inherit the land from his ancestors, God who gave him the ability and the skill to work that land, God who made the crops grow, and God who sustained every cell in his body, granting him life and breath until God should see fit to pay out to him the wages of sin, which is death.

What a stark contrast between the rich fool in Jesus’ parable and the commandment of God to the Israelites in Deuteronomy 26, our first lesson this evening. With each and every harvest in the Promised Land of Israel, they were to remember—and confess again publicly—all the things that the rich man in the parable forgot. And they were to worship God with the firstfruits of their harvest as an acknowledgement before God that, I didn’t built that, O Lord. You did. You brought me here. You get the credit for all that I have. And I give you thanks! Because You have rescued me from sin, death, and the devil, without any work on my part. You have brought me into Your house and washed away all my sins and have promised to sustain me through this life into eternal life. Having You for my God, whether I am rich or poor, whether I have plenty or barely enough, I have all that I need. Indeed, I am rich, because You have given me Yourself and have promised me an eternal inheritance at Your side in heaven.

That’s what it means to be “rich toward God,” as Jesus says, or maybe a better translation, “rich in God.” It’s not about how big of an offering you bring to church, and it’s not about how charitable you are toward your neighbor. It’s about not living for money and stuff, but living for God. It’s about finding your contentment, not in money and stuff, but in God—the God who gave His Son into death for your sins, and in addition, richly and daily provides you with clothing and shoes, food and drink, house and yard, wife and children, land, cattle, and all that you have—with all that you need to nourish and support this body and life.

Don’t be a fool. You didn’t build that. You didn’t accumulate any goods or wealth for yourself that God didn’t allow you to accumulate and use for His purposes, and it could all be gone tomorrow anyway. Your life on earth could end tonight. So be rich in God. Trust in Him, and give thanks to the Him, today and every day, and take this opportunity at Thanksgiving time to rededicate yourself to using all the good things God has given you for His honor and glory and for your neighbor’s benefit. Worship God with the things He’s given you, with the things He has built. Worship Him in the only way He can be worshiped—through faith in His Son Jesus Christ. Amen.

 

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