First Sunday in Advent/ Advent Midweek I

First Sunday in Advent (B)

December 3, 2017

Text: Mark 11:1-10

            “Come, Lord Jesus.”  You probably pray that prayer when you sit down to eat.  And you should.  It’s a wonderful prayer to pray, recognizing that every good gift, right down to the food on your table, comes as a result of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross for the forgiveness of your sins.  God blesses you because of Jesus.  And so in your table prayer, you recognize Jesus as the unseen Host and Guest at your meal, and the one who sustains your body with food and drink, even as He does so for your body and soul at His own Table with His body and blood.  “Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest, and let these gifts to us be blessed,” you pray.  And yet, the prayer, “Come, Lord Jesus,” is so much more than a petition that food be blessed.  It is the urgent cry of the Church.  At the end of the Book of Revelation, Jesus promises, “Surely I am coming soon,” whereupon St. John replies on behalf of the whole Church of God, “Amen.  Come, Lord Jesus!” (Rev. 22:20; ESV).  Come to us now in mercy for our forgiveness.  Come to us visibly to deliver us finally and completely from sin, death, the devil, and all evil.  Come, Lord Jesus!

            And He does.  He comes.  The word “Advent” means “coming.”  Jesus advents.  He comes.  And in the holy Season of Advent, we meditate upon and treasure His three-fold coming: 1. His coming in the flesh, God the Son incarnate, conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary; 2. His continual coming to us in His holy Word and the blessed Sacraments (Baptism, Absolution, and the Supper of His body and blood); and 3. His coming again in glory on the Last Day to judge the living and the dead and give us life forever with Him, in our bodies, in the new creation.  Advent is a Season of preparation for receiving Jesus as He comes.  It is preparation for Christmas as we celebrate once again His coming as a Baby to be the Savior of the world.  It is preparation for receiving Him here in His Church, in the Divine Service, and particularly in Communion.  And it is preparation for our meeting Him face to face in our death and in the Day of Judgment.  As a result, there is a penitential flavor to Advent.  That is why the Church is decked out in purple, like the Season of Lent.  That is why we omit the singing of the Hymn of Praise for a few weeks (although we don’t put away our alleluias… Advent is not quite on the level of Lent when it comes to penitence).  That is why we have the extra midweek services and devotions.  And most importantly, for the next two weeks St. John the Baptist will preach to us in our Holy Gospel, bidding us prepare the way of the Lord, to make His paths straight.  Which is to say, St. John will preach to us repentance.  That is how you prepare.  Not with Christmas parties all month long (although those are nice, especially with the cookies).  But self-examination and repentance.  And yet, not dour repentance.  Christmas is coming, after all, and the joy can hardly be contained.

            It always strikes more than a few as odd that the Holy Gospel for the First Sunday in Advent is the Palm Sunday reading of the Triumphal Entry.  Why a Holy Week reading in December?  Well, I’m glad you asked.  In our Holy Gospel this morning, we have highlighted for us a coming of the Lord within His first coming as Savior, namely, His coming into Jerusalem… to die.  For you.  And that is what Advent is all about.  In fact, that is what Christmas is all about.  One of the strongest Christmas carols in our corpus rightly has us sing, “Nails, spear shall pierce Him through, The cross be borne, for me, for you.”  Christmas is nothing apart from Palm Sunday and Holy Week and Good Friday.  Remember that while you’re stuffing your face with Christmas cookies and ripping into presents by the light of the yule log.  You have this joy because Jesus came to die for your sins.  And so this is just the right reading with which to begin our Advent preparations and a new Church Year.  Jesus rides humbly into the City of His father David to be the sacrifice of atonement.  Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, cries St. John.  The crowds strew their palms and cloaks before Him, a royal highway.  They follow Him and shout, “Hosanna!”  It has become an exclamation of praise, but it literally means “Save us!”  “Hosanna!  Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!  Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David!  Hosanna in the highest!” (Mark 11:9-10). 

            Yes, blessed is He who comes!  He comes, beloved.  He is not a remote God, far away, who mostly leaves us to ourselves and doesn’t care about our day to day affairs and problems and hurts and sins.  He is our Emmanuel, God with us, and He cares very intimately for all of these things.  He died for them, to baptize them in His blood, to take away our sin, to heal our hurt, and to deliver us from all evil, including and especially the evil one!  He comes.  He came then, in the mess of fallen humanity, born to an unwed mother in a stable in backwater Bethlehem, because the family had to be there to be counted for taxes, paid to godless Caesar of all people, laid in the hay of a stinking feeding trough for animals of all places, because nobody in town had room for Him.  Not even His own kin.  But He comes to suffer just these things, and more, to suffer unjust conviction and torture and death and hell to save you from your just conviction and torture and death and hell on account of your rebellion against God, your sin.  And so this coming into Jerusalem to die is the coming upon which all His comings hinge.  He comes now in the means of grace, His Word and Sacraments, to deliver what He accomplished for you then by His death and resurrection, namely, the forgiveness of your sins, eternal life and salvation, the favor of the Father who loves you as His own dear Child, and every grace and blessing besides.  And you need not fear His coming again to judge, because of His coming then which won your acquittal and justification, and His coming now in His Church to deliver the verdict: Forgiven, righteous, holy on account of His saving work for you.

            All of which is to say, really, the three comings are of a piece.  They are one, distant in time, but one divine action of mercy for your eternal salvation.  Jesus comes to save you.  It is true of His first coming.  It is true as He comes among us now in His Church with His living voice and His true body and blood.  It is true when He comes again on that Day.  Jesus comes to save you.  This is His answer to the prayer you pray when you sit down to eat.  “Come, Lord Jesus,” you pray.  And He does.  Here and now.  He’s here!  Right now!  In the flesh!  For you!  He’s here as sure as you’re sitting here, our unseen Host and Guest.  And He’s coming again visibly, so that every eye shall see Him, to give you eternal life. 

            So let’s get ready.  There is much to be done before Christmas.  I’m sure you’re all hustling and bustling about to get your house all decorated and ready for guests, writing out your Christmas lists, and shopping for meals and presents.  That’s all wonderful.  But all of that is meaningless apart from your Advent preparations for Christmas.  Examine yourself according to the Ten Commandments.  Consider your place in life.  Confess your sins.  Repent.  And hear with joy the Word of Christ Himself who came to die and who comes, risen and living, to speak these words to you Himself: “I forgive you all your sins.”  Clean out the filthy halls of your heart by giving your sin-sick and dead heart to Jesus in confession.  Receive your heart made new from Him, and deck the halls with His righteousness.  Which is to say, hear the preaching, believe the Absolution, that it is for you, O Baptized Child of God, and eat and drink and be merry at the Supper of the Lamb.  Christmas is coming, and the Feast is prepared.  “Hosanna!” we pray with the Palm Sunday throngs.  “Save us!”  “Hosanna in the highest!  Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord.”  “Come, Lord Jesus,” we pray.  And He does.  His body, given for you.  His blood, shed for you.  To save you.  Merry Advent.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.    

Advent Midweek I

Prophetic Preaching of Preparation: Comfort for God’s People from the Prophet Isaiah

“Oh That You Would Rend the Heavens and Come Down”

December 6, 2017

Text: Is. 64:1-9

            “Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down” (Is. 64:1; ESV).  Come, O God!  Come and help us!  Come and save us!  This is the cry of the Prophet Isaiah, and it is the cry of all of God’s faithful suffering in the midst of the unfaithfulness of so many in Judah and Israel.  And, as we heard on Sunday, it is our cry and the cry of the Church of all times, “Come, Lord Jesus.”  But what is it Isaiah and the people are praying for God to come and do?  And the rending of the heavens?  Doesn’t that sound like a coming in judgment?  Is that really what the people want?

            Like us, they want God to come for a two-fold purpose: Judgment for His enemies and mercy for His people.  In our culture and society, we don’t like words like judgment and enemy, at least not when it comes to religion.  And yet, isn’t it true that we were all rooting for Osama bin Laden to bite the dust?  That doesn’t preclude prayers for his repentance and conversion.  We can do that, too.  But recognizing that, humanly speaking, it wasn’t likely that Osama bin Laden would repent and become a Christian, we wanted God to guide a missile, or, as the case may be, a Navy Seal, right into his living room.  When God judges His enemies in that way, it is a great mercy for His people.  Osama is out to kill Americans and Westerners in general and Christians in particular.  Now he can’t do that anymore, and he’s met his Maker.  If, by some miracle, in his last moments he had a come to Jesus experience, praise the Lord.  But that probably didn’t happen, and now he believes, probably much to his dismay.  Judgment belongs to God, and He has executed it.  Blessed be the LORD.

            Isaiah prays that God would perform just such a feat among the nations in his day.  He prays that God would come down to make His Name known to His adversaries, the holy Name, the Name that is not to be taken in vain and misused, the Name God puts on His chosen people.  He prays that the nations would tremble in the presence of Almighty God (v. 2).  Don’t you pray that?  Don’t you long for the Day God comes and vindicates you before all those who have laughed at you and mocked you for the faith, who have stolen from and beaten and imprisoned your brothers and sisters for the faith and killed them for it, who would make the Name of Jesus illegal?  Of course you do.  You pray for their conversion, but if not, you pray for Judgment Day. 

            But you do not pray from a posture of self-righteousness.  You pray from a posture of confession.  Isaiah confesses it for you.  “Behold, you were angry, and we sinned; in our sins we have been a long time, and shall we be saved?” (v. 5).  We shall not, unless God acts.  And He does.  He comes.  Not just to obliterate His enemies, but to save all who believe in Him.  For there is no “God besides you, who acts for those who wait for him” (v. 4).  So we wait, and we pray: Come, rend the heavens, act, judge, save.  We are unclean.  Cleanse us, O God.  Even our good works are as filthy rags before you.  Heal us, O God (v. 6).  Hide your face no longer (v. 7), but make it to shine upon us and be gracious to us.  You are our Father.  We are clay in Your hands (v. 8).  Please lay aside your righteous anger.  Remember not our iniquities forever.  “Behold, please look, we are all your people” (v. 9). 

            Beloved in the Lord, Jesus Christ is God’s answer to your prayer.  He rends the heavens and comes down.  He comes down to suffer the Judgment for all our sins and to deliver us forever from our iniquities.  There He stands in the Jordan River, being baptized by John, and what happens?  The heavens are rent asunder (Mark 1:10).  He rends the heavens!  The heavens are opened to Jesus, and thus opened to us!  And it happens again in Jesus’ death.  His body is rent asunder for us poor sinners, heaven in the flesh rent by whip and thorn and nail and spear, and when He cries out to God and breathes His last, the curtain of the temple is torn in two from top to bottom (Mark 15:38).  For in the death of Jesus Christ, God-come-down for us, nothing bars our access to God.  Nothing.  Not the Law.  Not sin.  Not death.  Neither hell nor devil.  For these have been defeated in the death of Jesus Christ.

            And when He dies, the mountains quake (Matt 27:51).  It is the fulfillment of the prophecy.  The mountains quake, the rocks split, and many righteous rise from their tombs.  They’re confused!  They think it’s Judgment Day!  Because they recognize the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prayer in our text.  God has rent the heavens and come down to judge and to save!

            Now how do you prepare for such a coming of God?  How do we prepare for Christmas?  For the Lord’s Supper?  For our Lord’s coming again on the Last Day?  That is what Advent is all about.  And in our text, Isaiah teaches us how to prepare.  First, we confess our sins.  We have separated ourselves from God by our iniquities.  We deserve His wrath.  He is right to be angry and hide His face from us, for we have taken and eaten what is forbidden, and covered ourselves with the fig leaves of our excuses and the filthy rags of our works.   And all the while, we have blamed God for our fall.  The answer to it is not to hide our transgressions, but to confess them.  Speak them aloud before God.  Bring them out in the light to be dealt with.  Dealt with, not in judgment, but in mercy.  For our God is mercy.  He deals with our iniquity in the blood and death of Christ.  He forgives our sins.  And He sends His prophets, like Isaiah, His Apostles, like St. Paul, His pastors and His Church, to proclaim the Gospel and the Holy Absolution, the forgiveness of all your sins for the sake of Christ.  Fig leaves won’t help.  God must kill to atone for your sin.  And He does.  In Christ.  He clothes you, not with animal skins, but with Christ… with Christ who died and who is risen from the dead and who is now your righteousness and life.  So that is the first thing to do in preparation according to Isaiah.  Confess your sin.  Own up to it.  Give it to God. 

            And the second thing is to confess the faith.  God acts for His people who wait for Him.  He will not forsake you.  He forgives.  He saves.  He is our Father and we are His people.  He loves us.  He remembers not our iniquity because He has put it to death forever in Christ.  And at the end of every Divine Service He puts His Name on you once again, the Name He revealed in Jesus and placed on you once and for all in your Baptism into Christ, the LORD, the LORD, the LORD, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  He blesses you and keeps you.  He makes His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you.  He lifts up His countenance upon you and gives you His peace.

            Beloved in the Lord, the world is a mess, and frankly, so are you.  You know it, and God knows it, and I say it because I love you and because that’s what God sent me to tell you.  Don’t hide it.  Confess it.  Say it out loud to God.  And hear what He says to you.  Your sins are forgiven.  Then, confess the faith.  Confess your confidence in God.  Pray to our Father who art in heaven, that He would rend the heavens one final time and come down.  And then wait.  Patiently and with joy.  Because you know the End of this.  He advents.  He comes.  He comes for you.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.