Second
Sunday in Advent (A)
December
8, 2019
Text: Matt. 3:1-12
Busy,
busy, busy. That is what we are in these
weeks before Christmas. We’re so busy
doing all the things to be done, holiday parties, Christmas programs (or Winter
programs, in case the word “Christmas” somehow traumatizes you), shopping of
course, baking, cooking, cleaning, Christmas cards or Christmas letters (if you
still actually use paper products to do that sort of thing), trees to trim,
halls to deck, tinsel and glitter (both of which I’m against), packages to
wrap, Tylenol to take, just a spoon full of sugar, or something a little
stronger, to make the medicine go down.
We spend so much time in all the busy-ness and preparation that by the
time Christmas actually arrives, we’re done.
By December 26th it all comes crashing down, and we might
even be tempted to say, “Thank God!”
Especially if you’re among the many, many people for whom “the holidays”
are not so much full of comfort and joy as they are depression and grief. And all that fake holiday cheer doesn’t make
anything better. It just makes the
situation worse. See, that’s what you
get in the end with the world’s version of Christmas. Exhaustion at best. Hopelessness at worst, when Christmas doesn’t
pan out the way you’d planned and you’re left with the darkness and cold of the
bleak midwinter.
That
is why the Church does Advent. The world
is already waist deep in jingle bells and last year’s fruitcake. The Church’s Christmas celebration hasn’t yet
begun. Oh, it will. We’re not a bunch of Scrooges, and Advent is
no Grinch. We’ll do Christmas right, for
twelve whole days, starting sundown on the 24th. And by the way, in Christian freedom, sure
we’ll go to the office party and sing the silly Christmas songs, and I really
hope Charles Zillinger wears his Santa hat again this year. But the Church is in a season of
preparation. Advent is a time to
prepare. It is a time to hear the
preaching of St. John the Baptist: “Prepare the way of the Lord; make his
paths straight” (Matt. 3:3; ESV). The
world thinks Advent is about calendars filled with chocolates. You know that Advent is about a calendar
filled with anticipation and preparation for the Lord’s coming among us with
the gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation.
How
does one prepare for such a coming?
Again, John gives us the answer. “Repent,
for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (v. 2). Knock down the mountains. Fill in the valleys. Make the road straight and true. Humble yourself before the Lord. Examine yourself. Confess your sins. Mourn and weep. Sweep out the old leaven. Turn from your navel gazing, your
selfishness, your idolatry. Turn from
your lust, your greed, your covetousness.
Return to the Lord. Cling to Him
in faith. Let go of your anger. Forgive.
Be forgiven. Let go of your life
and yourself. Be willing to suffer. Be willing to give it all up for the sake of
the Gospel. Jesus is coming. That is the point. Not the tree or the presents or the cups of
cheer. Not the holiday greetings and gay
happy meetings. Not even family. Beware that idol, by the way, which is always
trotted out this time of year. Yes, family
gatherings are great, especially at Christmas time, but even Christian churches
decide not to have Christmas services because “Christmas is a time for
family!” What the holly-jolly Christmas
is that?! It’s Jesus’ birthday and
you’re not coming to His house?! That’s
like telling Grandma you’re going to celebrate her birthday by staying home and
not talking to her. I’ve even had some
Lutherans tell me this… to their shame.
Repent! This entails a complete turn, a radical
transformation. Dr. Luther preaches to
us in his Smalcald Articles, one of our Lutheran confessions contained
in the Book of Concord: “This is God’s thunderbolt. By the Law He strikes down both obvious
sinners and false saints. He declares no
one to be in the right, but drives them all together to terror and
despair. This is the hammer. As Jeremiah says, ‘Is not My word like . . .
a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?’ (23:29). This is not active contrition or manufactured
repentance,” by which Luther means works of satisfaction prescribed as penance
after confession, or the self-inflicted punishments of the monastics. Rather, “It is passive contrition,” that is,
“true sorrow of heart, suffering, and the sensation of death.” This is what you need to hear. “‘You are all of no account, whether you are
obvious sinners or saints . You have to become different from what you
are now. You have to act differently
than you are now acting, whether you are as great, wise, powerful, and holy as
you can be. Here no one is godly.”[1] This is what John is preaching when he bids
us bear fruit in keeping with repentance (Matt. 3:8). What are the sins that beset you? Knock it off!
Stop doing them. Confess
them. Be forgiven in the Name of the
Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29). Live the new life He has given you to live in
Him, His life, crucified and risen for you.
Love your neighbor. Serve your
neighbor. Expend yourself for your
neighbor. Live for him. Die for him.
Forgive him. Pray for him. Provide for his needs. Feed him.
Clothe him. Visit him when he is
sick or in prison. Yes, give him
Christmas presents. Give your money. Be generous.
Confess the Gospel to him. Be
faithful in all your vocations, every relationship in which God has placed you. For his sake, not for your own.
And
don’t be like the Pharisees and Sadducees who come to John’s Baptism, but want
nothing to do with repentance. Do not be
like the Jews who boast that they have God’s favor simply by virtue of the fact
that they are Abraham’s children according to the flesh. God can raise up children for Abraham from
these stones. Do not boast that you have
God’s favor because you are an American or a Missouri Synod Lutheran. Do not think you are holy because you say
“Merry Christmas” instead of “Seasons Greetings.” Be neither like those super-Christians who
boast of getting better and better every day, better and better in every way,
who think they have nothing for which to repent. Nor be like those super-Lutherans who brag about
what poor, miserable sinners they’ve confessed themselves to be, how lowly, how
penitent. Again Dr. Luther on our text:
“But here comes the fiery angel of St. John [Revelation 10], the true preacher
of repentance. With one bolt of
lightning, he hurls together both . He says: ‘Repent!’ [Matthew
3:2]. Now one group imagines, ‘Why, we
have repented!’ The other says, ‘We need
no repentance.’ John says, ‘Repent, both
of you. You false penitents and false
saints, both of you need the forgiveness of sins. Neither of you know what sin really is. Much less your duty to repent of it and shun
it. For no one of you is good. You are full of unbelief, stupidity, and
ignorance of God and God’s will. But He
is present here, of whose “fulness we have all received, grace upon grace”’
[John 1:16]. Without Him, no one can be
righteous before God.”[2]
And
that brings us to the culmination and fulfillment of repentance. The people were going out to John, “and
they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins”
(Matt. 3:6). They were turning from all
that is not the one true God, all that is against Him, to Him alone, in
faith. They were turning to Him, that
their sins be washed away. They were
confessing all that they are, all that they have, all that they’ve done, that God
may effect the repenting, that He may do it. It is His action. He does the turning. He does the transforming, the
converting. And in place of all that He
has taken away: the sin, the death, the damnation; He gives what is His:
righteousness, life, eternal salvation.
Which is to say, Jesus. One last
quote from Dr. Luther: “Confession, too, cannot be false, uncertain, or
fragmentary. A person who confesses that
everything in him is nothing but sin includes all sins, excludes none, forgets
none. Neither can satisfaction be
uncertain, because it is not our uncertain, sinful work. Rather, it is the suffering and blood of the
innocent Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world [John 1:29].”[3] We are nothing. Christ is everything. To know that, to confess and believe it,
that is to repent in the way of St. John.
Repentance
has two parts: Contrition, which is grief over sin and the death of the old
man; and faith in Christ for the forgiveness of sins, which is the enlivening
of the New Creation in Christ. Baptism
has two parts: The drowning of old Adam with all sins and evil desires, and the
resurrection of the new man in Christ.
Confession has two parts: First that we confess our sins, and second,
that we receive Absolution, that is forgiveness, from the pastor as from God
Himself, not doubting, but firmly believing that by it our sins are forgiven
before God in heaven. Christ died for
you. Christ is risen for you. You are baptized into His death and His
resurrection, so that these are your death and your life. Repentance and confession is nothing less
than a daily return to Holy Baptism. It
is a turning again to Christ, who really does the turning of you by His Spirit
in His Word and gifts. In this way your
sins are forgiven and you are kept in the one true faith. And you live with the life of Christ, and so
you love and do good works.
And
that is how you prepare. Jesus is
coming. The eternal Son of the Father,
Mary’s Child wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. The Savior wrapped in Words and water and
bread and wine. The King of Glory who
will come again to judge the living and the dead and give eternal life to you
and all believers in Christ. Don’t
forget about all that as you madly rush from here to there to everywhere to
make merry this month. Be here. Be repented.
Be gifted. With Jesus. Instead of busy, busy, busy, come to Him, and
He will give you rest. Blessed
Advent. In the Name of the Father, and
of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
[1] SA III III:2-3 (McCain et al., Eds,
Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions [St. Louis: Concordia, 2005, 2006]
p. 272).
[2] SA III III:30-32.
[3] SA III III:37-38.
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