Second Sunday in Advent

Second Sunday in Advent (B)

December 10, 2023

Text: Mark 1:1-8

            “Prepare the way of the Lord” (Mark 1:3; ESV). 

            Christ is coming.  He has come.  He comes.  He is coming again.  That merits some intentional preparation as we anticipate receiving Him.  It calls for meditation.  Forethought.  Introspection.  A putting of things in order.  “(M)ake his paths straight” (v. 3).  What is crooked in your life?  In your mind and heart?  In your relationships?  Your home?  What is disordered?  What valleys need to be filled… What is lacking?  Where have you fallen short?  What are your sins of omission?  What mountains and hills must be laid low…  What pride humiliated?  What thoughts, words, and deeds (sins of commission) forsaken?  What self-justifications abandoned and disowned, that you be prepared to receive the justification the Lord alone brings?  Examine yourself.  Confess your sins.  Let no corner of your being remain in darkness.  Shine the light of Christ and His Word into every nook and cranny.  Christ has come.  He comes even now.  He is coming again.  Prepare.

            God knows that you are weak.  He knows that, apart from Him, you are, in fact, helpless and hopeless, dead in your trespasses and sins.  And so, the preparation must be His work in you.  And for that, He sends a preacher.  A voice cries in the wilderness.  St. John the Baptist proclaims a Baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins (v. 4).  It is the culmination of all the prophetic preaching that came before.  It anticipates the preaching and Baptism of Jesus Himself, carried on by His Apostles (some of whom began as disciples of John the Baptist), inscripturated by the sacred writers (inspired, as they were, by the Holy Spirit), the charge of all Christian ministers, so that this very moment, in this very place, into your very ears, the preaching resounds: Prepare the way of the Lord.  Repent of your sins.  Believe the Good News.  Jesus comes.  Be baptized, every one of you, in the Name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins, and you, too, will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.  For the Promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom our God calls to Himself (Acts 2:38-39).

            The preacher comes, clothed in self-effacing garb.  For John, it is camel’s hair and a leather belt.  His peculiar dress is not designed to draw attention to himself.  Rather, his appearance calls to mind the great Prophet Elijah, who was likewise attired (2 Kings 1:8).  So we cover the Christian minister today with the garments of his office, to assist him with pointing away from himself, and to the Mightier One who comes, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie.

            How do the crowds prepare in our text?  First of all, they come to hear and heed the preaching.  They do not stay away.  They come to the place where the Word of God is proclaimed.  And where, of all places?  The wilderness.  But this, too, is a proclamation.  They hear, and they know, that they are rebellious Israel, wandering aimlessly in the waste of death, in need of a Joshua to lead them across the Jordan.  They must confess it.  And so, they do.  They come to John, confessing their sins.  And they are baptized, washed, bathed by him in the River Jordan.  Repentance and cleansing.  That is how one is prepared.  Hear the preaching.  Confess and be absolved.  Which is always and ever a return to the cleansing waters of Baptism.

            But what is repentance?  The word is bandied about a great deal in the Church, and we think we know what it means, but it does us no good if we don’t actually know what it means.  The Hebrew word for repentance means to turn, or return, as in a turning from faithlessness and sin, and a return to God, who loves us and forgives our sins.  The Greek word for repentance literally means to change the mind.  To repent is to change your mind.  Your thinking is all wrong.  It is centered on self.  Self-pleasure.  Self-fulfillment.  Self-justification.  What is needed, then, is a change of mind, a turning from such self-centered, self-obsession, to God and His Word and His will, and to the justification that comes from outside yourself, from Christ alone. 

            Our Augsburg Confession  (Article XII) says that repentance has two parts.  The first is contrition, which the Confession defines as “terrors smiting the conscience through knowledge of sin;” but understand, contrition is not primarily a feeling.  Contrite literally means with grinding, with crushing, as in being ground or crushed by the accusations of the Law.  Contrition, then, is the objective knowledge that the Law’s accusations crush you and condemn you.  Then, the second part of repentance is faith born of the Gospel, born of the Absolution, the forgiveness of sins pronounced upon you for Christ’s sake.  So, repentance begins with the Law exposing you for the self-centered sinner you are, to which you say, “Amen,” and confess your sins to God, and perhaps even to your pastor (as the crowds did to John the Baptist), naming the sins, so that they lose their power over you.  And then hearing the Word of forgiveness, the Absolution, pronounced over you for those very sins, and for all sins, in the stead and by the command of Jesus Christ.  It is a change of mind, a turning from sin to God.  It is a cleansing, planting you again in the saving baptismal waters.

            Then, from such repentance (says the Confession), grows the fruit of repentance, which is to say, love and good works.  Because, once your mind has been changed from focus on self, turned instead to be focused on God, you are able to see your neighbor and his needs, and what love obligates you to do for him.

            Do you see, beloved, what this means concretely in your own life as you prepare to celebrate once again the Lord’s coming in the flesh, the Babe born of Mary?  For His coming to you here and now in preaching and Supper (yes, you should prepare for that)?  For His coming again in glory, with the holy angels, to raise the dead and to judge? 

            Repentance is not just a theoretical concept.  It means daily time spent in God’s Word and prayer, reading and hearing, believing and heeding His Law and Gospel, and speaking to Him on that basis.  Parents have a particular obligation to lead your children in this (that is why we’ve provided the Advent wreath devotions and daily devotions).  That they may impart it to their children (God grant it), and so for generations to come, God may have for Himself a people prepared. 

            It means daily self-examination, confessing and lamenting your sins and failures to God each evening, asking His forgiveness for Jesus’ sake, which you know He is ever ready to grant you. 

            It may mean private Confession and Absolution with your pastor, the preacher God has sent you, where you can name your sin aloud to God, and hear God Himself declare through the voice of your pastor, that all your sins are forgiven. 

            Above all, yes, it means attendance at Divine Service at every opportunity.  You and your children.  Here with your brothers and sisters in Christ.  Plunged back into the baptismal water.  In the Ark that saves you from the flood.  Here, where this sad sack of bones is clothed with an Office, to speak to you, and upon you, and into you Christ’s own Words, His death, His resurrection, for your forgiveness, life, and salvation.  To be fed by the Lord’s own body and blood, and so to have His body and blood, His life, flowing through your very veins. 

                That is how you prepare.  For Christ is coming.  Advent.  He has come.  He comes.  He is coming again.  Bodily.  For you.  Do not plug your ears to St. John’s preaching.  Instead, let that preaching open your lips to confess your sins, and your hearts to receive and believe His forgiveness.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.