Second Sunday in Advent (C)
December 8, 2024
Text:
Luke 3:1-20
St. John the Baptist is the great Advent Preacher. He is the promised Elijah, the voice crying
out in the wilderness, “Prepare the way of the Lord” (Luke 3:4;
ESV). The Lord is coming. He is adventing. So you’d better be ready. And to make sure you are, the Lord sends His
man, His herald, to precede Him. To
proclaim. To preach.
St. John builds Him a Royal Highway through the
wilderness, a thoroughfare right through your heart. “Repent!” John preaches. Fill in every valley, all that is lacking in
you. Knock down every mountain, all that
is too high, your arrogance, your pride.
Straighten what is crooked, what is bent, what does not conform to our
Lord’s will for you. Like when your
parents say, “You’d better straighten up!”
Level whatever is rough, whatever is impure, whatever is tarnished in
your words, your thoughts, your deeds, your will. Smooth it out. Clean it up.
Why? Because THE
monumental event in all of human history is coming to pass. All flesh shall see the salvation of
God. Jesus Christ is coming to
you.
To repent is to turn, or return. It is to turn from, and return to. It is a turning from sin and death and
unbelief, to God in Christ, to receive His righteousness and life in
faith. And it is not, first of all, your
work. Repentance is God’s gift to
you. It is His work in you, by His
Spirit, in His Word and Holy Sacraments.
He gives it in Holy Baptism, where He drowns old Adam in you and
raises you up a new creation in Christ. He
gives it in the preaching of His Holy Word, exposing your sins by His Law,
crucifying your flesh, raising you to new life by His Gospel as He applies the
sin-atoning death and justifying resurrection of Christ to you. He gives it in the Holy Supper, as
Christ enters into you with His true body and blood, given and shed for you for
the forgiveness of sins, now filling you with His very resurrection life. This is so important. Because it would be so easy to see repentance
as a work you do within yourself that somehow contributes to your
being forgiven, contributes to your salvation.
Not at all. God works this
in you. God repents you. He does it in preaching. He does it in His means of grace.
St. John, therefore, comes preaching a Baptism of
repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Now,
this corresponds, not only to Christian Baptism, of which it is a
foreshadowing, but to our continual return to Baptism every time we confess
our sins and are absolved.
The people came out to John confessing their sins, to have them cleansed
away in the waters of the Jordan, to be taken up by Jesus in His Baptism
into us. So we come before God to speak
our sins aloud, to give them over to Him, to be dealt with by Jesus’ blood and
death on the cross, to have them spoken away from us, and thus to be absolved,
forgiven, cleansed, purified, justified, declared righteous on account of
Christ. This is the great gift of
repentance. Convicting us of sin by the
preaching of His Law, as John preached to the crowds in the wilderness, God
drives us to Himself, and to Himself alone, for the gift of forgiveness,
righteousness, and life.
This corresponds to the two parts of repentance. Melanchthon puts it this way in the Apology
of the Augsburg Confession (one of the documents in the Book of Concord):
“we have attributed these two parts to repentance: contrition and faith.”[1] Contrition is godly sorrow over sin
when God’s Law has convicted you. This
is the turning of the heart away from evil. Faith, of course, is trust in God,
trust in Jesus Christ, and in His sin-atoning work, for the forgiveness of all
your sins. This completes the turning from
evil, and to God in Christ, thus repentance.
But then there is this (and this is the part Lutherans
are always in danger of forgetting).
Though repentance is essentially complete in the turning, now there
results the fruit of repentance.
The Apology continues, “If anyone desires to add a third—fruit
worthy of repentance, that is, a change of the entire life and character for
the better—we will not oppose it.”[2] Thus St. John preaches, “Bear fruits in
keeping with repentance” (Luke 3:8).
A good tree bears good fruit. A
bad tree bears bad fruit. You will know
the tree by its fruit. Therefore, God,
having fashioned you into a good tree out of a bad one… that is to say,
forgiveness and justification being complete for you in Christ… you now do what
God has created you to do. Love your
neighbor. Do good works. Be God’s hands and feet and mouth in the
world. Be who you are in
Christ. Be who God has created you
to be. Be who God has now redeemed you
to be.
“Bear fruits in keeping with repentance.” “What then shall we do?” (v. 10). The people wonder what on earth kinds of
fruits John could be demanding. He tells
them to examine themselves in terms of their station in life, and in relation
to their neighbor. It sounds remarkably
like the Small Catechism, doesn’t it?
“Consider your place in life according to the Ten Commandments”? Tax collectors are not to cheat people by
taking more than they are authorized to do.
Soldiers are not to extort money from people by means of threat or false
accusation, and they are to be content with their wages. Now, apply this generally to your own
vocations. Examine yourself. And be brutally honest. What are you taking that isn’t yours to
take? In what ways are you harming your
neighbor, embittering his life by your words and actions, despising him in your
heart, holding a grudge against him, bearing him in malice? Where could you help that you don’t because
of selfishness or self-interest or holding others in low esteem? If you are honest with yourself, as such
self-examination demands, it will hurt, because it is the death of old Adam,
the flesh. Repent. Turn from that. And to Christ. Take heart in Christ. And then? Get busy.
You’ve been freed to do so.
You’ve been freed to reject sin and selfishness, and to live
outside of yourself, in Christ, for others.
Where you have taken… now give, and that generously. Where you have harmed… help and heal. Speak words of healing, encouragement,
Gospel. Forgive your neighbor where he
has sinned against you. Bear with him in
patience where he is weak. Contribute,
support, give aid. Put your hand to the
plow. Your money in the hat. Your prayers in God’s ear. If you have two tunics, share with the one
who has none. Clothe the naked. If you have food, share with the one who
lacks. Feed the hungry. Do your job as for God Himself. Pay your taxes. Honor your parents. Raise your children in the fear and
admonition of the Lord. It is kind of
silly that we ask with the crowds, “What then shall we do?” We know what to do. Do the opposite of whatever old Adam
wants. Be Christians. Die to self and live in Christ, in faith
toward Him, and in fervent love toward one another.
See, in repentance, a change happens. Luther says it this way in the Smalcald
Articles (another of our confessions in the Book of Concord): “This
is what true repentance means. Here a
person needs to hear something like this, ‘You are all of no account, whether
you are obvious sinners or saints <in your own opinions>. 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.”[3] Everyone must examine himself. Everyone must turn. It does no good to fall back into a false
sense of security that you are a son of Abraham, or a good old Missouri Synod
Lutheran. Nor should you go on sinning
that grace may abound. May it never
be. Nor should you despair that you can
never be forgiven and live a Christian life, for these are the gift of God
in Christ. The call to repentance is
aimed at the heart of every one of us.
John is preaching to you.
Examine yourself. Repent. Turn in faith toward Christ. Your sins are forgiven. For behold, the Lamb of God who takes away
the sin of the world. Now bear fruit in
keeping with repentance.
And this is how you prepare this Adventide. God sends his man to preach, “Prepare the
way of the Lord!” And that is what
He is doing in you. Right here, right
now, in the preaching of His Word, God is constructing for Himself a
highway. He is giving you the gift
of repentance and faith. He is turning
you from sin to Himself. He is working
in you to will and to do what He commands.
Advent is the season of preparation.
Let us heed the prophet’s wilderness cry. For Jesus is coming. He is coming for you. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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