Category: Sermon Page

Fourth Sunday in Advent
December 19, 2021

“The Miracle Moms and Their Baby Boys” (Luke 1:39-45)

Two expectant mothers–two miracle mothers, moms who shouldn’t have been–the two mothers meet, and they rejoice in their good fortune. They praise God for the wonderful work he is doing for them and through them. The Holy Spirit has given them faith to believe what God has spoken and what God is doing. And what God is doing will be done by the two babies they are carrying in their womb. Those two boys are going to change the world! They will change your world and turn it right-side up! And so our theme this morning: “The Miracle Moms and Their Baby Boys.”

The two expectant mothers, one old, one young. One is six months along; the other, newly pregnant. The fact that they each are expecting was totally unexpected! Both of them are pregnant when really neither one of them should have been. This meeting of the moms is the visitation of Mary to Elizabeth. Elizabeth is the older woman; Mary, the younger. Elizabeth is in her sixth month; Mary’s pregnancy has just started. Neither one of them should have been pregnant in normal circumstances. But the circumstances are much better than normal! Mary goes to visit her older relative Elizabeth, traveling from her home in Nazareth in Galilee, to the home of Elizabeth and her husband Zechariah in the hill country of Judah. But the key to this story is not just the moms. It’s the two baby boys they are carrying inside of them. And it’s especially the baby that Mary is carrying who will change your world and turn it right-side up.

Now there is a back story to each of these pregnancies. Let’s start with Elizabeth. She was an older woman, well beyond her childbearing years. What’s more, she had never been able to have children, even when she was young. This was a great disappointment to Elizabeth and Zechariah. Zechariah was a priest who served in the temple in Jerusalem. One day when he was in the Holy Place, ministering at the altar of incense, an angel appeared to him. It was the angel Gabriel, who told Zechariah that he and Elizabeth were going to have a child. It will be a boy, and they are to name him John. The angel said that God would have a special calling on John’s life. He will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother’s womb. He will be a great prophet like Elijah. He will go before the Lord to prepare his way. John will be the last great prophet before the coming of the Messiah. After receiving this awesome news, Zechariah goes home, Elizabeth becomes pregnant, and she is six months along when Mary comes for a visit.

What led Mary to go visit Elizabeth? It was that the angel Gabriel made another surprise announcement, this time to Mary. He told her that she also would be expecting a child she didn’t expect. But it wasn’t that Mary was too old or unable to have children. No, what made this pregnancy unusual was that Mary a virgin. She was not married; she had not been with a man. Mary became pregnant while remaining a virgin. That just does not happen. And this is the only time it ever would happen. But it was fitting that it would happen in this way, for the child Mary would bear himself would be totally unique.

Gabriel had told Mary many wonderful things about this boy to be born: “Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy–the Son of God.” Conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary. True God and true man. This baby Jesus will be the Son of God in the flesh. He will be the Messiah promised so long ago. Gabriel then added: “And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren.” That’s how Mary comes to visit Elizabeth. They’ve got these miracle pregnancies in common.

This is where we pick up the story today. Mary goes to the home of Zechariah and Elizabeth. She enters the house and greets Elizabeth. The sound of her greeting is picked up by baby John, in the womb, and he does a joyful little leap! Remember, Gabriel had said that John would be filled with the Spirit even in his mother’s womb. So when Mary greets Elizabeth, the Spirit causes John to recognize that Jesus is there, in the room, in her womb. Everywhere that Mary went, the Lamb was sure to go–the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, as John himself would call Jesus years later.

The presence of Christ among us brings us joy also. The gospel sound that greets us here in church tells us that Jesus is here, and so we rejoice. Some of us are past our leaping prime, but the coming of Christ in our midst should get at least ten Lutherans a-leaping.

John leaps, and Elizabeth too is filled with the Holy Spirit. She tells Mary, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!” Mary, you have been given a great honor, to bear the Savior of the world. I mean, I am honored to bear the forerunner of the Lord, but you get to give birth to the Lord himself! What a wonderful blessing!

Elizabeth continues: “And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” Hear the humble faith in Elizabeth’s words. She realizes that she is not worthy of such a visitation. At the same time, she recognizes that her Lord is coming to her, bringing great blessing. Such a humble faith is truly the work of the Holy Spirit.

God grant us the humility and the faith of an Elizabeth: To recognize that you are not worthy to have God grace you with his presence. To know that you are a sinner. You and I do not deserve to have our Lord come to us with his blessing. It is purely by his grace and his mercy that he does. And God has given you the humility to realize this.

And God works faith in you, as well. As with Elizabeth, the Holy Spirit works in your heart, through the gospel, so that you trust in Jesus your Savior. You know that this little child came as our brother, in the flesh, so that he could do the job only he could do, to save us. Christ Jesus came to do the Father’s will, to keep God’s law perfectly on our behalf. And he came to offer up the perfect sacrifice that atones for all our sins. Jesus suffered and died a sinner’s death on the cross, taking the punishment that God’s law requires and that we deserve. Jesus came to be our peace and our life, shown forth gloriously when he rose from the dead, victorious over sin and death. He brings us blessing and joy by his grace.

When Jesus enters your house, you get all his blessings with him. This is enough to make a person leap for joy, as Elizabeth tells Mary, “For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.”

Elizabeth has one more word for Mary: “And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.” Faith–this is what we’re seeing here, all around. The Spirit gives Elizabeth the faith to know that this is no ordinary child Mary is bringing into the room. And Elizabeth commends Mary for her faith, that Mary believed the great things the angel had told her about the son she would bear.

These two miracle moms are two great women of faith. Both Mary and Elizabeth stand out as wonderful examples for us. They believe the Lord’s words, they receive his gifts, and they praise God for them. And listen, the Holy Spirit will work such faith in you, too.

Really, there’s a whole bunch of miracles in our text today. The way that both Elizabeth and Mary got pregnant, of course–in each case, it was miraculous. But also, the way that they both believe and rejoice in the good news of their Lord and Savior–that too is a miracle. Even little John gets in on the believing and rejoicing. Anytime anyone is given the gift of faith and joy in the Lord–this is always a miracle of God. The Holy Spirit works through the Word, working in our hearts, creating a saving faith and a blessed joy. And the great thing is, you and I have the same good news coming to us today. We have the same Holy Spirit at work in our hearts.

Today we have heard the story of these two miracle moms, Mary and Elizabeth. It was a meeting of the moms, yes, but don’t forget those baby boys! They meet also, Jesus and John do. And wherever Mary’s baby boy goes, he brings blessing with him. Even in the womb, he brings blessing and joy to the home of Elizabeth and Zechariah. And Jesus brings blessing and joy into our homes, too. When we gather with our family this merry Christmas–when Christ is the reason for our merriment–Jesus will bring the joy with him. And when we gather here with our church family, here in God’s house, Christ is surely present to bless us with his gifts. Christ is here, visiting us with his grace and favor. And because he is here, I’m about ready to leap for joy myself!

Third Sunday in Advent
December 12, 2021

“What Do You Expect?” (Luke 7:18-28)

What you expect and when you expect it will make you either satisfied or disappointed. For example, suppose that for Christmas your true love has promised to give you twelve drummers drumming, eleven pipers piping, ten lords a’leaping, all the way down to three French hens, two turtle doves, and a partridge in a pear tree. But at the end of the day on December 25 all you’ve received is the partridge. You’re disappointed. You ask yourself, “Did my true love forget about the other stuff? Where are the geese and the maids and so on? Maybe my true love doesn’t love me, after all.”

But then, over December 26, 27, and 28, you start getting FedEx shipments of various calling and non-calling birds. By December 31 you’re up to seven swans a-swimming. Now you’re starting to catch on. Your true love’s word is good. Your true love does truly love you. The promise will be kept, in full. You remember that there are twelve days of Christmas, and you can expect that the rest of the stuff is on the way. It will arrive on time. Even though you have not yet seen any dancing ladies, you’re satisfied that you will. In this case, you really can count your chickens before they’re dispatched.

What you expect and when you expect it will determine whether you’re satisfied or disappointed. That’s true of Christmas presents, and it’s true of Christ himself. What do you expect of Christ? And when do you expect it? This is the question that comes to us, just as it came to John the Baptist: “What Do You Expect?”

Our text is the Holy Gospel from Luke 7. John the Baptist is in prison. He was imprisoned by Herod. Herod had committed adultery by taking his brother’s wife, and John confronted him on it. So Herod was mad and had John arrested. Now here is John, sitting in prison, and he’s getting reports about what Jesus is doing–and not doing. Perhaps John begins to wonder why Jesus isn’t doing anything about wicked Herod or about getting him, John, out of jail. After all, John was suffering on account of the word of God. Isn’t the Messiah supposed to right the wrongs and punish the wrongdoers?

So John sends a delegation to Jesus to ask him, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?” In other words, Are you really the Messiah? Because if you are, how come you’re not doing anything about all the evil that’s going on? John seems to be disappointed with Jesus. Jesus wasn’t doing everything that John expected.

How do we deal with discouragement and disappointment in our lives when things don’t go the way we would like them to? Do we lose our confidence in Christ? Do we falter in our faith because of these difficulties? That’s how this story applies to us.

Last week we heard John the Baptist crying out concerning the wrath to come: “Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” John spoke of the Messiah who was about to appear: “He who is mightier than I is coming. His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” John was saying that when the Messiah appears on the scene he will right the wrongs and bring judgment on the wicked.

Well, now the Messiah, Jesus, is here! Yet here is John, in prison, suffering, while Herod, the wicked ruler, is sitting comfortably in his palace. No judgment is taking place. No fire is falling on Herod’s palace. No angel is letting John out of prison. None of that. And the only axe that’s about to fall is the one that will soon take off John the Baptist’s head.

What’s going on? What kind of Messiah is Jesus? Why isn’t the coming wrath coming? Why isn’t the axe cutting down the bad trees? If Jesus is more powerful than John, he surely ought to be more powerful than Herod. Where is the Messiah’s winnowing fork? He doesn’t seem to be using it, because the chaff is doing better than the wheat.

Yet John does have some scriptures on his side. He must have been thinking of all the prophecies that speak of judgment coming on the enemies of God’s people. For instance, Zephaniah 3, which you heard: “Behold, at that time I will deal with all your oppressors.” Well, right now it looks like the oppressors are winning. Or Isaiah 35: “Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God he will come and save you.” So John is perplexed: “Where is the vengeance and the recompense and the saving? Are you the one who is to come, Jesus, or should we expect someone else?”

This question is not unique to John. The psalmists often cry out, “Why do the wicked prosper and the righteous suffer?” “How long, O Lord, how long?” Believers of all ages have asked these questions. Maybe you have, too. When your loved one is sick and isn’t getting better, you wonder why God doesn’t heal him or her. When evildoers kill the innocent, you wonder, even if they’re caught and punished, how can that make up for all the loss and grief? When your town is wiped out by a tornado. . . . These perplexities of life weigh us down, and we wonder. We wonder about God. We wonder about the Christian faith. Is it real? And like John, we ask, “Are you the one who is to come, Jesus, or shall we look for another?”

Jesus answers John’s question, and he does it in a most effective way. Jesus says: “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them.”

“Tell John what you have seen and heard.” These things that Jesus was doing–these things actually, objectively, happened. John’s disciples witnessed them: “In that hour he healed many people of diseases and plagues and evil spirits, and on many who were blind he bestowed sight.” These things really did happen. Amazing things. Acts of mercy and healing with God’s unmistakable stamp on them.

These are acts that had been prophesied to be done by God’s anointed Messiah. So Jesus is sending John back to the same messianic prophecies that had prompted his question in the first place. Take, for example, Isaiah 35, about God coming with vengeance and divine retribution. That same passage goes on to say, “Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then shall the lame man leap like a deer,” and so on.

Do you see? These mighty works of healing and mercy were sure signs that Jesus is indeed the Messiah. And this guarantees that he will do the rest of the Messiah’s work also. But each in its own time. And in God’s way–a way that appears to us at times to be rather mysterious. But his ways are higher than our ways; his thoughts are higher than ours.

God’s way is to deal with the root and cause of all of man’s suffering and the wrong we do to one another. The root cause is sin. Our sin. Jesus will accomplish his messianic mission by dealing with that root cause. And he will do so by himself being arrested unjustly and executed. If you think it was unfair for John to suffer, how much more unfair is it for that to happen to the sinless Son of God! You see, John had the privilege of being the forerunner of Christ, not only in his life but also in his death.

Jesus suffered and died an innocent death. He suffered shame and rejection on a cross. And he did it for you! The Son of God took all the sins that you and I will ever pile up–sins against God–and he bore the punishment we deserve in our place. Jesus died so that you will never die eternally but instead live. By his righteousness and atoning death, Jesus Christ has won forgiveness–and with it, ultimate healing and life everlasting–for you.

Now notice one more thing about Jesus’ reply. He says: “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up,” and then, as the climax, “the poor have good news preached to them.” You would think that healing blindness, lameness, leprosy, and deafness would be enough. Then Jesus adds another item to the list: “the dead are raised up.” OK, appropriate conclusion. Hard to top that. But Jesus does. He lists one more thing: “the poor have good news preached to them.” Well, there you go. And that’s what’s happening here today. The poor are having good news preached to them. Poor miserable sinners like you and me–Jesus is bringing good news to us!

And that’s what brings you everything else. Through the preaching of the gospel, God is connecting you to Christ, in whom you have healing and resurrection and every other blessing. Through Word and Sacrament, your faith is being strengthened, so that you will not be offended by Jesus and fall away, but rather you will be able to carry on in the midst of all the sorrows and perplexities of life. This is really good news!

Today Jesus gives us the assurance that all the great messianic works will take place. The wrongs will be righted. Jesus truly is the one who is to come. You don’t need to look for another. He is it. What do you expect? Expect Jesus to come and fix all that needs fixing.

Second Sunday in Advent
December 5, 2021

“The Word of God Came to John” (Luke 3:1-20)

Every year during Advent, we get Gospel readings about John the Baptist. Why is that? Well, John’s whole purpose in life was to prepare the way of our Lord Jesus Christ. Likewise, the purpose of Advent is to prepare for the coming of Christ. So it’s a natural fit: John the Baptist prepares the way during this season of preparation called Advent.

In today’s Gospel reading, Luke begins by setting the stage for John the Baptist’s ministry. He writes: “In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness.” And so our theme this morning: “The Word of God Came to John.”

But why mention all these guys, Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate, Herod the tetrarch, Philip the tetrarch, and Lysanias the tetrarch? These were all political figures at different levels of government. Tiberius Caesar, as the Roman emperor, was the most powerful man in the world. Rome ruled the world, and Tiberius was the latest in the line of Caesars. The emperor would have various local rulers governing under him in the lands that Rome had conquered. In the region of Syria or Palestine–which included what we know as Israel–the local ruling dynasty was the house of Herod. Herod the Great had been the ruler at the time of Jesus’ birth. Now, thirty years later, the territory had been divvied up into four parts–thus the term, “tetrarch,” “ruler over a fourth.” That’s where this other Herod comes in, along with Philip and Lysanias. In one of the four parts, the Romans sent in one of their own guys to run that area, and that was Pontius Pilate.

By giving us this string of names, Luke is telling us who the leading political figures were at that time. Then he identifies the leading religious figures, the top men in the Jewish religion: “during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas.” Why is Luke doing this? Why is he setting the stage for John’s ministry in this was? Let me suggest three reasons.

First, this introduction tells us that these events actually occurred in history. This is not some myth or made-up fantasy. No, this is real, down-to-earth human history. It’s like we confess in the Creed: “suffered under Pontius Pilate.” If you go over to Israel, to Jerusalem or Caesarea, you can see actual archaeological artifacts with Pontius Pilate’s name on them, as the governor of Judea–the same Pontius Pilate that Luke mentions here. The point being: This stuff really happened! These events actually occurred in human history.

That’s the first point. Secondly, Luke is telling us that while all these big shots were sitting in their seats of power, the really big deal that God was doing went relatively unnoticed. “The word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness.” What’s truly important is what’s going on with the word of God. Where the word of God comes to man, that’s where the action is. It may not seem important compared to what’s happening in the halls of power, but this is really much more important. “The word of God came to John.”

First, these events happened in history. Second, what God’s word is doing is the truly big deal. Now third, by writing an introduction like this, Luke is telling us one more thing. He’s comparing John the Baptist to the prophets of the Old Testament. It’s the same style as an Old Testament prophet’s “call narrative.” For example, for the prophet Jeremiah: “The words of Jeremiah, the son of Hilkiah, one of the priests who were in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin, to whom the word of the LORD came in the days of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign.” Luke gives the same sort of introduction for the ministry of John the Baptist: In such-and-such year of the reign of so-and-so, “the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness.”

What’s the point? Luke is saying that just like the word of the Lord came to prophets in the Old Testament, for them to call God’s people to repentance and faith in advance of a special visitation of God, so now the word of the Lord comes to John, for him to call people to repentance and faith, ahead of the coming of the Lord. Something big is about to happen, and God sends a prophet in advance to announce the news and to prepare the way.

The word of God came to John back then. And now that same word of God comes to us today. What is this word? It is a word of repentance, and it is a word of forgiveness. This is the word that came to John that he then preached. As our text says: “And he went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” Repentance and forgiveness: John proclaimed both, and so do we.

“The word of God came to John,” a word of repentance. “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall become straight, and the rough places shall become level ways.” “Every valley shall be filled”: Are there places in your life where you ought to be doing things that you aren’t, low spots that need filling in? “Every mountain and hill shall be made low”: Are there high places in your life that need to be brought low, places of pride and being full of yourself? “The crooked shall become straight, and the rough places shall become level ways”: What are the crooked ways in your life, the ways you rationalize and excuse your wrong behavior? What are the rough places that need to be smoothed out, in how you treat other people? Repentance needs to happen in your life.

This word of repentance is not some vague, general idea that we can leave as mere lip-service. “I, a poor miserable sinner,” we say. OK, but poor miserable sinners do poor miserable sins. Specific sins. Sins that can be identified. And John calls us on them. He says what repentance looks like in the particular. If you have plenty of the good things of life: “Whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise.” If you’re a tax collector: “Collect no more than you are authorized to do.” If you’re a soldier: “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or by false accusation, and be content with your wages.” And we can take this further. If you’re a student: “Do not cheat on your exams.” If you’re married: “Do not be mean to your spouse.” If you’re a neighbor: “Do not fail to help your neighbor when you have opportunity to do so.” Repentance gets rather specific. As John says, “Bear fruits in keeping with repentance.” Don’t let your repentance be just a sham or a game you’re playing.

Bearing good fruits means you’ve got to be a good tree. And all of us are bad trees by our sinful nature, ever since our first parents ate from a tree they weren’t supposed to eat from. And bad trees produce bad fruit. They cannot produce good fruit, no matter how hard they try. So first you’ve got to become a new kind of tree. And that’s where the second part of John’s message comes in, namely, the forgiveness of sins.

“The word of God came to John,” and it is a word of forgiveness. You see, all of our bad fruits, our poor miserable sins, need forgiving. And that forgiveness is what God gives us. This is how we become new trees and bear good fruit.

John “preached good news to the people,” it says. We preach that same good news to you! The word of forgiveness came to John, and now we proclaim it to you! Your baptism was and is a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. God buried that old sinful self of yours in the waters of Holy Baptism. Now you arise each new day as a new person, clean and washed and forgiven. Now you are a new tree. By the power of the Holy Spirit, you are able to bear good fruit, fruits in keeping with repentance.

You are a new tree, forgiven and fruitful, because of one tree in particular: the tree on which your Savior died. Christ came and died on that tree to win your forgiveness. John says of this Savior: “He who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.” Christ, the mighty Savior, was coming. He would be cut down in our place, taking the wrath of God we deserve for our sins. Jesus Christ died on the tree of the cross, for you and me, in our place. This then is the good news we preach: that you have forgiveness for Christ’s sake. What’s more, Christ our Lord baptizes you with the Holy Spirit, giving you faith and new life, making you a new tree to bear good fruit.

“The word of God came to John.” Luke is telling us that this stuff really happened in human history. He’s saying that the word of God coming to man, however “off in a wilderness” it may appear, is more important than all that the powerful people of this world are doing. And Luke says that the word came to John like it came to the prophets of old, showing that God was about to do a very big thing, in the coming of the Christ.

“The word of God came to John.” This word is a word of both repentance and forgiveness. This same word comes to you today. The word of God is calling you to repentance, telling you to bear fruits in keeping with repentance. The word of God is preaching good news to you today, proclaiming forgiveness, so that now you are free and a new kind of tree. And this word of God comes to you in the person of the one whose way John prepared: our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The word of God came to John, and now it comes to you.

First Sunday in Advent
November 28, 2021

“Preparation and Praise for Our Coming King” (Luke 19:28-40)

Today is the First Sunday in Advent. That means it’s also the first Sunday in a whole new church year. So I say to you today: Happy new year! And you say to me: “Happy” new year?? How can you say it’s “happy,” Pastor? Really?

Well, I suppose you have a point. There’s a lot going on that isn’t very happy. I mean, look at the news: Inflation is at its highest rate in thirty years. Gas prices are through the roof. On Friday, the stock market took a huge dive; it was the worst Black Friday session on record. There’s talk of yet another new virus variant going around. A week ago, somebody drove a car into a Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin, killing six and injuring dozens. And closer to home, a young wife and mother, 25 years old, collapsed and died from a heart attack. That’s a lot of grief, a lot of stress, a lot of sadness. How can this be a “happy” new church year?

Here’s how: Because Christ is coming. And his coming to us, his coming for us, makes all the difference. He is our comfort in the midst of our grief. He is our peace in the midst of our stress. He is our hope and our joy in the midst of sadness. We still suffer under the load of our afflictions, but Jesus coming to us gives us reason to rejoice amid our sadness. “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion. Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem. Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation.” And so our theme for this morning: “Preparation and Praise for Our Coming King.”

Our text is the Holy Gospel for today, the account of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. That of course happened on Palm Sunday. So why do we get this reading here today? For a couple of reasons: First off, this account of Jesus going up to Jerusalem sets the tone for the whole year to come. Because the whole church year points ahead to and then flows out from Jesus going to Jerusalem for Good Friday and Easter. That is the central focus of the church year, because it’s the central focus of the Christian faith itself: Jesus suffering and dying and rising again for us in triumph over sin, death, and the devil. What is central to our faith and our salvation is mirrored in and taught by the Christian church year. This first Sunday in Advent gets us off to a good start by pointing us in that direction.

Likewise, for the season of Advent itself, this Gospel reading sets the tone. Advent’s emphasis is on the coming of Christ: his coming as a baby at Christmas; his coming to us now in Word and Sacrament; and his coming again at the end of time. Advent has to do with the coming of Christ; the very word, “Advent,” means “coming.” And so our text today fits very well, showing Christ as “the King who comes in the name of the Lord.”

The season of Advent calls us to prepare for his coming. Advent is a season of preparation. We prepare the way of the Lord as we await his coming, praising him as he comes to us. We see these two aspects of preparation and praise featured prominently in our text today.

First, preparation. There’s a lot of preparing going on in our text. Jesus gives his disciples detailed instructions on how to get things ready for his entry into Jerusalem: “Go into the village in front of you, where on entering you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever yet sat. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ you shall say this: ‘The Lord has need of it.’”

A colt on which no one has ever yet sat. In other words, one that God has set apart for this special purpose: to carry the Lord Jesus, as he rides into Jerusalem to redeem a world of sinners. A lowly beast of burden is given the greatest honor of all: to carry the one who would bear the burden of our sins. God has prepared and provided and set apart this one donkey colt to carry out this special assignment. And the disciples were told to carry out their preparations by going and finding that colt. Because “the Lord has need of it.”

We are in a time of preparation right now during this season of Advent. You can see that the preparations have begun. There’s a new color for our paraments, as we have entered the Advent season. The Advent candles will signal the approach of Christmas, as each week, through the four Sundays, we get a little closer. Advent tells us we’re on the way to Christmas, but we’re not there yet. It’s a season of preparation.

But the most important preparation we do this Advent season is not the lighting of candles or putting up a Christmas tree. The most important preparation is preparing our hearts. “O Lord, how shall I meet you, how welcome you aright?” In repentance and faith we welcome our coming King. We are called during Advent to repent, to turn away from our sins, to mourn our sinfulness, and to look to the Lord for cleansing and forgiveness.

Advent preparation means getting things ready for the Lord, whatever he wants to use. Whether it’s a donkey’s colt or our heart, our hands, or or our tongue, if the Lord wants to use it, we set it apart for his purpose. Because the Lord has need of it. Oh, not that he actually needs anything from us. Far from it. We need everything from him. But if the Lord wants to use the gifts he’s given us–our intellect, our income, our witness, our willing service for the good of the church or the good of our neighbor–then we offer whatever he can use, and we say simply, “The Lord has need of it.”

Our Lord Jesus Christ is coming to us for our salvation, and our fitting response is to prepare the way before him. So first was Advent preparation. And now, second, Advent praise! We praise and acclaim our coming King! This also is fitting. Listen to the praises that greeted our Lord when he rode into Jerusalem: “The whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen, saying, ‘Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!’”

During Advent, we join that multitude of disciples in praising God and blessing the King who comes in his name. Praise adorns this Advent season because we know who is coming and what he’s coming to do. During Advent, we welcome our coming King with careful preparation, humble repentance, and joyful praise. With repentant joy we receive our Savior and the salvation he has accomplished for us.

“The whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works they had seen.” They had seen Jesus heal the sick, deliver the oppressed, forgive sins, feed the multitudes, befriend the outcast, and raise the dead. These same mighty works we also see with the eyes of faith. We see what lies in store for us when our Lord will come again and raise our mortal bodies and restore this fallen creation. Christ will give us perfect healing and soundness in the age to come. That’s what we’re waiting for. That’s what our Lord’s first coming guarantees for us. So, knowing what awaits us at his second coming, we too rejoice and praise God with a loud voice.

“Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord!” That’s Jesus! He is our King. He reigns over us in his kingdom of grace even now, and he will reign over us in his kingdom of glory, which will have no end. Jesus is the King who comes in the name of the Lord. He comes with God’s full authority to do what he does. He is the very Son of God, come in the flesh. He comes from the Father, full of grace and truth. We praise and bless this King as he comes to us.

“Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” That’s what this King’s coming brings about: Peace in heaven and glory in the highest. Peace with God once more is made, because Christ himself is our peace. He established peace between God and man, peace between heaven and earth, when he went to the cross and paid the debt for our sins. He took the wrath of God that we deserved upon himself. Now the strife is o’er, the battle done. Peace now reigns in heaven: God is at peace with us because of what Christ Jesus has done.

And this in turn brings glory to God for what he has accomplished in sending the Savior: “Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” The ranks of angels lead the chorus of praise in the heavenlies. We join with them in worship. “Glory in the highest!” The crowds echo what the angels sang at Christmas: “Glory be to God on high, and on earth peace, good will toward men.” We join the angels, we join the welcoming crowds, with our own loud voice of praise. If we were to remain silent, the very stones would cry out. So, together with one voice, we praise the King who comes in the name of the Lord!

Advent, a season of preparation. Advent, a season of praise. Today Advent, as well as the whole church year, gets off to a good start, as we enter this time of preparation and praise for our coming King. Even when times are not happy, even in the midst of grief and stress and sadness, we have comfort, we have peace, and we have hope and joy, because our King is coming to us.

Last Sunday of the Church Year
November 21, 2021

“Stay Awake, for You Do Not Know When” (Mark 13:24-37)

On this Last Sunday of the Church Year, our service emphasizes, appropriately enough, the end times and the return of Christ. As the church year comes to an end, we look forward to the return of our Lord. We need to be ready for his coming at all times, because we don’t know when he will come. Jesus himself says that in our text from Mark 13: “Be on guard, keep awake. For you do not know when the time will come.” And he goes on to say, “Therefore stay awake–for you do not know when the master of the house will come.” Thus our theme today: “Stay Awake, for You Do Not Know When.”

Notice, Jesus says that twice: “Keep awake, stay awake, for you do not know when.” When what? “When the time will come.” “When the master of the house will come.” Jesus is talking about his own coming at the end of time. We do not know when that will be. Jesus flat out states, “Concerning that day or that hour, no one knows.”

However, that has not stopped a number of men who thought they did know. For example, one of these date-setters was a man named William Miller. A self-proclaimed Baptist preacher, Miller had as many as 100,000 followers in New York and Massachusetts in the early 1840s. Basing his calculations on certain prophecies in the Bible, Miller predicted that Christ would return sometime between March 21, 1843, and March 21, 1844. When that didn’t happen, he changed the date to October 22 of 1844. On that day thousands of Millerites gathered on a hilltop to await the return of Christ. The day came and went, Christ did not return, and the Millerites were terribly dismayed. In fact, that day came to be known as the “Great Disappointment.” Many followers left, but enough stayed on to form what became known as the Seventh-Day Adventists.

“Miller time” turned out to be wrong. Since then, many other date-setters have come and gone, along with their predictions. A man named Charles Taze Russell of what become the Watch Tower Society and then the Jehovah’s Witnesses–Russell predicted the rapture first for 1878, then 1881, and later, he revised the millennium to begin in 1914. In recent decades, men like Hal Lindsey of “The Late Great Planet Earth” and Tim LaHaye of the “Left Behind” series have gained their own followers. Ten years ago, a radio preacher named Harold Camping predicted the return of Christ for a date in May of that year; and when it didn’t happen, he recalculated and revised it to a day in October. These guys have to do more recalculating than your GPS when you’re lost! All they do is prove what Jesus said: No one knows the day or hour. We do not know when.

But if the date-setters and the pre-millennial rapture crowd have got it wrong, maybe we have an opposite problem: We don’t think much at all about Christ’s second coming! We’re not actively, eagerly looking forward to Christ’s return. And that’s not good either. Why are we not eagerly anticipating Christ’s return? Could it be that we’ve grown a little too comfortable in this world? We’ve become so accustomed and accommodated to the ways of this world that we’re not actively looking for the life of the world to come.

Is that how it is with you? Have you grown accustomed to this place? The world is heading toward destruction, and yet for so many of us, all we can think about is Christmas shopping, football or hockey, or our favorite TV programs. We get all caught up in the things of this world, and we lose sight of our true hope, which is the return of Christ our Lord. Jesus tells us to watch, so that he does not come suddenly and find us sleeping. But many of us continue to sleepwalk our way through life, instead of being awake and watchful.

To sleepwalkers like us, Christ comes and forgives our sin of being conformed to the ways of the world. He renews our mind, readjusts our thinking. He clears our vision, so that we can see. See with the eyes of faith, to fix our eyes on Christ, our risen and returning Savior. Christ wakes us from our sleep, even as he is risen from the dead, lives and reigns to all eternity. He raised us up in the waters of baptism, that we might walk in newness of life. And he will raise these mortal bodies of ours on the day when he returns.

Renewed and refreshed, now we are awake and we watch. We watch and wait for Christ’s return. Even though we don’t know when, we do know that he will return. And because we don’t know when, we wait for it as though it could happen at any time. And it could. It could happen today. It could happen next week. Or next year. Or a hundred years from now. Whenever the day that Christ returns, we want to be ready for it.

We look forward to that day, because it is our great hope. Not the Great Disappointment. Rather, the Great Hope! The Great Hope that animates and enlivens our lives in this dreary world. Christ is coming again to take us home! Jesus himself says so: “And then they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. And then he will send out the angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.” This will be the great ingathering at the end of time. Jesus will gather his church to himself to be with him forever. This is our Great Hope!

Even though we do not know when, we do know who, and we do know what. And this gives us hope. We know that our Lord Jesus Christ “will come to judge the living and the dead.” And what gives us hope for that day is who he is for us. Because the one who will judge us is the same one who has saved us. The judge is also our Savior.

We do know who. We know who Jesus is! He is the Son of God come in the flesh to be our brother. In his ministry, he came preaching and teaching, healing and making whole. We know who he is! Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He went to the cross for you, to be the perfect sacrifice for your sins. We know who he is! He is the Lord of life, risen from the dead, in triumph over sin and the grave. He is our ascended Lord, our great high priest interceding for us in heaven. He is the bestower of the Holy Spirit, empowering his church for her mission. And this same Jesus is our coming King, who will take us home to live with him forever. Yes, we know who he is!

Knowing who Jesus is, knowing what he is coming to do, we wait and watch for his return. Jesus gives you everything you need to stay awake and waiting until the end. He gives you the promises of his word. He gives you the Holy Spirit, bestowed in baptism to keep you in the true faith. Jesus gives you his very body and blood, for the forgiveness of sins, to strengthen you in faith toward God and in fervent love toward one another.

We don’t know when Christ will return, but we do know who and we do know what. And what’s more, we know what we are to do while we wait for his coming. We don’t gather on hilltops like the Millerites did, leaving life behind. Rather, our waiting is a busy, active thing. As Jesus says in our text: “It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his servants in charge, each with his work.” And so you and I go about our work, the various tasks we have in life, not getting so caught up in them that we lose sight of our Lord’s return, but rather doing our work faithfully and well, even as we watch for his coming. Whatever our particular vocations in life–whether pastor or layman, citizen or official, father, mother, child, worker, employer, teacher, or student–whatever our calling, we do it all to the glory of God. This transforms our daily living. The hope we have for the future invigorates our life in the here and now. Watching, waiting, and working–that’s what we do as we look for Christ to come again.

We don’t know when. But we do know who, we do know what, and we do know what to do in the meantime. We know who Jesus is: He is our returning Savior. We know what he is coming to do: He’s coming to gather us to himself. And we know what to do while we’re waiting: Keep awake, watchful, with the clear eye of Christian hope. Keep doing the tasks God has assigned us to do, our daily lives renewed and transformed by the sure hope that God has given us.

Finally, we also know where, where to find the help we need to stay awake, to remain watchful. We know where to find forgiveness for our sleepiness and sloppiness of living. The forgiveness, the faith and hope and love we need, we find in his Word and Sacraments: the Good News that is preached to you, the Sacraments that are given to you, here in God’s house. Here is where you find the spiritual “No-Doz” you need to remain awake and alert, so that you not drift off into the slumberland of the world.

Brothers and sisters, you have the Great Hope of Christ’s return to look forward to! Keep awake, stay awake, for you do not know when. But you do know him, and that’s what you need to know in order to be ready, whenever he comes.