Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Welcome to the beginning of a new church year. You should
have a clue something has changed. The paraments and stole are blue. The
Christmas tree is up, of course, along with the lights and wreaths. The
Nativity scene is carefully placed. Welcome to the season of Advent.
Advent comes from the Latin word for “coming.” In this holy
season, we celebrate the coming of Christ in history, in humility, in His
conception and birth; in our time, present in Word and Sacrament; and His
promised coming in the future, when He returns in glory to judge the living and
the dead. It’s a season of preparation, a season of anticipation, a season of
expectation as we again hear the ancient promises of God to His people of old,
their fulfillment in Bethlehem, and continue whetting our anticipation for Him
again.
The hymnody helps set that tone: “O Come, O Come Emmanuel,”
“Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus,” and “Come Thou Precious Ransom Come” (which
we will sing shortly) are just a few. The last words in the Bible are the same
advent prayer, “Come quickly, Lord Jesus.” We pray it at our dinner table,
“Come Lord Jesus,” and we even pray it in the Lord’s Prayer. “Let thy Kingdom
come.” It comes across better, clearer in Latin, “adveniat regnum tuum.”
For many, we have unfortunately lost the sense of
anticipation of anything besides the Christmas-centric anticipation. We believe
Jesus will return, but we have lost the urgency, the sense of “soon.” “He’s
waited this long, what’s the rush?”
Isaiah helps us return that sense of urgency to our
preparation with His own prayer for the Lord to advent, to come, soon, quickly,
and with a vengeance. “Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down, that
the mountains might quake at your presence – as when fire kindles brushwood and
the fire causes water to boil.” The imagery in the first 4 verses is powerful.
It’s as if Isaiah is praying for Israel, Tear the heavens open, O Lord, it’s as
if you are so far from us, separated by time and space. Rip them open; make Your presence known, so
there is no more wondering if You care, if you really are our God. Make the
nations, the goy, our enemies, Your enemies, know exactly who You are so
that their knees knock when Your name is revealed to them. We remember how Sinai quaked when Your
presence was revealed; do it again, O Lord, because no one has seen or heard
any other God like You who acts for Your people. Come, O God, and act against them!
It's easy to pray for the Lord’s return with vengeance when
looking outside your own walls. Isaiah and Israel did it thousands of years
ago. We do it today, too, I suspect. We look around and see the world in which
we live. While there is much to rejoice in, there is also much to grieve and
lament. I was at the barbershop Thursday
morning and asked the barber, “How’s the world treating you?” Without missing a
beat, the devout Christian said something like “It’s getting harder and
harder,” giving some examples of things he had seen and heard locally, in the
news, and on the internet. I suspect he would have given a hearty, “Amen!” to
Isaiah’s prayer, “Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down…”
You know the old adage, “be careful what you wish for?” Is
that really what we want? Do we really want the Lord to rend, tear, rip apart
the heavens with a vengeance? Isaiah realized it might not be as pleasant a
picture as he first envisioned. Lest we forget, it is not only the enemies of
God who have sinned. Isaiah writes, “Behold, you were angry, and we sinned; in
our sins, we have been a long time, and shall we be saved?” Isaiah compares
even our best with dirty, filthy garments.
Traditionally, Advent was a season of repentance. Readings
like this help us see that. Behold: we, God’s people, are not immune from the
consequences of our sins. Behold: we dare not simply and simplisticly assume
God’s wrath is only going to be dumped on “those people.” Behold: we are
guilty, too. We’re sinful; we’re broken; we’re part of the problem, too. We’re
not as righteous as we think we might be.
We can’t say, “But we’re not as bad as they are.” That is
irrelevant. There is no room for negotiation. We do that in our lives – well,
at least I wasn’t going as fast as that guy; well, at least I didn’t steal ten
million dollars; well, it’s not like others haven’t cheated on their spelling
test before. Our excuses only cement the truth: we are guilty. There isn’t a
valid comparison, more than or less than. We have sinned against God and
against man. We need God’s mercy, grace and compassion, not self-righteousness,
as much as the next one.
Isaiah does not leave us in Advent despair. Calling out to
God, as a patiently molding potter, we are the work of the Father’s hand. “Be
not so terribly angry, O Lord, and remember not your iniquity forever.”
How does the Lord answer this Advent prayer? How does the
Lord hear and respond to our cries?
In this: He rends the heavens and comes down. The Father
sends His Only Begotten Son, Jesus, the Messiah, and splits apart the heavens
and comes down to earth to be born of the Virgin Mary. He sets aside His full
glorious power and majesty to dwell among us, in flesh, yet full of grace and
truth. At His birth, the heavens are opened and the angels sing. At His baptism,
the heavens are opened and the Spirit descends and the Father speaks, “This is
my beloved Son.” He came, as the Baptizer said, to separate the wheat and burn
up the chaff. He comes to rescue His people from His own enemies. He comes to
fulfill the Law that was thundered down on Sinai and when the fire fell on
Caramel.
That takes place at another mountain. Within the city of
Jerusalem, at the Temple mountain, for centuries sacrifices were made daily by
the hundreds and thousands. Outside of the city of Jerusalem is a hill, known
less as a place of holiness and more as a place of horror, where the guilty
were crucified in gruesome agony. There darkness covered the world, the earth
shook, and the heavens were closed, sealed so that the Innocent Son of God
cries of agony for His Father to hear His prayer were met in terrible silence. All
around us, the world just wants the Christmas tree. We know a different tree,
the tree of the Cross. On that Tree, Jesus died for us. So, Advent does have that
tone of repentance, for it is because of our sins that Jesus was born; He was
born to die. And, Christ died to live. Just as neither cross nor grave was the
end for Jesus, neither death nor the grave is the end for us.
He comes to redeem His people. Our filthy rags are stripped
from us and, in our Baptism, the heavens are opened for us and we are wrapped
in the righteousness of Christ. In Jesus, the Father looks on us with favor,
mercy and compassion showing on His delighted face.
Isaiah helps reminds us that Jesus is returning. He is patiently waiting, not coming, yet,
with fire and thunder and earthquakes. He is slow, His patience is an act of
grace, giving people the opportunity to hear and believe of Christ who came to
seek and save the lost, that they may repent and trust His promises and also
look forward to the day of His return.
On that great, glorious day, when the heavens are torn apart
and He descends where every eye can see Him and every ear hear His voice, He
will raise the dead and the faithful will be restored into perfection for
eternity with Him. For those who know, believe, trust and rely on Jesus as
their Savior, having been declared by their Righteous King to also be
righteous, they shall be raised into eternity. And you all will see each other,
you and your loved ones whom you miss now so much, you will be resurrectedly
whole. But even greater than that, you will see Jesus, Immanuel, God in flesh,
who came once, in time, and who returns again to deliver the salvation promised
through Isaiah.
Sing with me:
O Come, O Come, Emmanuel, And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear.
Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel Shall come to thee, O Israel. (LSB 357 v1)
No comments:
Post a Comment