Beautiful Feet on Christmas Day - Isaiah 52: 7-10

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

The text is the Old Testament Lesson, Isaiah 52, especially these words, “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.”

There is great beauty and wonder in a newborn’s feet and hands. I wonder if Mary and Joseph sat there, in the stable, counting Baby Jesus’ fingers and toes. I have an honest curiosity that is probably greater than most, you might say. Even after the sonogram technician assured us with each of the three kids that each had ten fingers and ten toes, no more and no less, I still counted for myself. I remember sitting there holding the children, having just witnessed the wonderous birth event – technically, perhaps, not a miracle in that the laws of physics and nature were not changed, but nevertheless often considered as if it were a miracle in that it was the gift of life brought into the world – sitting there, holding this wonderous baby but being most particularly fascinated at their teeny tiny feet. It was as if the wonder were reduced down to just two feet, ten toes. Do you know that a normal foot has 26 separate bones with 33 separate joints and 19 muscles that work together to make that magnificent appendage work? I rubbed the arch and the foot curled slightly, the toes wiggling in their new-found freedom, already seeking for space to move, to crawl, to walk. Beautiful feet, indeed.

What is it that makes feet beautiful? It doesn’t take long for feet to become something less than attractive. Perhaps that’s why our feet spend most of their lives covered up. A whole industry exists to try to beautify those wonderful instruments of peripatetic propulsion – peripatetic is your word of the day, it means walking. We buy pumice stones and sanding blocks to sand down calloused heels. We use emery boards to smooth sharp toe nails and coat them with enamel and lacquer and crystal gel to make them match our clothes. We surgically straighten bunions and correct hammer toes and get rid of bone spurs. We eliminate athlete’s foot. We topically coat with lotions and potions all with the notion that we, too, can have feet just as beautiful as those of models that we see on television.

But, the fact is that there are feet that no amount of work will make beautiful again. Have you ever seen photos of a veteran ballerina? Their feet are wrecked from the decades of being tightly wrapped into their toe shoes and dancing, pirouetting, and leaping with their toes. Ranch hands and farmers rarely have pretty feet after being tenderized by livestock and machinery. If you want to see ugly feet, look at a soldier’s feet, especially if they have been in the Infantry. And there are the feet that exist in the fallen world: feet traumatized by disease, broken by accidents, shattered by man’s inhumanity to man, and even those that are malformed and deformed because of genetic failures from birth.

Do this: move your feet just a bit. Roll the ankles a wee bit. Tense and relax the foot muscles. Wiggle the toes. If that’s too much, just give them a little bit of a lift, maybe a soft tap on the floor. How do they feel? Were they comfortable this morning because of the warm weather, as opposed to being achey and stiff from the cold of the past week? Maybe you ate a little too well and the gout is acting up, or arthritis had you reach for the Tylenol this morning. Maybe you stood for too long last night and your feet still burn. Did you stub your toe last trying to help the grandkids with their presents? Or, worse, on the way to the bathroom at 3am, did you step on the dreaded Legos hiding in the carpet?

In your feet, there is a microcosm of the entire fallenness of the world. The aches and pains, the hurts and the struggles your feet experience, they are in miniature of what the world knows since the fall. The cracked heels, the ingrown nails, the fungus, the flat arches, the neuropathy – these are reminders that we live in a fallen world, reminders that are very real and very painful.

Jesus came into that very world to redeem you, all of you, whole and wholly – body, soul, eyes, ears, mind, heart, head, shoulders, knees and toes. And, feet.

Close your eyes for just a second. I want you to imagine for a moment the Nativity: Mary and Joseph holding their newborn Son. See the joy in Mary’s gaze and the wonder in Joseph, how the Son of God was born? Do you see their loving caress? Now, zoom in a little bit. Look more closely at the Swaddled Baby squirming and wiggling just a bit and…oops – there it is. Freeze frame. Look closely. Did you see His foot pop out? There is His foot. Zoom in a little more in your mind. Look closely and there it is…a shadow on His foot. Can it be? Why, that shadow looks like the shape of a cross. 

Open your eyes. I don’t know that is true – in fact, it is highly doubtful. What I want you to see, though, is that those newborn feet will begin a journey from that manger down the same path that you and I know and down which you and I journey. Jesus’ feet will take Him places where He will experience our sorrows and losses. He will be lead out into the wilderness where He will be tempted to leap from the top of a mountain. He will walk into a temple where He will experience anger at what God’s people did to the Father’s house. He will stop a funeral procession and speak with a grieving mother. He will enter the home of a Gentile soldier whose son is critically ill. He will attend a wedding and turn water into wine and He will stand on a hillside and feed 5000 with a boy’s lunch. He will stand outside Lazarus’ tomb and weep. And then those beautiful feet will make the slow climb up the road to Jerusalem, down the path where palm branches and cloaks were strewn, to an upper room where He ate with the disciples, declaring His Body and Blood in, with and under bread and wine. His feet will lead Him and the 11 out to the Garden of Gethsemane where soldiers will, first, fall at His feet, only to rise up and arrest Him. He will stand in the court of Herod and Pilate, and then be led out to be crucified. Nails would pierce those beautiful feet, pinning Him to the cross where He would die. Those feet would be wrapped up and lovingly buried. And, on the third day, those feet would rise from the grave, and Jesus would stand, risen and alive, next to Mary; they would journey to Emmaus with three disciples, He would stand suddenly behind locked doors with the Disciples, and He would declare peace.

I said Jesus follows the footsteps of humanity. As His disciples, we also follow after His footsteps. We follow His footsteps under the cross, this side of heaven. This side of heaven, there are aches and pains, sorrows and sadness. There are also moments of joy and happiness, filled with peace and Hope.

I want you to know that no matter how embarrassed you are of your feet, your feet are beautiful because of Jesus. That’s how God sees them: beautifully forgiven in Jesus. That sounds weird to think of feet as being forgiven, doesn’t it? But it’s true. With the bunions and hammer toes and athlete’s foot and cracked heels and missing toes and dwarfed feet – God sees your feet as beautiful in Christ.

There will be a day when your feet will be truly, wonderfully beautiful and all of the aches and pains of your feet – and all the aches and hurts of this world – will be gone. In the resurrection of all flesh, your feet will be completely recreated in the perfection God intended them to be. And for those of us whose feet are less than perfect now, that are missing pieces, that have been I think they will be whole. I admit this is a goofy picture, but I imagine myself in the resurrection, sitting in the grass, just staring at my feet and toes, wiggling them like crazy, and feeling that wonderful tingling burn up into my calves. Then, in my imagination, I see a pair of nail-marked feet walk up next to me. The things is, they look the same – minus the marks, of course - His feet are mine; my feet are His.  Will it happen that way? I don’t know. But I’m looking forward to the day of finding out.

In a few minutes, your feet will pick you up and leave this place. You’ll go to your homes and, in the days ahead, you’ll get back to your normal routine. But, you leave this place with beautiful Christmas feet. Use your beautiful feet to share this Christmas message with those whom you encounter today, and tomorrow, and over the weekend. Christmas doesn’t stop on the 25^th, remember? The Christmas season continues until January 6, Epiphany. Tell them about the feet of the One who died. Tell them about the One who redeems their feet. Tell them about the promise of resurrection feet. Tell them they have beautiful feet because of the Good News of Jesus.

Christmas Angels With Christmas Messages

Glory to God in the highest and peace to His people on earth. Amen.

Perhaps, other than the Baby Jesus Himself, there is no other aspect of the Nativity that garners as much attention as the angels. I understand why, and I suspect you do as well: curiosity. Most of us have never seen an angel – certainly not like those that appeared on that dark night, illuminating the dark, Judean countryside, and sounding forth the Lord’s message. An angel – remember, angel means “messenger” – delivered the good-news message of Christ’s birth. “Unto you is born this day, in the city of David, a Savior which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you: you shall find the babe, wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.” The solo voice was soon joined by an angelic orchestra who filled the sky with song and light: “Glory to God in the highest and peace to His people on earth.” In art and in hymnody, this angelic moment garners our attention.

Tonight I want to tell you about another angel. This angel I do know. She even has a name – Mrs. Stahl. Before anyone gets too excited, let me explain: I don’t mean she was a heavenly angel, but she was a messenger, and that is why I speak of her as an angel. Mrs. Stahl was my kindergarten teacher at Holy Cross Lutheran Church in Emma, Missouri in 1979. The funny thing is, besides her name, I remember almost nothing about her. I think she had curly hair, but I’m not sure. I don’t remember her face, or her voice; I remember her as being kind, but not why. I remember our classroom – it was big, about the size of Mrs. LaBrue’s room, but with wood floors, pink walls, and old-school desks, the kind with the spinning chairs attached - and I remember her desk in the front of the room, off to the side, near the windows, with an honest-to-goodness blackboard passing behind her across the front wall.

I remember this placement because every Friday, we stood beside her desk to recite the week’s memory verse to her. Every Monday we were given a Bible verse to learn, by rote. We practiced it every morning, saying it together, but Fridays we were on our own. With our back to the class, we faced her and said our assigned verse.

What brought all of this to mind is being here with the kids, listening to them learn the Christmas narrative, and watching them come to the microphone and repeat their lines. You see, the very first memory verse I learned that fall was from the Christmas narrative of Luke 2: “For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior which is Christ the Lord.” So, there I was, standing next to her desk and I ripped off those nineteen words like a 5 year old auctioneer. A Plus, Gold Star, thank you very much, and I turned around to go sit down, quite proud of my accomplishment. But that’s not where my memory stops. I can’t remember her hair color, or the smell of her perfume, but I remember what Mrs. Stahl did next. She touched my arm and stopped me – in those days, teachers could still touch students. When I turned around to face her, she praised me for getting the words right, but then asked, “Now, can you tell me what it means?” I don’t remember my answer; maybe I said something about Christmas and Baby Jesus but it’s also possible that I just shrugged my little shoulders. Mrs. Stahl said, “The angel told the shepherds Jesus was for them. But it also means Jesus is for you. He was born to be your Savior. Jesus is for you, Jonathan.” Then, one by one, as each child came to her desk and recited their memory, she told each child the same thing: Jesus is for you.

It took many years for me to get it, to figure out what she did and why Mrs. Stahl did that on that fall morning in 1979. In that Emma, Missouri classroom, Mrs. Stahl was an angel. I don’t mean a being with wings who descended from the heavens in radiant light like happened that first Christmas outside Bethlehem. Angel means “messenger,” remember, and angels have both a message to deliver and someone to deliver it to. Mrs. Stahl was an angel and the message she delivered was the Gospel, the Good News, that Jesus is the Savior. And her audience was a group of four, five, and six year old kids in western Missouri.

We weren’t all that different from the shepherds, I suppose: an unlikely audience, overlooked by most folks, important to our families but at the same time insignificant in the scope of things. Like the shepherds, we kids probably weren’t completely sure what was being told to us, yet we realized this angel-messenger-teacher was trying to tell us something, that her message was unique and special: that Jesus wasn’t just the Savior, or the Savior of the world, or the Savior for our parents and adults but a Savior for us.

That Bethlehem night some 2000 years earlier, God became enfleshed to dwell among those whom He came to save. Conceived by the Holy Spirit, born to His Virgin mother Mary and stepfather Joseph, God the Son humbled Himself to fulfill the Father’s promise made to another woman millennia earlier. Through Eve came the curse of man; through Mary came the salvation of man. To Eve came the promise of a seed who one day would crush satan’s head; to Mary was born the one who would be bruised but conquer. Through Eve, hope was passed from generation to generation. Through Mary, the hopes and fears of all the years were fulfilled.

Unto you... Those two words take the Christmas narrative and deliver it to hearers across the globe, across the ages, across borders, across languages. Unto you… Those words still echo to this evening of Christmas. They carry from the mouth of the heavenly angel…unto you. Unto you all…Jesus, born; Jesus, Savior; Jesus, Christ the Lord.

I lost touch with Mrs. Stahl. She left Holy Cross, and two years later we moved to Texas. But I’ve never forgotten what she taught me that morning. She taught it better than most of the PhD professors I had at the Seminary, in fact. The Gospel of Jesus isn’t just words in the Bible for pastors to read and memorize. It’s Good News for people, people who included shepherds, kindergarteners, and each one of you here this evening. It’s delivered in classrooms and fields, in homes and hospitals, in prison cells and in battle zones. Unto you. And when one person shares that Good News of Jesus with someone else who needs to hear God’s grace and mercy freely given, without any strings attached; that God deigned to be born in a Bethlehem stable so He could live among us and die for us; that Baby Jesus, laying in a manger, was already your Savior… when one person tells another this story, they…you!... – in that moment – become an angel, a Christmas messenger.

And, in that moment, whether it’s tonight or tomorrow or a week from Thursday, whether it’s your parent or child, a favorite in-law or a struggling step-child, a friend or a complete stranger, you can say with the angels, “Unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior which is Christ the Lord.”

Say it with me: “Unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior which is Christ the Lord.”

Unto you…a Savior. Unto you.

Amen.

 

 

 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. The text is the Gospel reading from Matthew 1.  

Ever have a bowl of corn flakes? They are about as plain as plain can get. Nothing fancy in that bowl of flaky, yellow crunchiness. That’s part of the problem. How do you market plain? Compared to the some of their multi-textured, suger-crusted, cinnamon-dusted, flavor-enhanced neighbors on the cereal shelves, corn flakes are simple, ordinary, and, well, plain. We say something plain is “vanilla,” but what if it’s not even vanilla? So, some time ago, one of the cereal companies tried rebranding with the clever notion, “Taste it again for the first time.” Remarkably, sales soared as people did just that.

Today, I invite you to do the same with the Christmas narrative. It’s helpful that it’s from Matthew, because most of us are more familiar with the Luke 2 version. Because we’re less accustomed to Matthew’s rendition, it makes it easier for us to “taste the Nativity again for the first time.”

I love this sentence: “Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way.” Consider what those eleven words are saying. Immanuel, God-with-us, was birthed. God takes on flesh to dwell among us. For those keeping score, that is the first miracle that is recorded in this reading. Jesus - who was with the Father since the beginning, remember, along with the Holy Spirit; He’s not showing up fashionably late to the party…He’s always been there! – Jesus physically enters time and space so that He can live like you and me. God is born. Don’t miss that. God is born. Yes, there is a mystery there – how does the infinite take on the finite – but don’t lose sight of the blessing of God. Jesus comes to us; He takes on flesh so that He can be born, so He can be a human, so He can know life this side of heaven with all that entails, including its joys, sorrows, and temptations.

I love the Nativity of Jesus. I also love looking at the various artistic renditions of the holy night. You can quite literally spend hours on-line, scrolling through paintings, sketches, and drawings of the artists’ impression of what may have transpired in that Bethlehem stable. While they range from the incredibly ornate to the surprisingly simple, artists try to capture that sacred moment. Each, in their own way, lend another view of that holy night with the Holy Family, the Infant Babe, the shepherds, and whatever livestock may, or may not, have been present, all paying homage to Immanuel.

But, I submit, none of them get it quite right. They all miss one incredibly important detail, one that lends a deeper understanding to the birth of Jesus. Allow me to explain what I mean.

I was present in the birthing suite for all three of our children. There was blood, and crying, and pain and agony and then, the cry of the baby over and against the tears of Laura and me. I have yet to see an artist who has captured that in the birth of Jesus. All of the paintings present a clean, sanitary, sterile picture for us as if Mary were pregnant one minute and then – POOF! – Jesus appears, wrapped in swaddling blankets with Mary kneeling humbly at the side of the manger, fully dressed without a hair out of place. Joseph is nearby in prayerful pose, also the perfect example of cool, calm and collected. Please understand: I am not making fun, nor being sacrilegious. My point is this: the birth of Jesus was a bloody, messy, and probably loud arrival, just like any other child. When Matthew writes, “Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place this way,” you must understand this: birth is through blood and water.

That blood was a foreshadowing of His life. That bloody, Bethlehem birth foretold His death on the Jerusalem hillside some 30 years later when blood and water would flow from his pierced side. Matthew could just as well have written, “Now, the death of Jesus Christ came about this way,” and he would have been perfectly on track. That’s where the rest of the Gospel is leading: to the cross. The cross is the place where Jesus will atone for our sins. He was born so that He could die as the perfect sacrifice after living the perfect life under the Law of God. In that manger, the cross was already on the horizon, unseen and unknown by anyone else.

The Christmas songs, hymns, and carols we love to sing miss this. Only a few set the stage for us, reminding us that the cross was already on the horizon, unseen and unknown by Mary, Joseph, or anyone else that holy night.

            Why lies He in such mean estate, where ox and ass are feeding?
            Good Christian, fear; for sinners, here, the silent Word is sleeping.
            Nails, spear shall pierce Him through, the cross be born for me, for you;
            Hail, hail the Word made flesh, the babe, the Son of Mary.

That is the first miracle: Jesus is born. There is one other miracle, described in another amazing sentence that Matthew records. Bear with me for a second; we’ll get there.

I have often wondered how the conversation went with Mary and Joseph. “Hey, Joe? I need to tell you something. There was this angel, see? And – well, you’re going to be a step-father, Joe. Hey…what do you think I am? No, Joe…there isn’t anyone else – I promise! No…Joe!!! Don’t say that! Joe! Please….please, listen…I believe the angel…please, believe me!” I’ve never seen that scene in a painting. Have you? But I can imagine a sad look on his face as Joseph turns and walks, slowly, out the door intending to never return.

Back then, marriages were legally binding from the beginning of the betrothal, well before the “I now pronounce you,” that we recognize today. I can’t say I would have blamed Joseph for assuming the worst. “Mary, I’m no doctor – I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express, once – but I know enough to know about birds, bees, flowers, trees and the moon up above.” I don’t blame him for checking in with a lawyer about the process of a divorce before their marriage was sanctified. To his credit, he was going to do things as gently and privately as he could – no public scandal, here – so to cause her no shame.

Then, the angel of the Lord intervened through a dream: “Don’t be afraid.” If you prefer a literal understanding: “Stop; discontinue being afraid, Joseph.” It’s as if the angel tells Joseph, “As Mary believes, you believe, also!” When he wakes up, I imagine he swallowed hard a few times, took a few deep breaths, and said the Hebrew equivalent of “Here we go.” That’s the second miracle. Against all human wisdom and expectation, Joseph believes the promise and call of God to faithfully be the earthly father to Jesus, the Son of God and Son of Mary.

Again, it speaks to the humanity of the story. It wasn’t all those neat, Norman Rockwell-esque “peace on earth, goodwill to men” paintings and sketches we see on our Christmas cards. There were real feelings, emotions, decisions. God gave Joseph both the faith to believe the angel and then to live with the wonderfully strange vocation of (what we would today call) being stepfather to the Son of God.

It’s all there in Matthew’s tight, condensed narrative: Mary, Joseph, virgin mother, prophecy completed, an angelic messenger, and finally the birth of her son, named Jesus.

Joseph appears only a handful of times after this. In fact, after Joseph, Mary, and the infant Jesus flee to Egypt (Matthew 2), he shows up only once more time – when Jesus was 12 (the end of Luke 2), and Mary and Joseph find Him in the temple, holding confirmation class. Then Joseph disappears. If we were writing this as a movie script, he would be “supporting cast.” That’s OK. He had his role; he had his vocation and he did it faithfully.

How do I know that? Simple: “And he called His name Jesus.”

It’s good that we are hearing these words again today. With everything going on, it’s easy to lose sight of what Christmas is all about. That special item that you ordered hasn’t shown up yet. Going to the store is practically an exercise in close combat. You promised to bake cookies with your grandkids, the lights died on the tree yesterday, you’re not feeling all that well, and there are Amazon orders, still in their boxes, that need to be wrapped stealthily when no one is around. Add to that the medical tests and appointments you’re trying to squeeze in under this year’s deductible and making sure everyone has the perfect outfit for Christmas Eve or Day… Well, it's almost enough to put the bah-humbug back into Christmas.

So, here’s what I want to do with you. For a few minutes, we’re going to tune all that out. I’m going to re-read Matthew’s Christmas narrative. I want you to sit with those words, and listen to the words tell the story of the birth of Jesus, your Savior. “Taste it again for the first time” in this moment. Close your eyes, and listen to what the Holy Spirit inspired Matthew to record for us.

¹⁸ Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. ¹⁹ And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. ²⁰ But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. ²¹ She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” ²² All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet:

²³ “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us). 

²⁴ When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife, ²⁵ but knew her not until she had given birth to a son. And he called his name Jesus.

Amid everything else to do this week, remember this: Jesus is for you, dear friend. The Nativity is for you. This gift of God is for you. The gift…the gift of Jesus and His grace, mercy, and love endures. God bless you this crazy, hectic, bonkers week.

The Baptizer Prepares the Way for Jesus - Matthew 3: 1-12

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. The text is the Gospel lesson, from Matthew 3.

Boy, howdy. Talk about old-school fire and brimstone. Apparently, the Baptizer didn’t read Dale Carnegie’s book How to Win Friends and Influence People when he was at prophet school. I don’t think he followed Simon Sinak on Instagram or Brene’ Brown on YouTube for leadership techniques. He apparently was never evaluated for his ability to understand EQ and how to read a room. I highly doubt he ever attended a church growth seminar. And his preaching technique? “You brood of vipers!” is hardly an acceptable introduction. Let me be a little more pointed: which of you who were on St. Paul’s call committee would advance John past the initial list from the district president? Who would want the Baptizer to be their regular pastor?

Yet, Isaiah foretold some seven hundred years earlier that God would send this voice in the wilderness to proclaim, “Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight.” And to make sure no one would misunderstand who he was and what it was John was called to do, Matthew plainly says, “This is he.” It’s as plain as his preaching: repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

We speak of repentance as having two parts. The Catechism teaches that there is sorrow for sin and a desire to change that behavior, called contrition. That’s common among anyone who gets caught, though, when doing something wrong. Anyone can feel bad; anyone can say “I want to do better.” What makes repentance Christian repentance is faith that trusts that Jesus’ death pays for those very sins for which I am sorry and from which I wish to turn. Christian repentance says, “Yes = I am a poor, miserable sinner, and I am sorry to be so, but I have an even greater Savior who rescues me from what my sins deserve.” 

Do not think of John’s preaching of repentance in this way. John would have a much more radical, severe changing of heart. A better way to understand the Baptizer’s call is “Be converted!” It’s the equivalent of Shakespeare’s Hamlet saying, “there is something rotten in the state of Denmark.”

Imagine, sitting on the hillside in the Baptizer’s congregation and hearing a sermon like this:

“Both Israel and Jerusalem are corrupt, spiritually rotten from top to bottom, and that includes you, Pharisees, and you, Sadducees, and all who are following after you thinking you are good enough, holy enough, and righteous enough to march into the Kingdom of God on your own merits. Want to play the “son of Abraham card”? That’s not going to get you there. Remember, Abraham lived by faith in the promises of God; you, you all are placing your faith in your own way of living.  You are lost – so lost, you are in danger of eternal separation from God in the fires of hell. Change your life, change your thinking, change where you place your trust and faith.

You have forgotten the commands of God and, more important, you have forgotten the promises of God and unless you repent, unless you are completely changed in your hearts, minds, and lives by the Spirit of God, you too shall likewise perish. Prepare the way of the Lord, you brood of vipers; make His paths straight, you slithering snakes in the grass, because the Kingdom is at hand and He is coming with a vengeance, with fire and pitchforks and wrath that knows no limits. You need to get yourself out to the Jordan. Repent and be baptized. You need to redo the Red Sea. You need to redo the Jordan. You need to redo the return from Babylon. You need to re-turn to the Lord your God and prepare because the reign of God stands near in the work of the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth.”

St. Matthew does not tell us know the message was received. Did John succeed, that is, were there conversions? Did the Holy Spirit drive the words of his preaching, penetrating their hearts and minds, to re-turn them to faithfulness? Did they listen? Did they repent? The text does not say. We are left wondering – wondering why Matthew doesn’t tell us this piece of information, but also wondering what of the faithfulness of these being-lost ones. Others were coming; others were repenting; others were being baptized; others were believing. But these – these, there is no story and no happy ending. So, the question remains: did they repent?  We don’t know.

There is another question here, one that lays below the surface. Do you hear the voice of the Prophets that echoes through the centuries. John and his fore-runner Isaiah continue to call to God’s people of every epoch, age, eon and generation: “Prepare the way of the Lord: make His paths straight.” To be sure, unlike Isaiah, we know that Christ has come. Unlike John, we know that Christ came, not as an axe-wielding, pitchfork-bearing fire-breathing bringer of damnation. Instead, He bore the sins of the world into His own body, receiving the wrath of God Himself, reconciling the world to God with His own death. He was numbered with the sinners, broke bread with transgressors, touched lepers, forgave prostitutes, called tax collectors to follow. He even absolved those who killed Him, and the one who mocked and then confessed faith while hanging next to Him.

But, the words still call us to prepare. So, if the camel-haired, leather-strapped, wild-haired Son of Zechariah suddenly appeared, striding down the aisle while picking a grasshopper’s leg from between his teeth with a dirty fingernail and with honey glistening from his bushy beard, then ascending the pulpit, and call out to the wilderness of the 1600 block of East Broadway, Enid, Oklahoma, “Prepare the way of the Lord: make His paths straight,” what would he mean?

Why, repent, of course. In Advent, there is plenty to repent of: the materialism of the world around us, our desire for always more, for not being content with what we have, for being jealous of what some have, for a bit of arrogance in having more than what others have. Repent for being too busy to find time with Jesus in His Word, for being too tired to be present when He invites us to His table. Repent of being Lutheran, as if that would save, or holding our Baptismal or Confirmation certificate aloft, as if that would redeem. Repent of pretending to be strong instead of humble and meek and lowly.  Make no mistake: both our repentance and our being baptized are grounded in the fullness of our salvation by grace through faith. Because you are forgiven, because you are redeemed, because you are united with Christ, because you are sanctified, because you declared holy by the Father, I dare not call you broods of vipers, nor do I call you snakes, Pharisees or Sadducees. That is, at best unfair; at worst, it is completely inaccurate. You are God's children - beloved, redeemed, baptized. Yet, the message is still quite similar for you - albeit less viperous than it was for that Judean hillside 2000 years ago. 

So, if John were here, what would his message mean? It would mean this: strip away anything that would get in the way of Christ’s coming to you right now. Prepare the way; make the paths straight. Knock down mountains of busy-ness that prevent you from welcoming the Christ today. Fill in the potholes of foolishness, thinking there’s always time to prepare. Straighten the curves of arrogance, “He’s waited this long…why the fuss now?” Get rid of the boulders that trip you up with distractions. Instead, with faith, with longing, with anticipation, with prayerful mindedness and with Advent anticipation, know that the Kingdom is here. He is at Hand. Repent. Come to the Table. Christ is here, Sacramentally present in bread and wine, in body and blood, to strengthen you on this Advent journey as you await the day He comes, not merely in bread and wine, but in His risen Glory and you see Him as He is. 

Enriched with that spiritually-strengthening food and drink, empowered by the Spirit of God, enlivened by His word, every day prepare that Jesus comes today – not tomorrow, not next week, month, year, or decade – He comes today. Knock down the mountains and fill in the potholes that get in the way of you welcoming Him with faith, hope and love. Amen.