“Now Are the Days Fulfilled”
Jeremiah 33:14-16

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Pastor Kevin Vogts
Trinity Lutheran Church
Paola, Kansas
First Sunday in Advent—November 27, 2022

In the Name of Jesus.  Amen.

There’s a Christmas song which says, “It’s the most wonderful time of the year . . .  It’s the happ-, happiest time of the year.”  But often that simply isn’t true.  According to an article in a recent Reader’s Digest, surveys and studies show that holiday season from Thanksgiving through New Year’s is actually the worst time of the year for stress and tension, for depression and loneliness, and mourning departed loved ones.

Isn’t there something more to Christmas than the holiday glitz and glitter, something deeper and more meaningful for us?  You are invited to follow along on the last pages of the bulletin as we look at today’s Old Testament Reading, in which Jeremiah tells us the reason for the season.

“The days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will fulfill the gracious promise I made to the house of Israel and to the house of Judah.”  The promise fulfilled on the first Christmas went all the way back to the Garden of Eden.

Paul says in Romans, “the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men.”  Adam and Eve fell into sin, taking the whole human race with them, including you and me.  We all deserve the punishment of eternal separation from God, because of the inherited sin we are born with and the actual sins we commit in our lives.  But already in the Garden of Eden, God made the “gracious promise,” the promise to send a Savior, a Messiah, to redeem us, to win for us salvation.

The Lord said to the serpent, Satan: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your descendants and her Descendant.  He will crush your head.”  That was the first promise of the Messiah; one of Eve’s descendants would be the Savior, who would crush and defeat Satan.

Later the Lord reaffirmed this “gracious promise” and made it more specific, when he said to Abraham and Isaac: “Through your Offspring all nations on earth will be blessed.”  So the Messiah would come from the line of Abraham, from the chosen people of Israel.  As Paul says in Romans: “From them is traced the human ancestry of Christ.”

“The Prophets Have Foretold It” is the theme of our Advent Sermon Series this year.  We will look at some of the amazing Old Testament prophecies of the Messiah’s birth, including today’s Old Testament Reading from Jeremiah chapter 33 — “The days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will fulfill the gracious promise I made to the house of Israel and to the house of Judah.  In those days and at that time I will make a righteous Branch sprout from David’s line.”

Paul says in Galatians, “When the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman.”  That is the reason for the Christmas season: We are celebrating at Christmas the fulfillment of God’s ancient “gracious promise” to send the Savior of the world.

“I will make a righteous Branch sprout from David’s line” was fulfilled when the angels announced to the shepherds: “Unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.”

“He will do what is just and right in the land.”  I would translate that differently: “He will bring justification and righteousness to the world.”  The angels said it this way: “And on earth peace, goodwill toward men.”  Although the “gracious promise” of the Messiah was made to the chosen people of Israel, the salvation he brings is not only for them but for the whole world: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”

“He will bring justification and righteousness to the world.  In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety.”  Judah and Jerusalem are here symbolic of you and me and all believers in Christ, the Church in the New Testament era.  As Paul says in Romans, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? . . .  No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.”

“In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety.  This is the name by which he will be called: The Lord Our Righteousness.” 

In the climax of these verses the Lord tells us a great mystery: The Messiah will be both human, the “Branch of David;” and the Messiah will be divine, “The Lord Our Righteousness.”  As Paul says in Colossians, “In Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form.”  The Babe of Bethlehem is The Lord Our Righteousness.  And the perfect righteousness of this God-man is credited to you through faith in him, as Paul says in Romans: “In the Gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith . . .  This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.”

“The days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will fulfill the gracious promise I made to the house of Israel and to the house of Judah.  In those days and at that time I will make a righteous Branch sprout from David’s line.  He will bring justification and righteousness to the world.  In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety.  This is the name by which he will be called: The Lord Our Righteousness.”

There IS something deeper and more meaningful about Christmas.  As Paul says in 1st Corinthians, “Upon [us] the fulfillment of the ages has come.” The days are fulfilled; Christ the Savior is born; Christ your Savior is born.  What does that mean for you, especially during this season from Thanksgiving through New Year’s—in many ways the worst time of the year?  Your sins are forgiven; God loves you, personally, and he is on your side; and you will be reunited with your loved ones in heaven.

Peel back all the holiday glitz and glitter, and that is what we are celebrating at Christmas; that is the reason for the season.  “Upon [us] the fulfillment of the ages has come.”