3rd Sunday in Advent (Gaudete) – December 15, 2024
Trinity Ev. Lutheran Church, Block, Kansas
Rev. Joshua Woelmer
Text: Luke 3:1–18
“John the Baptist’s Preaching”
Theme: John the Baptist’s law prepared the people’s hearts to receive the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
“Prepare the way of the Lord” sounds like a great thing for Advent. After all, we do a lot of preparing in this season to celebrate Christmas. In fact, the youth went caroling yesterday, and I got comments from some of the shut-ins that they would need to clean up before guests came to sing to them. With a season of invitations and parties, most of you are probably going through a lot of house cleaning and “preparing the way” for guests. That is all good, but I don’t think it exactly gets at the meaning of that phrase “prepare the way.” Cleaning for guests is a kind of preparation, but it is mostly a removal of junk and grime back to a mostly pristine state. John the Baptist does something more than that.
Consider giant earthmovers on construction sites, especially road projects. You have bulldozers, excavators, backhoes, loaders, tractors, dump trucks, graders, scrapers, and so much more. Even though road construction can be an annoyance to drivers, there is something wonderful about watching a new road being built. Here in Kansas, we don’t witness this part of it, but in more mountainous areas of the country, they need to use dynamite or tunnel-borers to carve through or around mountains. Often men need to scrape away lots of earth and pack it down just to get to a stable surface to start. Road construction is a violent task.
This is the setting for the highway mentioned in Isaiah and the Gospels: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain” (Isa 40:3–4). Even in ancient times, highway building required a lot of earth moving. The Roman empire transformed their army into a road-building force when their various legions were at peace. Highways always helped rulers govern better, to transport troops and tax collectors and officials from one place to another quicker.
The reason God uses this imagery, especially for John the Baptist, is because God used him to do similar tasks spiritually. John’s preaching is more like a bulldozer than a Swifter mop. He’s doing more than moving a pile of clothes from the floor into the closet. He’s digging down to the root causes of human actions, which is the sinful nature that we have. It wasn’t pretty. “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. 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” (7–9).
This preaching had its effect. Many people repented and were baptized. John’s baptism was not a Christian baptism, where we receive the Name of God upon us and the Holy Spirit in us. But it is called a “baptism of repentance” (3:3; Acts 19:4) for the “forgiveness of sins.”
John’s message ought to touch our hearts as well. We are not basically good and just need a little cleaning up. We need massive road work, uncovering boulders of sin and pits of destruction. God does this in your heart by the law. He pricks your conscience by reminding you that you do not do what you want to do, and you do the things you don’t want to do (Rom 7:15). It does not feel good in the moment, but it is good for each of us to acknowledge our sinful nature and the sins we have committed, and repent of them.
Only when God does this work of uncovering sin does He begin to rebuild. He starts with forgiveness. We do not need to be rebaptized—our Christian baptism is a once-in-a-lifetime baptism. Confession and Absolution gives us the promises made to us in our baptism. We receive forgiveness from God here in church and when we pray to him. We know that this was also John’s preaching. “So with many other exhortations he preached good news to the people” (18). Furthermore, even though it is not in Luke 3 text, we should not forget what John calls Jesus: “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). Jesus is the one who came as a baby, who came as a man to be baptized by John, to take away your sin and promise you salvation. This is the “reason for the season”: that this Jesus who was born of Mary has come to die and rise again, that we would know God.
John’s preaching led to direction for how to live. John’s forgiveness prompted people to ask how to lead lives of faith, so John gave them direction. “Whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise” (11). Tax collectors were told, “Collect no more than you are authorized to do” (13). Soldiers, which were also the policemen of their day, were told, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or by false accusation, and be content with your wages” (14).
These are good for us to keep in mind as well. Our life of good works flows out from our faith in Christ. Christmas time has always been a time to remember the poor and to spread good cheer.
Sometimes we need a road prepared in our hearts. We need the bulldozer of God’s law to bring sins to light, that Jesus would enter in on a highway of praise to God. Let us open our hearts to God’s law and gospel, that we would be ready to celebrate our Lord.
Now may the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Amen.
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