“Seven Scenes from the Advent-Christmas Story:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus
Christ. Amen. The theme for our services during Advent this year is, “Seven Scenes from the
Advent-Christmas Story,” including, “Shepherds Watching,” “Angels Singing,”
“Mary Praising,” “Joseph Dreaming,” “Herod Fearing,” and “Wise Men Worshipping.”
We begin this morning with today’s Gospel Reading, and the story of “John
Preaching.” Since ancient times the Church has featured during the Advent season a Gospel
Reading about the ministry of John the Baptist. But, though
it is an old tradition, it seems somewhat out of place as we prepare to
celebrate Christmas. First of all, the timing is all wrong. The Gospels tell us
that John the Baptist and Jesus were cousins, and John was only six months older
than Jesus. So, why, as we prepare to celebrate the birth of
the infant Babe of Bethlehem, do we skip ahead 30 years to the ministry of the
adult John the Baptist? Also, the mood of John’s ministry seems all out of place for this most
wonderful time of the year. As the Gospel of Luke reports:
“John said to the crowds coming out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers!
Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit
in keeping with repentance. . . The ax is already at the root of the trees, and
every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the
fire. . . His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his
threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the
chaff with unquenchable fire.” Not exactly merry and bright! So, then why did the ancient
Church give us the custom of focusing on the ministry of John the Baptist during
these days leading up to the Christmas celebration? Because,
they understood there are two sides to Christmas. There is the aspect of Christmas that in our culture today we emphasize
almost exclusively, as reflected in some of our favorite carols: “Joy to the
World,” “Good Christian Men, Rejoice!,” “God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen,” “Tis’
the season to be jolly!” This jolly side of Christmas is
aptly represented by our modern-day Santa Claus, as the poem says, “Chubby and
plump, a right jolly old elf . . . His eyes, how they twinkled! His dimples, how
merry! . . . a little round belly, that shook when he
laughed, like a bowl full of jelly.” What a complete, total opposite to the rough and rugged John the Baptist:
“Now John was clothed with camel’s hair and wore a leather belt around his waist
and ate locusts and wild honey. And he preached . . . a baptism of repentance
for the forgiveness of sins.” But, even though he seems to us
a bit out of place, John is included in the season leading up to the Christmas
celebration for a very important reason. Just as Santa Claus
now represents for us the joyful, jolly side of Christmas, John the Baptist
represents the other side of Christmas, “The Serious Side of Christmas.” “As it is written in Isaiah the prophet, ‘Behold, I will send my messenger
ahead of you, who will prepare your way.’” The last prophet
in Israel until John the Baptist was Malachi, but Malachi lived over 300 years
before John. Before I accepted the call to be Pastor here,
Trinity had been vacant for nearly three years, which seemed like a long
vacancy. But, Israel’s pulpit was vacant for more than three
centuries. Into this spiritual vacuum came false prophets and
phony religious leaders, who led the people astray from the faith of the Old
Testament. The Old Testament revolves around the great promise that one day God will
send into the world the Messiah, the Savior of the world.
But, Israel’s false prophets and phony religious leaders pushed aside this
promise, and injected their own false teaching instead. They
said we don’t need a Savior because we can save ourselves by following their
man-made rules and regulations. Jesus put it this way: “In
vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.” That was the spiritual vacuum during the centuries that Israel’s prophetic
pulpit was vacant. But, the Scriptures foretold that God
himself would come down and live among his people, and the Lord would prepare
the way for his visit by sending one final prophet to proclaim his coming.
“Behold, I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your
way; the voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight.’” I served as Director of Communications at our Synod’s Concordia University
Wisconsin, and we scored a huge public relations coup one year when we got the
President of the United States as our graduation speaker. The
university spent tens of millions of dollars to prepare for the occasion: new
landscaping throughout the campus, air-conditioning the field house where the
ceremony would be held, redecorating all the buildings where the President and
the press would be, and even building a new grand atrium entrance to the field
house. That’s the natural reaction we have when someone important and powerful
is coming to visit. In ancient times a visit by the emperor or king would be planned out years in
advance, so that all the roads along his planned route could be elaborately
rebuilt. Still today winding through the countryside west of
Jerusalem are the remains of a Roman road, which since ancient times has been
called “The Emperor’s Road.” Because, this massive
construction project was undertaken specifically for a visit by Emperor Hadrian
in 130 A.D., so that he would have a proper, fitting road to travel on as he
went up to Jerusalem. Today’s Old Testament and Gospel
Readings both allude to this common practice of preparing the way for the king’s
visit, an image so familiar to the people of the ancient world. “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight.’” Someone much greater than a
President, king, or emperor was coming to visit. “Prepare the
way of the Lord.” But, everything was rough and crooked.
Rough and crooked with sinful living, but especially rough and crooked
with false teaching. John has been sent ahead to straighten
things out. “John appeared, baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of
repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” John preached a
two-part message, beginning with the Law, the bad news of our sin, and a call to
repentance. As we embark upon the Advent and Christmas
season, that is where we need to begin too. Repentance may seem strangely out of place in this most wonderful time of the
year. For a few weeks we just want to put aside doom and
gloom. But, here comes John the Baptist during Advent every
year, like the Church’s version of the Grinch who stole Christmas, crying out,
“Repent!” How out of sync with the world’s view of what
Christmas is all about! Yet, ironically, if Christmas is to
have its full tidings of comfort and joy for us, we must begin with John’s
message of repentance. Paul says in 1st Timothy, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.”
That’s what Christ’s birth—that’s what Christmas—is all about, “to save
sinners.” The carols put it beautifully: “Nails, spear, shall
pierce him through, the cross be born, for me, for you. . .
Remember Christ our Savior was born on Christmas Day, to save us all from
Satan’s power when we were gone astray . . . He opened the heavenly door, and we
are blest forevermore. Christ was born to save!”
Because of Christmas, your sins are all forgiven.
Because of Christmas, you will have eternal life in heaven. Christmas is God’s cure, God’s solution. But, if you don’t
know the sickness Christ came to cure, if you don’t understand the problem
Christ came to solve, then Christmas loses its real meaning.
In that vacuum Christmas degenerates into just a midwinter fairy tale about a
cute little baby, a meaningless basis for mindless celebrations. So, it is fitting that before we go to the stable to worship the Christ child
at Bethlehem, John confronts us on the banks of the Jordan.
He reminds us of the “reason for the season,” why the Son of God “came down from
heaven . . . and was made man”: “for us men and for our salvation.” “John appeared, baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of
repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” John begins by
preaching the Law, but he doesn’t stop there. That was the
problem with the false prophets and phony religious leaders that he came to
correct. They stopped with the preaching of the Law.
They had forgotten God’s grace and the promise of the Savior, and instead
told the people they should save themselves with their own good works.
John, however, goes on from the Law to the Gospel; from proclaiming
repentance to announcing the Good News of God’s gracious gift of forgiveness:
“Proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”
John came to turn the people way from trying to save themselves, to
return them to the promise the promise they had forgotten, the promise of God’s
gift of salvation. The Gospel of Luke literally says that
John “evangelized” the people, telling them the Good News of the coming Savior.
“After me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I
am not worthy to stoop down and untie.” In our day, our own false prophets threaten to lead us astray, to make us
forget the real “reason for the season.” The false prophets
of commercialism, materialism, the media and prevailing popular culture.
They want us to remember only the jolly side of Christmas.
But, if Christmas is to have its full tidings of comfort and joy for us,
we must begin with John’s message of repentance. John reminds
us about “The Serious Side of Christmas,” why we are celebrating, what it is we
are jolly about. “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of
the Lord, make his paths straight.’” Amen. Return to Top | Return to Sermons | Home | Email Church Office
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