Advent Midweek--04 December 2013
Dear friends in Christ. It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. The shops are all decorated; the towns are having their parades and festivities; presents are being bought; homes are being decorated; cookies are being baked. It looks like we’re well on our way to a great Christmas! But as wonderful as all these things are, they only serve as an outward, superficial preparation. The best preparation for Christmas is doing what we are now doing and being where we are now—in church, around our Lord’s holy word.
The outward preparations serve a good purpose and make this season special. Especially for the Christian they can be quite meaningful. We see the Christmas tree—its triangular shape reminding us of the doctrine of the Trinity; the fact that it’s always green, alive, points us to the eternity of God. The wreaths represent the eternal victory over death through Jesus.; the evergreens were a sign of God’s faithfulness to His people. The candles remind us that Jesus is the Light of the world. The gifts point us to Jesus, the best gift of God to us. And, of course, the list could go on. But the point is clear, even though the world may try to take Christ out of Christmas, even the outward trappings of Christmas can point us to Christ and, if we are alert, can serve as a great preparation. Along with the world, the time before Christmas—which we observe as Advent—is a time of great joy and anticipation!
This joy of anticipation is one aspect of Advent—and that’s the part that even the world joins in on—but there’s another prong, another aspect of Advent that also serves to prepare our hearts and minds to hear and to receive with all joy the Christmas announcement: There is born for you this day…a Savior, who is Christ the Lord—and that’s the part the world wants to know nothing about—repentance.
1. One of the main figures of Advent is St. John the Baptizer. He is the one foretold by God already in the OT and sent by Him to prepare the way for Jesus’ coming and His work so that people would receive Jesus and His word and work. John’s message was quite simple [Matthew 3.2], Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand! And it is a message that we do well to heed today for a truly right and full preparation for Christmas. That’s the same thing that God said in our text from Isaiah: Thus says the Lord: “Guard justice and do righteousness, for My salvation is about to come, and My righteousness to be revealed”. Notice what the Lord is here saying—which is the same thing John the Baptizer was preaching: when the Lord comes with His salvation, we prepare ourselves for His coming by repentance; by repentance we welcome and receive the Lord.
So what does it mean when we hear: Guard justice and do righteousness, for My salvation is about to come, and My righteousness to be revealed? It means we are not doing it! We do not live in conformity with our Lord’s holy will. Instead we live for ourselves and follow the will of our old sinful nature; we go from one sin to another as a slave to sin; we follow the orders of our taskmaster, the devil.
Advent, in particular, is a season of the Church in which we especially take the time to look at our hearts and lives in the light of God’s holy law. There we see how far we have strayed from His will; then we will see that we have gone against His holy and just law and by that have earned nothing but His punishment and wrath; that by it we have earned and brought hell and damnation upon ourselves. Seeing and recognizing our sin, let us sorrow over it—that each and every one of our sins has offended God’s holy righteousness and deserves punishment.
Not only in repentance do we see our sin and what it does and what we deserve because of it, but as we try to Guard justice and do righteousness, to do the Lord’s holy will, we see how futile it is. Because of our sin corrupted human nature, we cannot live free from sin—no matter how hard we try! We fall still deeper. Any honest look at our hearts and lives shows this to us beyond any shadow of a doubt. And any honest attempt to try and keep God’s holy Law will only tire us and burden us and make us long for His salvation and His righteousness. My salvation is about to come, and My righteousness to be revealed. We then eagerly long for Christ and the righteousness that He brings us. That’s the anticipatory joy of Advent. As we recognize our sin and our condition, we long all the more for the Christmas gospel that our Savior from sin is born.
In our text, the Lord, the Father, was speaking to His OT people. He was promising to send them His Son who would also become true man, born of the virgin. This is the First Coming, when Jesus would come and bring salvation and the perfect righteousness that God demands/ expects. Although spoken centuries before, the Father promises and speaks of Jesus, His salvation and righteousness as being near; the coming of the promised Messiah was right at the door. That’s what gave the OT people hope and comfort. Even though they couldn’t keep God’s holy law, even though they saw nothing but sin in their lives as they earnestly examined their hearts and lives—just like us!—they had hope, the hope of God’s salvation and righteousness. It was that hope of salvation, Christ, and the righteousness that He would bring about that their faith clung to.
In faith they knew that, like us, they were lost and condemned sinners but that God Himself would give them a Savior from sin. In the joy and certainty of faith they looked forward in eager anticipation to His First Coming.
That’s why true repentance is not just sorrow over sins, but it also includes faith in Christ as Savior from that sin. That’s why the best and proper preparation for Christmas is using Advent as a time to recognize our sin and that it was precisely for those sins that Jesus came to be our Savior and our righteousness. The OT people eagerly looked forward in joy to Jesus’ first coming; so too do we in this Advent season eagerly look forward to hearing once again the Christmas Gospel that Jesus has come; that He won salvation and has brought us and gives us that perfect righteousness. That righteousness originates with God and comes to us from Him and in it we may stand before Him.
Recognizing our sin, not only do we long for the Christmas Gospel but we long to hear it and its fruits proclaimed to us often, day in and day out! Just as over and over again God gave His eagerly longing OT saints the promise of the coming Savior, who finally did come, Jesus of Nazareth, so too do we long to hear our forgiveness, our salvation proclaimed to us and to have Christ’s righteousness given to us. That’s why we eagerly study Scripture; that’s why we daily return to our baptism and receive anew the forgiveness of sin and be clothed again with the righteousness of Christ. That’s why we long to go to church—so that having recognized and confessed our sins we may receive the absolution, the forgiveness of sins; so that we may receive in the Holy Supper Christ’s very body and blood for the forgiveness of sin.
But notice: we don’t bring about God’s righteousness and salvation by our sorrow over our sin; instead, we repent because God’s salvation is near and His righteousness is revealed—in the Person of His Son, Jesus Christ. Again, what was the message of St. John the Baptizer: Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand! It is a great grace of God that His forgiveness, His salvation, His righteousness is near, is at the door. We can recognize and sorrow over our sins precisely because the kingdom of heaven is at hand, that is, because Jesus is near with the forgiveness of sins and the righteousness He brought about at His first coming. Repentance is turning to the Lord, who is near, to receive His gifts and blessings. Christ, His grace, His forgiveness, His righteousness is at hand, near. He offers and gives them to us in His holy word and sacraments. Christ is near—He came near as He came that Baby born of Mary; He is near as He comes to us in His Word and Sacrament. We are bold to repent—to recognize our sin and then to run to our Lord and receive in faith His salvation and righteousness.
What a glorious invitation we have this Advent: Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand! or in the words of our text: Guard justice and do righteousness, for My salvation is about to come, and My righteousness to be revealed.
2. Advent’s repentance bears a glorious fruit in our life. Christ and His salvation and righteousness are now ours; we receive them in faith. That’s why St. John the Baptizer also preaches: Bear fruits worthy of repentance, or in the words of our text: Blessed is the man who does this and the son of man being strengthened in it; guarding from defiling the Sabbath, and keeps his hand from doing any evil. Dear Christian, as we repent of our sins—that is, as we sorrow over them and trust in Jesus for their forgiveness, God declares us blessed. Again, through faith the Holy Spirit created in our hearts by word and sacrament, we receive the forgiveness of sin and the righteousness of Christ! He came that first Christmas so that He could be our righteousness, so that He could keep God’s holy law for us. Now, in the joy of that forgiveness and strengthened and empowered by His Holy Spirit, we live a new life of righteousness and bear fruits worthy of repentance. In Christ we are perfectly holy and righteous; and now we in ourselves strive to be rid of sin.
Dear Christian, because the Holy Spirit has given us the gift of faith we live a new life of righteousness. Our text describes it as a Sabbath; we rest from our sinful works and joyfully strive to live a life pleasing to God. This isn’t some mere outward mechanical series of duties or obligations; he keeps his hand from doing any evil. Instead, it is a new life in which from the bottom of our heart we want to do the Lord’s will—out of love for Him. We are responding to His undeserved mercy and goodness toward us. We find true happiness in doing what is right toward God and our fellow man. This striving to do the Lord’s will is not burdensome; it is not trying to earn a spot in heaven. Instead, it is our greatest joy as we remember what great love and mercy God showed us and we want to show Him our love.
Will we always be successful? Hardly! But when we fail, we remember that He is near with His salvation and righteousness; and in thanksgiving and in the joy of this forgiveness we are all the more empowered and in love strive to do the Lord’s will. By the good works we do—those things God has commanded us in His holy Law—we prove our faith, that is, we bear the fruits worthy of repentance. Our faith, our works of love and our new life all go together!
Here is our life of joy this Advent season and beyond! Advent is a season of repentance; it is also a season of joy as we live in that forgiveness that we receive because God, in the Person of His Son, Jesus, has come to us with His salvation and gives us His righteousness. As we exercise ourselves in this faith and new life and good works, we prepare ourselves for Jesus’ coming to us on the Last Day—this time in glory. As we live out our faith every day, even when it is not easy as we battle the devil, the world and our old sinful nature we still hear the Lord calling to us in grace: Guard justice and do righteousness, for My salvation is about to come, and My righteousness to be revealed. INJ