Advent 3
Dear friends in Christ. Today’s Gospel introduces us to one of the main figures of Advent, St. John the Baptizer. This great hero of the faith, is the one that Jesus points out in today’s Gospel is the fulfillment of OT prophecy: This is he of whom it is written,“‘Behold, I send my messenger before your face,who will prepare your way before you’”; and earlier [Mt. 3.3], the Holy Spirit has St. Matthew record in his Gospel: For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah, saying: "The voice of one crying in the wilderness:'Prepare the way of the Lord;Make His paths straight.'" Now where to we find St. John the Baptizer? In prison—and what turns out to be for him death row.
But even in prison, John is pointing people to Jesus. When John began his work of preparing the way for Jesus by preparing hearts to receive Him by first preaching that message of Law, showing the people/ pointing out to people their sin and the result/ consequence of that sin, he also then pointed them to the coming Savior, the one long promised and who had finally come. In fact, John even directed the disciples who had gathered around him to Jesus. St. John the Evangelist records [John 1.35-37]: Again the next day, John stood with two of his disciples. And looking at Jesus as He walked he said, “Behold the Lamb of God!” The two disciples heard him speak and they followed Jesus. As we later find out one of the two was St. Andrew, who told his brother, St. Peter about Jesus. The same thing happens in today’s Gospel. St. John still has some disciples, some that are still clinging to him even though he had been pointing them to Jesus. Knowing his time is short, he then sends two of them to Jesus to hear Jesus’ own testimony of Who He is: “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?” so that they, too, would follow Jesus.
What does Jesus tell them? “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear…” What Jesus does is refer back to the OT prophet and say that what Isaiah had prophesied the Messiah would do, was actually happening! So that means what? The Messiah is here! Jesus, the One performing these signs, must be that long-promised Savior. St. John the Baptizer’s work was at an end; he had prepared the way for the Messiah and the Messiah was here—Jesus of Nazareth. His works foretold by the OT prophets confirm that.
Why are Jesus’ words here to John important to us as we examine our OT text? Because our text is the verses right before the words that Jesus quotes from Isaiah. That means that our text is also talking about the time of the coming of the Messiah, of Jesus’ first coming, His first Advent. As we examine our text we will see that Jesus has come with vengeance against our spiritual enemies and has set up His kingdom. Here is our salvation and our comfort.
1. Our text: Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God. He will come and save you. Around us this time of year we get a full dose of Christmas cheer and peace on earth, goodwill to people. To be sure, that is the result of the coming of the Christ Child—there is peace, we sinners are reconciled to the holy God and because of that we can show love and be at peace with our neighbor.
But we don’t often think of Christmas having another side to it—God, the Savior, coming with vengeance. But, lest we, dear Christian, begin to fret, remember and rejoice: God our Savior, Christ Jesus did not come for reprisal and retribution against us sinners. Instead, He [has] come and save[d us]. He has come for our rescue and salvation. That means that He has come with vengeance, with the recompense of God against our spiritual enemies—sin, death, devil and hell. Jesus has come to destroy the devil’s kingdom. That’s not something we usually think about this time of peace and good will, but the only way there could be that true peace that is beyond all human understanding, that peace between sinful humanity and a holy God, is if your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God.
Actually, what we see Jesus doing—and what He is pointing these disciples of St. John the Baptizer toward— the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear... are works of Jesus coming with vengeance and destroying/ undoing the work of the devil. Anything not perfect, anything corrupted, anything not how God originally planned and created it is all the result of the devil’s attempt to destroy anything good of God. The blind, lame, sick and deaf have all suffered as a result of the devil’s work. But when Jesus comes, what happens? The blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear…! Jesus comes with vengeance and destroys the works of the devil. That’s what each of Jesus’ healing miracles shows: He undoes the destruction/ havoc inflicted by the devil. Each miracle of healing is an outward showing of Jesus’ true, ultimate and complete victory on the cross over the devil and his kingdom and allies. That’s why Jesus has come—as St. John the Evangelist [1 Jn 3,8] puts it: The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil; as Isaiah puts it in our text: Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God. He will come and save you.
What glorious news/ proclamation Advent is to us: Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God. He will come and save you. Left to ourselves we would all remain captive in the devil’s kingdom with an eternity in hell awaiting us. But the good news for us is that Jesus your God, has come with vengeance, with the recompense of God; He has come to save us and He has saved us!
Precisely by com[ing] with vengeance [against the devil and his allies], with the recompense of God, Jesus delivered and saved us. By sin, the devil has plunged the entire human race in damnation but Jesus the true God, has come; He became also true man, one of us, and placed Himself under God’s holy Law to keep it, giving God that perfect obedience He expects and demands of us, but that we as sinners cannot give. Now Jesus comes to us in His holy word and Sacrament and rescues us out of the devil’s kingdom as in baptism He creates faith in Him in our hearts, gives us the forgiveness of our sins He won for us on the cross and brings us into His kingdom, the Church. Now, through faith, we have the forgiveness of sin and the righteousness of Christ. How can our sin condemn us? We are forgiven our sin; we are through Baptism connected with Christ. How can hell claim us? We are in Baptism heirs of heaven, children of God. Isn’t death now really powerless? Yes, it will do its horrid work; we will die because we sin but on the Last Day at Jesus’ word, who destroyed death, it will have to surrender all its victims and the Christian will be soul and body in heaven with all the saints, angels and Triune God. Precisely by His coming with vengeance, with the recompense of God Jesus came and saved us.
2. That’s why Isaiah says in our text: Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who have an anxious heart, “Be strong; fear not!” The other side of the coin of Jesus coming against our spiritual enemies, sin, death devil and hell, is that He has come for our salvation and continues to come to comfort us. Advent is a time of gladness for us. Yes, it is a muted joy and gladness because in Advent we remember our sins that caused Jesus to have to come and save us; in Advent we heed the call of St. John the Baptizer [Mt. 3.2]: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." But just as the Baptizer pointed to Jesus, so too in Advent we look to Jesus for the forgiveness of that sin; we long to hear the announcement of the angel [Lk 2.11]: There is born for you this day…a Savior who is Christ the Lord.
Advent is a season of gladness for us because it also directs our gaze to Jesus’ return on the Last Day and the resurrection of the body when we will be with Him in heaven in both soul and body, finally rid of every attack and temptation of the devil and the world and finally rid of our old sinful nature. Our gladness is the inward quiet, peace and joy–even though we may be outwardly in midst of tumult—because we are certain that Jesus came for us and for our salvation; He came in vengeance against our spiritual enemies and for us won the victory.
We need to comfort ourselves with this and we need to encourage each other as the prophet Isaiah tells us in our text: Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who have an anxious heart, “Be strong; fear not!” Because we are still sinful flesh and blood, because we are still in this life and daily fighting the battle against the devil and his attacks and temptations, we need to hear that Jesus has come for our salvation and He has defeated our spiritual enemies for us.
The devil has two ways of fighting against us to lead us away from/ destroy faith in Christ in us. The first is when he suddenly casts us down from our joy into fear and despair. That’s when we fall into sudden grave sin or suffer some great tragedy. The other way the devil fights against us is when he has us endure long lasting torments and the continual pressure of these torments wear us down and tire us out so we eventually say: What’s the use? Why bother? Why continue to hold to Christ if there is seemingly no benefit? If I am constantly swimming upstream? One or both of these the devil is using on us, dear Christian. That’s why Isaiah takes it for granted that there are weak hands, and… firm the feeble knees… those who have an anxious heart. That’s life in the real world, including for Christians.
We suffer and endure with the rest, with whatever the devil, the world and our own sinful self throws at us. Just because we are Christians does not mean we are spared any trial. In fact, we will endure more as the devil will do all in his power to get us to turn away from the faith. But as Christians our joy shines all the more brightly under the cross of sorrow and suffering. That quiet joy shining in the midst of trial is not something we can conjure up in ourselves. Joy is a fruit of the Holy Spirit in us. Where there is the Holy Spirit, there He is working mightily to keep us in the faith, us with weak hands, and… firm the feeble knees… an anxious heart. Our weak hands, and… firm the feeble knees… an anxious heart do not mean that we are not Christians; but they do mean that we are real Christians in the sinful world and—God be praised—the Holy Spirit wants to work to strengthen us in the faith.
How can/ does the Holy Spirit work to strengthen us? By the holy word of God and His sacraments. Say to those who have an anxious heart, “Be strong; fear not!” What’s another way of saying: Be strong; fear not? I forgive you all your sins. When we hear the holy word of God, when we hear the holy absolution, the Holy Spirit works through that word to assure us of and actually to give us that forgiveness, which we receive in faith. That we receive it in faith, that too is the work of the Holy Spirit. And in a most glorious way Jesus comes to us in the Sacrament of His Body and Blood giving us with His body and blood all the blessings He won for us on the cross—victory over sin, death, devil and hell; heaven and eternal life.
Dear Christian, let us be always comforted by the comfort and consolations we receive in the word, the absolution and sacraments. Through these the Holy Spirit is working mightily to keep us in the faith, just as He was the OT faithful. Let each of us be instruments of the Holy Spirit and comfort each other. Say to those who have an anxious heart, “Be strong; fear not!” Our comfort is that Jesus has come for our salvation by coming with vengeance against our spiritual enemies—He has defeated them. His victory is now ours through faith in Him. INJ AMIHb