3rd Sunday in Advent – A LSB #’s 357 v. 1-2, 4-5, 861, 716 v. 1-3, 5
Text – Isaiah 35:8 And a highway shall be there, & it shall be called the Way of Holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it. It shall belong to those who walk on the way; even if they are fools, they shall not go astray. WALKING ON THE WAY Last Sunday’s sermon was titled, “Making A Straight Path.” This morning we’ll be considering what it is to be walking on that way. Making the path straight & clearing obstacles is a good thing, but only if we then walk in it. What does it mean to be walking on the way? How does the story of Little Red Riding Hood relate to the choices we make? The roads in the Holy Land of Jesus’ day were nothing more than rock-strewn dirt trails. The paths, upon which Jesus & His disciples walked, from place to place, were rugged & steep. There was nothing smooth or express about them. There were many dangers along the way & zero conveniences, especially as we define those today. The OT reading begins the 2nd half of a poem located at the very center of the book of Isaiah. Chapter 34 is destruction for those opposed to God. In contrast, chapter 35 is good news applied to all creation, which is groaning under the effects of sin. Isaiah frequently combines & contrasts destruction & restoration, damnation & salvation. At chapter 35:4 he wrote: “Say to those who have an anxious heart, ‘Be strong; fear not! Behold, your God… He will come & save you.’” The Gospel reading then invites us to see the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy in Jesus’ ministry, “Go & tell John what you hear & see: the blind receive their sight & the lame walk, lepers are cleansed & the deaf hear, & the dead are raised up, & the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.” (Matthew 11:4-6 ESV) There are times we take offense at the road Jesus leaves us traveling on. What we feel in our heart says, “This can’t possibly be the way that Jesus leads me on.” The temptation then is to leave the way of Jesus behind. On other occasions the way we’re on isn’t bad at all, but we lose interest & see a shinier path to the left or the right. Satan encourages us to take it & without intending to we still lose our way. We’ll listen in on a familiar story: One day her mother said to her, “Come, Little Red Riding Hood, here is a piece of cake & a bottle of wine. Take them to your grandmother, she is ill & weak, & they will do her good. Set out before it gets hot, & when you are going, walk nicely & quietly & do not run off the path, or you may fall & break the bottle, & then your grandmother will get nothing.” I will take great care, said Little Red Riding Hood to her mother, & gave her hand on it. The grandmother lived out in the wood, half a league from the village, & just as Little Red Riding Hood entered the wood, a wolf met her. Little Red Riding Hood did not know what a wicked creature he was, & was not at all afraid of him. “Good-day, Little Red Riding Hood,” said he. “Thank you kindly, wolf.” “Whither away so early, Little Red Riding Hood?” “To my grandmother’s.” “What have you got in your apron?” “Cake & wine. Yesterday was baking-day, so poor sick grandmother is to have something good, to make her stronger.” “Where does your grandmother live, Little Red Riding Hood?” “A good quarter of a league farther on in the wood. Her house stands under the three large oak-trees, the nut-trees are just below. You surely must know it,” replied Little Red Riding Hood. The wolf thought to himself, “What a tender young creature. What a nice plump mouthful, she will be better to eat than the old woman. I must act craftily, so as to catch both.” So he walked for a short time by the side of Little Red Riding Hood, & then he said, “see Little Red Riding Hood, how pretty the flowers are about here. Why do you not look round. I believe, too, that you do not hear how sweetly the little birds are singing. You walk gravely along as if you were going to school, while everything else out here in the wood is merry.” Little Red Riding Hood raised her eyes, & when she saw the sunbeams dancing here & there through the trees, & pretty flowers growing everywhere, she thought, suppose I take grandmother a fresh nosegay. That would please her too. It is so early in the day that I shall still get there in good time. And so she ran from the path into the wood to look for flowers. And whenever she had picked one, she fancied that she saw a still prettier one farther on, & ran after it, & so got deeper & deeper into the wood.[1] Do you remember those times in life when you got deeper & deeper into the wood? Like Red Riding Hood it might have been something that seemed good & harmless at the time, but turned out to be a poor decision in the end. Broken relationships, broken health, broken careers, all of those can leave us feeling like we’ve drifted deeper & deeper into the wood. The tribe of Judah, from which Jesus would descend, knew all about getting deeper & deeper into the wood. Over 300 years prior they’d left the path their heavenly Father created for them & drifted deeper & deeper into putting their trust in false gods. Eventually, their king was dethroned, Jerusalem was destroyed & the people were taken captive into Babylon. They spent 70 years, torn away from the Promised Land, with none of the familiar & well-loved surroundings of their faithful ancestors. The glorious days of King David were long gone & hope of returning to the land of milk & honey was difficult to come by. The men & women of God would grow weary living in the pagan land of Babylon. There’s only one kind of Christian who never feels weary; a Christian who never tries very hard. But when those, who do get tired, hear God’s call to live holy lives, to exercise godly wisdom in how they live, to steer clear of all spiritual danger, & to live lives of constant joy in the Lord, we want to do this, but we get tired. The challenges & temptations never seem to end. Isaiah’s hearers felt that way too. Oppressed by their enemies, living in a difficult time, they found that their hands were weak, their knees kept staggering. Yet God gave His prophet a message about the future that would strengthen & encourage His people. A time was coming when things would be different – deserts would be fruitful, blind would see, deaf would hear, crippled would walk, the Lord was going to restore all that He had created. Those same words of God, through Isaiah, can strengthen you as well. The Lord’s Way shall have no ravenous wolves along it, anywhere – on or off the path. Initially, Isaiah 35 was partially fulfilled as the people returned from exile on the Way of Holiness to the city of Jerusalem. That was under Nehemiah. It was fulfilled again in the earthly ministry of Jesus, as He cited to John the Baptist in the Gospel reading from Matthew 11. In His arrival at Bethlehem, announced by the angel chorus, God had begun the work of restoring His creation. All the events, the Bible points out to us as miracles, are simply a revealing of our Lord’s power to erase the effects of sin. Isaiah 35 was fulfilled through the Son of God as He lived on earth. Yet, even as Jesus spoke those words to the Baptizer’s disciples, their teacher was in prison about to be beheaded, & Christ Himself was on the way to the glorious climax of His ministry – which was the cross. So there is another fulfillment of this prophecy from Isaiah 35 that is yet to come. As you well know, the power of evil, the desert’s hold of death, continues to exert its influence as God’s children await the final & complete manifestation of Yahweh’s glory that is promised in this text: “Say to those who have an anxious heart, ‘Be strong; fear not! Behold, your God… He will come & save you.’”[2] That prophecy will be perfectly accomplished for all eternity on the Last Day when Jesus returns to raise the dead from their graves. Isaiah’s vision is anchored in this world, through the various ways it has been fulfilled in history. At the same time it points ahead to other spiritual possibilities which the Bible refers to as heaven: “The wilderness & the dry land shall be glad; the desert shall rejoice & blossom like the crocus; it shall blossom abundantly & rejoice with joy & singing… And the ransomed of the Lord shall return & come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain gladness & joy, & sorrow & sighing shall flee away.” (Isaiah 35:1-2a, 10 ESV) The season of Advent was designed to remind us how important it is to stay on the path because Christ will return in power & glory. Repentance is how we prepare for the return of our Savior. Through repentance, the Holy Spirit is even now transforming & restoring us. Walking on the Way leads us through transformation & restoration, even as it leads us to heaven. This highway is at one & the same time all of these: the moral & religious way of life, the dry path through the Red Sea, the journey through the wilderness on the way back from Egypt or from Babylon, & the spiritual journey back to life in the Lord’s house, life on the holy mountain. You can see why the wolf would rather have us wander off into the wood! Broken relationships, broken health, broken careers, they can leave us feeling like we’ve drifted deeper & deeper into the wood. Jesus knows that. He lived it here on earth, so He gave us these words, the central promise from Scripture, in Isaiah 35:4, “Say to those who have an anxious heart, “Be strong; fear not! Behold, your God… He will come & save you.” Christ be my Leader by day as by night; safe through the darkness, for He is the way. Gladly I follow, my future His care, darkness is daylight when Jesus is there. Christ be my Savior in calm as in strife; death cannot hold me, for He is the life. Nor darkness nor doubting nor sin & its stain can touch my salvation: with Jesus I reign. Amen. LSB 861:1, 3 [1] Little Red Riding Hood, by the Grimm Brothers; © 1994-1999 Robert Godwin-Jones, Virginia Commonwealth University Department of Foreign Languages, English translation by Margaret Hunt. [2] Isaiah 35:4 ESV Advent Midweek 2 LSB #’s 349, 398 v.1, 2, 5, 380
Text – Malachi 3:1 Behold, I send my messenger, & he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to His temple; & the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, He is coming, says the Lord of hosts. The King’s Herald: Announcing the King! Do you ever have guests who arrive unannounced? Generally, this is not a good thing! If it’s a best friend, well, ok – come as you are & we’ll take you as we are. But what if someone rather special – your boss, the in-laws, the owner of the company, the president of the United States – just showed up like the Publisher’s Clearing House messenger? Generally speaking, presidents & ancient kings arrived quite “announced.” We know about announcers; they introduce the star of the show. You might remember Ed McMahon’s famous, “Heeeeere’s Johnnie!” Jimmie Fallon has his announcer for another generation. When it comes to presidents, we know a little about preparations for any of their appearances. Things weren’t much different in the ancient world. Two things are worth noting in relation to the sermon text this evening. First, we highlight the important role of the messenger, the herald who announced the coming of the king. Secondly, we need to understand what it usually meant for the king himself to arrive. The sermon text begins, “Behold, I send my messenger, & he will prepare the way before me.” Messengers were an important part of the communication technology of the ancient world. Long before the Internet, before Fox News, before telephone or telegraph, even before the pony express, it was the feet of the messenger that brought the news. Unlike today’s programs, the news was generally good. If it was bad, it wasn’t worth reporting, & the king did not want you to know, so he didn’t bother sending a messenger. Of course, there were still times the news was not what people wanted to hear, hence the old adage: “Don’t kill the messenger.” The messenger only came to “prepare the way.” The OT prophets used that image to prepare people for the coming – not just of the king of their day, like David or Hezekiah, some good & most bad – but especially for the great & glorious “once for all” king that was yet to come. Isaiah 40, the prophet tells us to prepare the way of the Lord & make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Tonight we consider the words of Malachi, whose name itself means – my messenger: “Behold, I send my messenger, & he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to His temple; & the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, He is coming, says the Lord of hosts.” So how do we prepare? Isaiah & Malachi use language describing a clearing of the road: getting rid of obstacles. Isaiah actually wrote of a highway, an expressway that meant smooth sailing; no traffic lights, no orange barrels, nothing in the way. But it was God who actually did the preparation, through His servants. Once prepared, the people would anticipate the coming of the king. That brings us to the 2nd important understanding: what did it mean for the king to come? Again, the OT world provides the context. Kings marched home to their capital city in a victory parade. The grand processional included a good deal of pomp & circumstance. He was to be recognized & honored for the conquest & for the spoils of war that came with him. The meaning of this was all about the king, & he did not come unannounced. Yet, did you catch the subtle comment in tonight’s sermon text – ‘suddenly’? God’s point concerns the messenger about to prepare the way, & the people who were “seeking” their kingly lord. Given that, you’d think everyone would be well prepared. Yet when “the lord” comes, he comes suddenly. Dear friends in Christ, what are you expecting, now that the herald has announced the coming of the king? Victory? Triumph? The spoils of a conquering king shared with his people – or if not shared, at least trickled down from rich to poor? In Malachi’s day the people were expecting God to come & finally fix the problems of an unjust world. They thought the kingdom of God should be doing better than it was, having lost its way & its vigor in the waning centuries of the OT, & were waiting for something greater to happen. They had witnessed a lack of good leadership even among the people of God. Kings had come & gone & now the priests were losing their edge, taking any old sacrifice as long as money came with it to fund the temple or grease the palm of the priest. Many people were just going through the motions; believing if the priests do the ritual, we’ll be fine, no matter how we conduct our lives, our marriages or our families. They thought God was big enough to include a wide diversity of spiritual life & conduct! Then, “suddenly” the whole scene shifts in the sermon text. The eager expectation of the coming king is met by the sudden & striking question: “who can endure the day of his coming?” Something seems terribly wrong. The king was supposed to bring the wealth of the nations to his kingdom, whether gained justly or not. The enemies, the losers, they were the ones who could not endure this. Instead this King is actually going to do something about the injustice, about good & evil, right there within His kingdom! And those who wanted justice – well, they’re going to get it. Those who thought God should reward their self-asserted goodness in a better way, well, they’re going to realize that they aren’t as good as they thought. Those who thought God should punish evil – they’re going to find out that they are more evil than they believed. “For he is like a refiner’s fire & like fuller’s soap” (this was long before ivory was 99.44% pure & gentle!). This King would purify the sons of Levi, starting with the corrupt leaders & priests, then getting to the sacrifices & offerings of the people. And you see, this is actually a good thing! It may not be what we expected, even wanted, but it is what was truly needed. “Create in me a clean heart, O Lord – purge me with hyssop, & I shall be clean!”[1] What is worse than thinking we are doing all the right things, when we are not? What is worse than thinking we should be telling God how to be king, when He is king, & we are not? Do we truly want to be clean or just “blessed” by our own dirty standards? Yes, the king is coming, this lord whom we are seeking. And He has a few surprises for us, & for all, when He comes. But He is not coming unannounced. God made sure of that, working behind & through John the Baptist, his messenger – remember – “to prepare the way.” John had some hard & harsh words to say as well. And right behind John came Jesus himself, but He did not come as any other king. Here is where the comparison ends. First, the message of both John & Jesus is not one of earthly conquest & victory. It is a message of repentance & forgiveness of sins. If there is justice, it will come by God’s mercy & through His grace. Our sins will be paid for, but not by you or me. The Lord, whom we are seeking, came to His people. They wanted justice, & He gave them justice; He exposed their sin, & our sin, but then He let justice be done by paying for our sins Himself. The Lord, whom we are seeking, came to His temple. On Palm Sunday He even approximated the king’s triumphant entry, but it was a parody on an earthly king’s parade. For Jesus came not to be served, but to serve – to give his life as a ransom for YOU. Then, but only then, came the victory parade: not into the city, but out of the tomb! A parade to those hiding in an upper & room scared of the world out there! A parade to Galilee & back to Jerusalem; with a mission to herald His kingdom to the end of the earth. Then He left, but He will return. Will His coming be unannounced? Only to those who refuse to believe. God used Moses, Isaiah, Malachi, & then John as His messengers, His heralds. God wants His coming to be announced. We know He is coming, soon, even though it may well come “suddenly.” But He has announced it & we can announce it, too. Advent is a time of preparation, for the coming of the King has been announced. “Hark, the herald angels” we will be singing in another great announcement very soon. We are reliving, & waiting for, His arrival. It is the Lord we are seeking. Our expectant hearts turn to the preparation at hand. Repent, for the reign of God is, indeed, at hand! Amen. Hail to the Lord’s anointed, great David’s greater Son! Hail, in the time appointed, His reign on earth begun! He comes to break oppression, to set the captive free, to take away transgression & rule in equity. O’er every foe victorious, He on His throne shall rest, from age to age more glorious, all blessing & all-blest. The tide of time shall never His covenant remove; His name shall stand forever – that name to us is Love. Amen. LSB 398:1, 5 [1] Psalm 51:10, 7 2nd Sunday in Advent – A LSB #344
Text – Matthew 3:3 For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he said, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; make His paths straight.’” MAKING A STRAIGHT PATH Having grown up in Michigan, one of the things I commonly take for granted is having straight roads to travel on. For a Michigander like me the thought in quotation marks, from the sermon text, did not have the impact it would for someone growing up in a mountainous land: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; make His paths straight.’ All the roads were straight where I lived. On the vacation Jan & I took last month we spent a lot of time driving – a little over 2000 miles. In our journey we crossed the Appalachian Mountains twice. Driving in the mountains helps me understand what Isaiah was talking about. The journey is a lot easier when you’re driving on roads that are straight than it is driving on the winding & hilly ones. Maybe you’ve heard it said, “Life is not simply a destination. Life is a journey.” It’s trying to make the same point as this saying, “You should stop & smell the roses.” In other words, don’t simply focus on the end point but appreciate the moments all along the way. Well, it’s a lot easier to appreciate the moments if you’re not stressed about driving off a cliff. ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; make His paths straight.’ The Gospel of Matthew is quoting the prophet Isaiah who, 800 years earlier, was announcing the role that John the Baptist would play as the forerunner of Jesus’ ministry. John was like a herald proclaiming that the people should make straight the Lord’s path, because the Savior of the world was on His way. As a child growing up in the flatlands of Michigan, I struggled in relating to the need for making a literal straight path to travel on because all the roads by us were straight. And beyond that, I had absolutely no clue regarding all the spiritual intricacies of the quotation, ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; make His paths straight.’ That is something which requires a lifetime of learning under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. In the end, we make a straight path for God by living a life of repentance. If we do that, then God can use us directly to accomplish His will. If we don’t focus our lives on repentance, our Lord can still use us, but it will be a lot more indirect, kind of like a winding mountain road still gets you from one place to another. It just takes a lot longer with more stress & tension along the way. That’s why it’s important not to get sucked into the trap of thinking that being a follower of Jesus is all about heaven. Thinking of our relationship with God in such narrowly focused terms is a sellout. It acts as if our spiritual life is about nothing more than the end result. If you remember Esau, there was a time when he was very hungry & he was so focused on the end result of getting fed that he sold his birthright for a bowl of stew. Heaven is an astounding & beautiful blessing, which awaits all of God’s children, but we should be careful in our longing to be there that we don’t sell out the blessings of our Lord’s purpose for us here. Yes, we live in a sinful & broken world, but Yahweh still wants us to stop & smell the roses. Life is not simply a destination. It is also a journey. It is a journey during which Jesus is with us always. Our true problems in life arise from the fact that we frequently ignore our Lord because we do not want to follow where He is leading. Worse than that even, we also willfully put roadblocks in the way of Jesus’ path to our heart. As a result, God’s Spirit inspired John the Baptist to preach the sermon text: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; make His paths straight.’ Our goal as children of God is not simply to end up at the final destination of heaven. How we live, & what we do while we are on the journey, is extremely important as well. The call of John the Baptist to repent is a way of asking us to stop willingly blocking the path. It is a way of calling you back to the mission your heavenly Father has prepared in advance for you to do. From the perspective of God’s Holy Spirit, every one of us is living a life that is a journey. In spite of your electronic GPS device, or your old-fashioned paper map, ultimately it is God’s Spirit that is guiding & directing your path. He allows you to make choices regarding which way to turn, even if you’re going in the wrong direction. He’s hard at work trying to take you to the place where your heavenly Father wants you to be in this life. It’s a place for good works, but the struggle of faith is trusting in that fact in spite of everything we see with our physical eyes. John the Baptist lived in the wilderness eating locusts & honey. A steak or a pizza may look a little more appetizing to our physical eyesight. Finding an appetite for the words of John the Baptist is another thing we struggle with: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” The struggle of faith is trusting Jesus in spite of all that we experience in our physical being. Immediately after Jesus is baptized, He’s sent into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil himself. Each of the temptations is a suggestion to take a shortcut. “Forget about faith in someone’s promises,” says Lucifer, “Go with what I’m showing you right now.” You & I face the same temptations to trust in our own efforts & to ignore the promises of Yahweh. My efforts apart from God, always put obstacles in the path Jesus would take to my heart & mind & soul. My sinful nature turns the path between me & my Lord into a steep & crooked road. Repentance then, is a clearing away of those obstacles. Through my repentance by His power, God’s Spirit makes the path straight again as He prepares the way of the Lord. The continual struggle between the saintly nature & the sinful nature, which is the life of a child of God, is pictured by Jesus with these words: “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself & take up his cross & follow me.” (Matthew 16:24 ESV) Repentance is a form of self-denial. Jesus calls me to deny the wishes & the desires that my sinful nature would fulfill. That is a preparation of the Lord’s way to my heart. It is making His path straight so He doesn’t need to go around the obstacles that my sinful nature naturally & willfully puts in His path. To our saintly nature it’s quite clear that the self-denial of repentance takes a tremendous amount of power. In fact, Jesus teaches that we must die & then rise to a new life. Maybe you’ve heard about someone who’s done that. As the Holy Spirit baptizes us, God’s children get that death over with as we die & our buried with Christ. Then He raises us from the dead, also in Baptism, & we are reborn to a new life which never ends. Repentance is a re-living of that cycle & thus it is to be the focal point of our daily living. That daily spiritual death & resurrection is true if we don’t willfully, stubbornly choose a different path. That is what unbelief does. It’s the natural work of our sinful nature. And thus it is that the child of God journeys to his destination of glory with Jesus in heaven, but doing so here on earth is a journey under the cross. That life is not an easy journey, & it climaxes in our physical death. However, at that death our sinful nature dies along with our physical body. From then on, children of God are free of the influence of sin. Until then, sin plagues us constantly & is cause for much grief, yet those who’ve been spiritually raised from death do not live or grieve as those who have no hope. God’s children have tremendous hope for this life because our Creator & Redeemer is unlimited in His power & wisdom. He is able to cause “…everything to work together for the good of those who love God...” (Romans 8:28 NLT) When Jesus overcame death He proved that He rules life as well & offers a countless number of blessings in His purpose for us here. And while we only receive any particular blessing from God one time, there is no limit on how often we can share that blessing. Our heavenly Father’s faithfulness to us is something we can & should tell about over & over again. All of you have seen how the way of the Lord has been prepared numerous times in your lifetime. You have seen God’s path made straight to your heart & your mind & your soul. You have experienced His love & His faithfulness. If you’re struggling to see that, or understand it, then ask Jesus for His help. Come to Bible study. Read the Bible by yourself, or with a trusted friend. Seek out the fellowship & the friendship of other children of God. Chief of all, remember why John the Baptist was preaching that we should repent: “…for the reign of heaven is at hand.” The reign of God is about making all roads like those in Michigan – straight. The people John the Baptist was speaking to had gone off the straight & narrow path just like the people in our nation today; just like you & I have gone off the straight & narrow path today. 2000 years ago, John the Baptist was a herald proclaiming that the people should make straight the Lord’s path to their heart. His words are still calling us this morning. For people who believe in Jesus as Savior, every moment of every day involves decision making about staying on the path of Jesus, or straying off of it. Satan will tempt us to take the short cut. Jesus calls us to stay on the straight path, the way of the Lord, for there we find, not only safety, but also true life & more blessings than anyone is able to count. Remember, the reign of God arrived at Bethlehem in the person of Jesus Christ. That He reigns is what enables us to turn back to Him through denying our selfish desires. That we don’t do this perfectly is not cause for despair. Our lack of perfection is why Jesus was born for the purpose of living the perfect life for us, for making straight His path to your heart. Stir up our hearts, O Lord, to make ready the way of Your only-begotten Son, that by His coming we may be enabled to serve You with pure minds; through the same Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives & reigns with You & the Holy Spirit, one God, now & forever. Amen. On Jordan’s bank the Baptist’s cry announces that the Lord is nigh; awake & hearken, for he brings glad tidings of the King of kings! Then cleansed be every life from sin; make straight the way for God within, & let us all our hearts prepare for Christ to come & enter there. Lay on the sick Thy healing hand & make the fallen strong to stand; show us the glory of Thy face till beauty springs in every place. Amen. |
AuthorPastor Dean R. Poellet Archives
March 2024
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