Second Midweek Advent Service 12/7/11

Second Midweek Advent 12/07/11 Text: Isaiah 40:3-5 Title: Prepare the Royal Highway. Today we are going to focus on verses three through five of our Old Testament reading. “3 A voice cries: "In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. 4 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. 5 And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken." Isaiah hears a voice! God has commanded his servants, still unidentified, to bring a message of comfort to his people. Now Isaiah hears one of those prophetic voices. He hears the content of the comforting message. Since God’s Word is timeless, speaking to all people though out time we need to ask the question, “What is God saying to us today?” First of all, God is saying that our King is coming. He comes to us as we are, where we are, in the wilderness and desert of our real lives. He wants us to get ready to receive him, because right now we aren’t ready. We know from Luke 3:1–18 that Jesus is the coming King and that the readiness we need is newness of life. We can’t hide behind denominational labels, however correct we might believe they are. We need to prepare the way of the Lord! Secondly, he is saying that God will accomplish his purpose. Before he comes everything will be made ready for his coming. He is sending those he has chosen to prepare his people for his coming. Isaiah is not talking about literal changes in the earth in this text. He is talking about preaching of his Word, so that the removal of all that stands in his way no matter what it might be will be removed. He is saying that lifting and lowering and leveling and smoothing are necessary to the kingdom of Christ. He is talking about depression being relieved, pride being flattened, troubled personalities becoming placid, and difficult people becoming easy to get along with. And he is also implying that if we cling to the status quo and refuse God’s upsetting but constructive salvation, we will have no part with Christ. Thirdly, he is saying that the glory of the Lord Jesus will be revealed to the whole world. We can be certain of it. God has decreed it: “for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.” His glory will be admired and delighted in and trembled at everywhere. We talk a lot about the glory of God, giving him glory and such, and we should, but do we understand what we’re talking about when we talk of God’s glory? I have come to the conclusion that we have diminished God’s glory by putting him a box where we can keep him out of our lives when we want and then when we have exhausted all our resources let him out to help us, but God is not going to let this go on indefinitely, for his glory must be seen. Listen to the words of John Piper a rather famous Baptist pastor. He writes, “In the church, our view of God is so small instead of huge, so marginal instead of crucial, so vague instead of clear, so impotent instead of all determining, and so uninspiring instead of ravishing that the responsibility to live to the glory of God is a thought without content. The words can come out of our mouths, but ask the average Christian to tell what they know about the glory of this God that they are going to live for, and the answer will not be long.” I am afraid that what he said applies to too many of us. We need to know what the glory of the Lord is, for then we are prepared for his coming. God’s Word tells us a lot about his glory present and future. I am going to just share with you today just a few of the verses, so that you get a better idea of his glory. We see his glory is the fiery radiance of his very nature. For we are told in Exodus 24:17 that at Mount Sinai “the appearance of the glory of the LORD was like a devouring fire.” Ezekiel tells us in Ezekiel 1:4-28 that he saw the glory of the Lord in the form of something like a supercharged war chariot coming down from Heaven to establish the rule of God on earth. When Jesus was born, we are told in Luke 2:9, “the glory of the Lord shone around the shepherds, and they were terrified.” In John 1:14 we are told that Jesus himself is the ultimate display of the glory of God. In Luke 9:28-40 we see God’s glory in Jesus’ transfiguration. We read in John 13:31 when Jesus is telling his disciples of his upcoming suffering, death, and resurrection that they are going to see God’s glory. And in Jesus’ cry “It is finished” he showed his glory. To those there that day there was nothing glorious in Jesus’ suffering and death. We, even as followers of Jesus have a hard time adjusting our view to see anything glorious in what happened. But it is there, for in his willingness to humble himself all the way to a wretched death for us he shows all with eyes to see and ears to hear God’s glory. Paul taught us in 1 Corinthians 2:8 that in this arrogant world only a weak and foolish gospel can reveal “the Lord of glory”. The cross of glory shames all human pride. But when Christ returns, how different it will be! He will appear in overwhelming glory. And God has called us to share in that glory of Christ. We are told in 2 Corinthians 4:17 that believers in Jesus will inherit “an eternal weight of glory”. This phrase does not translate well into English but what is doing is comparing the heavy tribulations of life to the life of glory we will be living with God. It will be even more so. And last but not least we are told in Revelation 21:23 that throughout eternity the New Jerusalem, that is the Kingdom of God, will need no sun or moon, for “the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb” The glory of the Lord, therefore, is God himself becoming visible, God Incarnate bringing his presence down to us, God displaying his beauty before us, the fulfillment of our deepest longings. And he promises to do this for us. It is the central promise of the gospel. God kept his promise in the hidden glory of Christ’s first coming. Jesus the helpless baby and the dying man on the cross. He continues to keep his promise as the Holy Spirit shows us the glory of God in his Holy Scripture and sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. He will complete his promise at the second coming of Christ when all people will bow before his glory. Amen.

Second Sunday in Advent 12/04/2011

Second Sunday in Advent 12/04/11 Mark 8:27-29 Title: Who is Jesus? In Mark 8:27-29 we read, “Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi. And on the way he asked his disciples, "Who do people say that I am?" 28 And they told him, "John the Baptist; and others say, Elijah; and others, one of the prophets." 29 And he asked them, "But who do you say that I am?" Peter answered him, "You are the Christ." What is interesting is that when you continue to read the Word of God you quickly find out that his disciples did not really know who he was. They believed that he came from God, that he was the Son of God, but was not God. Jesus, at one time; he was probably frustrated with them and the others who did not believe he was God Incarnate, said, “If you don’t believe my words believe because of what I am doing.” The disciples along with those who were following Jesus thought he was everything but the Savior of their souls. They thought he was a great teacher, a healer of bodies, but they mostly thought he was the new king who was going to free Israel from the Romans and restore Israel to her past glory. This is still thought today, not just by the Jewish people, but by Christians the world over who want an earthly king. They, just like the disciples and followers of Jesus back when Jesus was walking the earth, do not really know who Jesus is. That is why this Advent season I am talking to you about the Incarnation of God; God in the flesh, coming into our midst and its meaning for our lives today and all of eternity. As I told you last Sunday God has always made his presence known to those he calls his children. At first Adam and Eve could actually talk to him. Later after sin entered the world and one could not see God face to face and survive he appeared to his people in fire, smoke, and clouds assuring them of his presence. He talked to his people through the words of the prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah just as he talks to us today through his Word. His word was and still is like a two edged sword that cuts to the bone when sin needed to be exposed and like healing salve when his people repent and need their wounds healed. God has always been active and continues to be active today among his people. We need God among us as much today as the people through the centuries needed God in their midst, for in Romans 3:23 we read, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” We, even the most righteous of us have not met the perfect demands of God. God in his perfect being cannot abide any sin. He is perfect in all things, so he has to demand perfection from his human creation. He simply has no choice, for if he were to do anything different he would not be God. Our inability to do what God demands to be done creates a huge dilemma for God, for ever since Adam and Eve sinned by not trusting in God to perfectly provide all they needed humans have all missed his mark of perfection. We are all incapable of doing what God demands and deserve his righteous condemnation. What is God to do? To speak in human terms he had a choice to make. He could either and rightly so leave his human creation to face his righteous judgment. Or he could, as he chose to do out of his perfect love for his human creation, do what we could not do; live a perfect life. So God became Incarnate, that is became human so that he could live the life we cannot, because of our sin, live and then bear God’s wrath in our place. We know the historical man Jesus who lived as one of us is God because in John 1:1-3 we are told by Saint John, “In the beginning was the Word, (Word was John’s code word for Jesus) and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.” And then in John 1:18 we read, “18 No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father's side, he (that is Jesus) has made him known.” It is in God’s Incarnation that we know as Jesus that we see God. And in his becoming one of us we got to see a side of God that was not visible to us before he became God Incarnate; that is God in the flesh. We now see God’s love toward us, as shown in Jesus’ words and miracles. Jesus in the flesh is God, but he had to also be 100 percent human, for God’s plan of salvation to work. Jesus had to be able to be tempted to sin, as we are tempted. And he had to resist the temptations without using his Godhood, for to use his Godhood to resist temptation would not fulfill the demands of God since we are not God. Jesus had to be fully human while still remaining God for God’s plan to work. So God became one of us. He grew in Mary’s womb, as we grew in our mother’s womb. He was born as we are born. He fed at his mother’s breast. He had to be cared for and protected. He was potty trained, learned to talk, and to walk just as we were taught those things. He was human in every way, as he lived his life as one of us. We all know that God’s Law is good; perfect in every way. We know that God demands that we keep his Law perfectly. We know that, but we find ourselves in a dilemma. We, no matter how hard we try cannot perfectly keep God’s Law. We are in deep trouble. While we make excuses for our sin and try to justify our actions by blaming our behavior on others we know deep down that we deserve God’s wrath. So the God-man Jesus did what we cannot do. He kept God’s Law perfectly. He kept it outwardly and inwardly. He did not sin in any form or fashion. That is one of the blessings we receive in God becoming one of us. Jesus did what we are incapable of doing; perfectly keeping God’s Law. So, we have seen this morning that in God’s Incarnation we now see God in and through Jesus and that in God’s Incarnation we see that the Law of God has been perfectly kept as Jesus did what we cannot do; keep God’s Law perfectly. Yet in God’s Incarnation we see even more, for in Jesus God Incarnate we see salvation. We know, according to God’s Word that not only does the Law of God demand perfection from us it condemns us for our failure to keep God’s Law. The Law demands that payment be made for every violation of its commands. There is, as we sometimes hear, when a person does something wrong, “There’ll be hell to pay.” For, if payment is not made for us, we will certainly pay for it for all eternity. That is the other thing we learn from God’s Incarnation. Jesus came to save us; to take on the hell we still deserve even as we sit here this morning saved children of God. The innocent Jesus took God’s just wrath so that the guilty, that is us, can enjoy being with God now and for all eternity. Jesus switched places with us, so that when God’s hammer of justice fell it fell on him instead of us. My dear fellow redeemed ones listen to God’s Word. Know who you are “Poor miserable sinners” and then take comfort in what he has done for you, for he is the Bread of life, the Light of the world, the Door to Salvation, the Good Shepherd, the Resurrection, the Way, the Truth, and the Life. That is why we expectantly wait for his return in all his glory. Jesus; God Incarnate, our Savior. Amen.