Last Things First

Texts:    Isaiah 64:1-9;  Corinthians 1:3-9; Mark 13:24-37

    WHAT IS OUR HOPE as Christians?  What is the goal and object of our faith?

    To hear some people talk, you'd think it was to make us nicer, more fulfilled individuals, with better marriages, families, and careers in this life.  And with higher self-esteem, too.  In such an understanding of Christianity, the Baby in the manger at Bethlehem is a nice encouragement, but the Son of Man coming again to judge all humanity is not to be thought of at all.  After all, in this world we're taught to put first things first.  But the Apostle Paul, in his first letter to the Corinthians, isn't interested in the teaching of this world.  After he greets the saints, about the first subject he mentions is the second coming of their Lord and ours, Jesus Christ.  Hear what he says in verses 7 and 8:

    . . . [Y]ou do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. He will keep you strong to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The church in Corinth was eagerly waiting for Jesus Christ to be revealed.  And so they stood in the tradition of the true people of God, for this is the object of our Christian faith: that the great day of the Lord will surely come, when Christ will return as King, the heavens and the earth will be made new, and we will enjoy the kingdom of God in all its perfection.  These things-- The end of the age, the second coming of Christ, the Judgement, and so on-- are known as the Last Things.  And St. Mark, St. Paul, St. Peter, St. John, and all the New Testament writers follow their Master Jesus in urging us Christians to keep Last Things first.

        But why? 

    Because when we keep our focus on the second coming of Christ, we keep our eyes on God's goal for all creation, and when we keep our eyes on God's goal for all creation, we maintain and strengthen our hope in Christ, even in the midst of the troubles and worries of this world.

    And we need hope in this world.  Not the hope that consists in wishful thinking, but the firm and sure hope that depends upon a promise made by Someone we can trust now and into all eternity.  In our Gospel reading from St. Mark, our Lord Jesus declares that the time will come when

    . . . men will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory.  And he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens.

Jesus calls Himself the Son of Man in this discourse.  And thus the disciples know that He is the coming King the prophet Daniel saw in his vision of the Last Things in Daniel 7.  But more than that, the title "Son of Man" tells us that it will be His own human Self, Immanuel, the Child born of Mary who rose from the tomb, who will sit on the throne of God.  And He is God, for the angels are His, and it is His to command them to "gather his elect" from wherever they may be.  That's us, who by the grace of God, have been called by the Holy Spirit into faith in our crucified and risen Savior, all of us in every time and place who have been washed clean by His blood.

    But not all of humanity shares this hope.  Not everyone knows that their eternal happiness depends on their keeping Last Things first. 

    Some don't believe there will be any Last Things at all.  I heard an interview the other night with a man they called an expert on the subject of the Apocalypse.  He admitted that cultures all over the world for the past three thousand years have had prophecies and stories that someday the world as we know it will be destroyed and then made new.  But, he said, all that was false; it was never going to happen.  No, he said, all talk about the end times is just a way for priests and rulers and others in authority to keep people focussed on some future state of perfection, instead of working and maybe fighting and rebelling to make things perfect here and now.

    What do we say to such a man and those who believe like him?  Do we let him undermine our hope, so we stop keeping Last Things first?  He quoted the famous atheist Richard Dawkins, to the effect that it's only some outgrown evolutionary stage that makes people look forward to a end to this age and the birth of one that is new.  Do we tie ourselves in knots trying to prove Richard Dawkins wrong?  There are people who have the gift of apologetics, and God strengthen them as they exercise it.  But there's something even better we can show.  When we speak of the second advent of our Lord and the end of this age, we're not just passing along some gut feeling or old tribal legend.  No, we are quoting the very words of the Son of God.  This Man told His disciples that He would be crucified by the authorities during His next visit to Jerusalem, and that three days later, He would be raised from the dead.  You could say it was inevitable that Jesus would be crucified sooner or later.  But no mere man, not even the wisest and cleverest, can say that He will rise again-- and actually do it.  It is not in the power of any ordinary man to make such a thing happen.

    But Jesus our Lord foretold His resurrection and it did happen, not in myth, not in legend, but in real history, under the authority of a Roman bureaucrat named Pontius Pilate.  When Someone like that tells us that He certainly will return and that by His power death and hell will flee away, you can believe Him.  Heaven and earth will pass away, but His words will never pass away.

    But others, while they may believe this world will end someday, aren't looking forward to it in hope. They can't imagine a better existence than they might achieve in this present age, and the idea of living in fellowship with the Son of God means nothing to them.  Why would they keep Last Things first?  Any second advent of Christ would ruin their whole day!

    And indeed, when we think of our sin, and the judgement to come on the world, how should creatures like us hope and pray for the day of the Lord?  In Isaiah 64 God's people plead that He would come save them in their day of distress.

        Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down,
               that the mountains would tremble before you!

They look forward to the Lord taking vengeance on His enemies and theirs--

        [C]ome down to make your name known to your enemies
           and cause the nations to quake before you!

But there's a problem.  God's people have been acting like His enemies themselves.  True,

        [the Lord] comes to the help of those who gladly do right,
        who remember your ways.

But Israel has not gladly done right.  They've continued to sin against Him.  "How then," Isaiah asks in behalf of the nation, "can we be saved?"

    What do you do when the One who is your only hope is also the One you most need to fear?  Not because God is some kind of abusive father, but because we have been like adult children who have taken advantage of and robbed and harmed and disgraced Him.  For know this, this passage in Isaiah is not simply about an incident in the history of ancient Israel, it also describes our position before God when we forget Him and go our own way.  In our selfishness and idolatry even our attempts at righteousness are like filthy rags.  How can we who neglect to call on the name of the Lord, who fail to lay hold on God and His goodness find hope in the coming of Christ?  Why should we want to put Last Things first?

    Because the Lord our God is our Father.  He is our Father because like a potter He has formed and made us.  But even more, He is our Father because He has remade us in the image of His Son Jesus Christ.  To cite St. Paul in 1 Corinthians again, thanksgiving can be made for us because of the grace that has been given us in Christ Jesus.  In our sins we were ragged and filthy, we blew away like dried-up leaves.  But in Christ we "have been enriched in every way."  Perhaps not in the material ways this passing world values, but in speaking and knowledge, in ways that build one another up in the faith of the Gospel of Christ.

    Or have we?  This was true of the Corinthians.  Whatever problems they may have had in other areas, they recognised and used the spiritual gifts God had given them.  Paul is saying that God the Father will keep them strong and faithful in the use of these gifts, so they might be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus.

    God has given us gifts by the Holy Spirit to serve Him in the Church as well, till Christ comes.  You do not need to take a spiritual gift inventory to find out what yours is.  Whatever the Holy Spirit is urging you to do, and you know it's the Holy Spirit's urging because it is confirmed by the Word of God, do it!

    This is what our Lord means by saying in Mark that we're like servants a master going on a trip has put in charge of various jobs to do while he's away.  So let's do them!  Let's put Last Things first by loving our neighbor with food and clothing and shelter.  Let us tell them that Jesus died for them just like He did for us, and invite them to church where they can hear the saving good news of eternal life in Him.  Let us do our daily work in ways that benefit others and glorify God, the Master Workman over all.  Let us live holy and gracious lives in the midst of this perverted and wicked world, so that when Jesus comes again we will have no cause to feel ashamed.

    Jesus says, "Keep watch!"  So live the life He has given you on earth to His praise and glory, always with an eye open and an ear tuned to His footstep at the door.  He may come tomorrow; He may for His good purpose delay another thousand years.  But it is the promise of Christ's second advent that gives all our work in this world its meaning and gives our earthly existence its hope.  This life is not one endless grind of things going on the way they always have; it has a purpose and a goal.  Christ came into this world as the Baby of Bethlehem to bear our sins and keep God's righteous commands for us the way we never could.  He will come again as the glorious Son of Man to gather His own that we may be with Him forever.

    Live in this blessed hope.  By His Spirit's power, serve Him in all you do.  And always remember to put the Last Things first.

Being Ready

Texts: Isaiah 2:6-22; Matthew 24:36-51

IT WAS OCTOBER 22ND, 1844. ALL THAT day, all over the Northeastern United States, men, women, and children were gathered in fields and on hilltops, ready, waiting. They sang hymns. They prayed. But mostly they strained their eyes to the heavens, expecting at any moment to see the Lord Jesus Christ descending from the skies. They were there on that day because their leader, an amateur theologian named William Miller, had added up dates and times he got out of Scripture and decided that's when the Day of the Lord was to be. But the sun moved on in the sky, the daylight hours faded, the evening darkness marched on to midnight. But nothing happened. The Lord did not return on October 22nd, 1844, or on any day thereafter. This event went down in American history as "The Great Disappointment." Those who'd expected Christ's coming that day were brokenhearted. Some renounced the Christian faith altogether.

Those Christians were ready for Jesus' return. Most of them had sold their land and businesses. They'd given away all their worldly goods and renounced all involvement with this present evil age. Their thoughts and hopes were focussed on Christ alone. They were ready. Why did it go wrong? Was it only because Mr. Miller dared to set a date? Or was it something else as well?

Certainly, we must be prepared for the day of our Lord's coming. Jesus says so in Matthew 24:44. This word He originally gave to the disciples who walked He also intends for us. In the year A.D. 2010 as in A.D. 33, our Lord's warning is the same: "Keep watch! Be ready!" But how?

Isaiah shows us how to be radically unready. We didn't read this part, but the first five verses of chapter 2 show us the perfection of the heavenly Jerusalem in the last days. They tell of the time when all God's people, Jew and Gentile, will be united as one under the word of the Lord, walking in one holy way and worshipping in one holy temple. Hear this good news: That word, that way, that temple is Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God who died for the sins of the world. By His Spirit He calls His Church from every nation and His return will bring about the perfection of God's plan for all mankind.

But in verses 6 though 9 we see how things really were in the earthly Jerusalem. And, sadly, it also points to how things frequently are among those who claim to be Christians today. Isaiah writes:

They are full of superstitions from the East;
they practice divination like the Philistines
and clasp hands with pagans.

Is it not enough for us that Jesus Christ died and rose again for us? Do we have to import Buddhist or Hindu spiritualities and practices into our lives as well? Do we have to talk about "karma" as if that were God's means for judging the world? Dare we reject the Holy Spirit Who has been sent to us to lead us into all truth? Do we need also to consult our horoscopes or quote so-called prophets like Nostradamus? Has not our Lord given us His holy Word the Bible to show us the way of faith and life? Why then do we consult our feelings or experiences or our "inner voice," instead of believing and doing what God says? And why do we "clasp hands with pagans" and pretend that Allah the god of the Muslims is the same as the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ? Why do we even think it's possible to have "interfaith worship" with those who deny His godhead and call His atoning sacrifice a lie? Perhaps you don't do those things, but we all know Christians who do. People who engage in these practices will not be ready for our Lord's coming!

And hear what else the Spirit says through the prophet Isaiah:

Their land is full of silver and gold,
there is no end to their treasures.

I admit: In America today, we can definitely see coming to the end of our treasures. But fear of poverty and ruin can distract us from God just as much as excessive enjoyment of prosperity and wealth. Either way, we stop being interested in who God is and what He has done for us. We stop trusting in Him; rather, we live our lives "bow[ing] down to the work of [our] hands," as it says in verse 8. Isaiah was referring first of all to the actual idol statues that the faithless Jews were making and calling their gods, but this can also include everything we do for ourselves and put our faith in without giving praise and glory to God the Maker of heaven and earth. With such an attitude, how can we be ready and watching for the day of the Lord? With such an attitude, how could we escape the judgment it will bring?

Make no mistake about it: The day of the Lord will be a day of judgment. God has visited His people and the nations with His wrath many times throughout history, but the day of the Son of Man will be the culmination of them all, the day when all that stands opposed to the holiness, righteousness, and love of God in Christ will be shown for the filthy thing it is and will be swept from the sight of God forever. It will be the day when those whose sins have been covered by His grace will receive the glorious inheritance promised to them as children of God and co-heirs with His Son Jesus Christ. To be ready for the second coming of Christ is not a thing to take lightly!.

So we must take warning from what our Lord Jesus says in Matthew 24. He says,

"As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man."

There is nothing wrong with eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage. What was wrong in Noah's day is that these ordinary things were going on right alongside of overwhelming, God-defying wickedness. And people figured that as long as they could carry on their everyday lives, everything was all right and they didn't have to worry about what God might do about it all. St. Peter writes in his second letter that Noah was a preacher of righteousness. Noah told the people of his time that God would judge their rebellion, but they wouldn't listen. They were getting along well enough, why should they worry?

Jesus says it will be the same at the coming of the Son of Man. Most people won't be ready. There will be widespread wrongdoing and evil that dare and defy God's judgment to come, but most people will still be managing to live life as normal. They'll think it's not a time when Jesus might return. Does that sound familiar? Kind of like how things are today?

So our Lord says, "Keep watch! Be ready!" For He will come like a thief in the night; literally, like a housebreaker digging through the mud walls anywhere, front, back, or sides. We are to be like a householder who expects that to happen at any time. We are to be that vigilant.

Don't take this little parable too far, friends. The coming of our Lord is not something for God's children to be defensive about. Nor does Jesus want us to make a fulltime job out of predicting the end of the world, like poor William Miller did. The writer George MacDonald, who was a major influence on C. S. Lewis, once said,

Do those who say, "Lo, here or lo, there are the signs of His coming," think to be too keen for Him, and spy His approach? When He tells them to watch lest He find them neglecting their work, they stare this way and that, and watch lest He should succeed in coming like a thief!*

Truly, we who believe in Him should be glad to have Him break in once and for all and take away all the worldly concerns and worry and stuff that keep us from loving Him above all! For we know that when He comes He will replace what we call our treasure on earth with the infinite and eternal treasure that is fellowship with Himself.

Clearly, wallowing in the sins and worries of this world is not readiness. But how shall we avoid that? Is it by retreating from the world into our own Christian ghetto? Shall we read only "Christian" books and watch only "Christian" movies and patronize only "Christian" businesses? Shall we be so heavenly-minded we're no earthly good? That's not much different from what the Millerites did in 1844. They thought being ready meant withdrawing from the world so thoroughly they set a date and withdrew from all of life. And by doing so, they set themselves up for disappointment.

No, Jesus tells us what being ready means. He says,

"Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom the master has put in charge of the servants in his household to give them their food at the proper time? It will be good for that servant whose master finds him doing so when he returns."

Jesus is our Master who has been away and He'll return when we least expect. Meanwhile, He's given each of us work to do in this world, in His name. Most of the time, this work is not at all what we would think of as "fulltime Christian service." Each of us has a vocation in this life; some of us have several. In those vocations we serve Him by serving our neighbor: Our neighbor in our families. Our neighbor in the church. Our neighbor at work. Our neighbor literally next door. Our neighbor who believes in Jesus and our neighbor who doesn't believe, but who might someday because of what we did for him in Jesus' name. Our Lord calls us His servants and charges us to give our fellow-servants the food of love, encouragement, good workmanship, patience, whatever they need in the relationship we have with them.

Especially, we are to serve all people with the eternal food of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Whether it's your own children or some stranger you meet by chance, you have good news to tell them of Christ who came to this earth to save mankind from their sins. You have the testimony of your own life to show how Jesus saves and changes sinners, even a sinner like you. Be faithful to the calling God has given you; serve one another in them, and always be ready with joy to render an account of your stewardship, for He promises to reward you when He comes.

I admit, I don't find it easy to be ready like this. Often I want to run away and play. Not that I'd ever be like the abusive steward that Jesus condemns in this parable, but the sin nature in me would be perfectly happy to get its fun out of life and disregard the fact that my Master will certainly return. Maybe I feel this way most when I try my hardest to keep watch by being faithful.

It's times like that when you and I can be encouraged by what Jesus says at the beginning of our Matthew reading. He says,

"No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father."

Yes, be encouraged. For look, Christ the Son is content to trust His heavenly Father to set the right day and hour for Him to return. And since Jesus can rest in His Father, we can, too. Jesus will help us day by day to be ready. He will see that we are taken up to be with Him forever. He will preserve us in His love and keep us from the fate of the hypocrites, who actually dread His coming.

So in this Advent season and until Jesus returns, be ready. Serve your neighbor in His strength: you can do that, for in His cross and passion He has first served you. Rest in His grace; strive only to feed on Him in His Sacraments, to fellowship with Him in prayer; to hear and follow the voice of His Spirit as He speaks to you and guides you in His written Word. Be ready, but do not fret over your Lord's coming. You are His beloved; in Him you have been made ready for the kingdom prepared for you before the foundation of the world.

I'll conclude with two verses from an Advent hymn by Charles Wesley, called "Lo, He Comes with Clouds Descending." They go like this:

Now redemption, long expected,
See in solemn pomp appear;
All His saints, by man rejected,
Now shall meet Him in the air:
Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
See the day of God appear!


Yea, Amen! let all adore Thee,
High on Thine eternal throne;
Savior, take the power and glory,
Claim the kingdom for Thine own;
O come quickly! O come quickly!
Everlasting God, come down!

Even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus! Amen and amen!
_______________________________
*From Unspoken Sermons, Second Series: "The Word of Jesus on Prayer"

The Throne of His Father David

Texts: Isaiah 9:2-7; Luke 1:26-38

YOU PROBABLY RECOGNIZED our Call to Worship litany this morning as a version of the ancient Advent hymn, "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel." As I may have mentioned to you before, I belong to a community choir in the Pittsburgh area, and this semester we learned a new anthem using the words to that hymn. The rehearsal we first got it, we were looking over the music and I noticed something. I raised my hand and said to our director, "Excuse me, but there’s a mistake in the text on page 8. It says, ‘O Come! Thou King of David, come!’ It should say, ‘Key of David’ instead."

One of the tenors is a professor of Old Testament at Geneva College and he said, "She's right. It’s ‘Key of David,’ not ‘King of David.’"

Our director looked at the page for a couple of seconds, then pronounced, "I got this at a big choir convention. Nobody there said anything about there being an error in this text. We’ll sing ‘King of David,’ the way it’s written."

One of my fellow sopranos leaned over to me and whispered that the way our director makes us go easy on the consonants, our audiences would probably hear it as ‘Key of David’ anyway and it wouldn’t matter what was written in the score.

But that mistake in a 21st century choir anthem score says a lot about how contemporary Americans (Christian or not) think about Jesus and His Davidic ancestry. There’s the vague understanding that Jesus is connected to David somehow; something to do with both David and Jesus being kings, maybe; but how it really works nobody’s sure, and it doesn’t really matter, does it; it just has a nice ring to it.

But for the Holy Spirit speaking by the prophet Isaiah and for the angel Gabriel addressing the virgin Mary, our Lord’s relationship to King David meant everything about God the Father’s plans for Jesus the Son of Man and for us as His followers. Isaiah says of the Messiah to come,

For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of his government and peace
there will be no end.
He will reign on David’s throne
and over his kingdom,
establishing and upholding it
with justice and righteousness
from that time on and forever.

Gabriel says to Mary,

You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.

David’s throne! That’s not merely some nice-sounding phrase that made its way in with the Christmas wrappings. No, it’s a fundamental reality about our Lord Jesus Christ, who He is, and what He has done, and it powerfully affects all of our lives, now and in the world to come.

It starts with who our God is. He’s a promise-making and covenant-making God. He’s a God who keeps His promises. He made a promise to Israel at Mount Sinai that if they kept all the Law given through Moses, He would bless them and they would live and prosper by it. Keeping that covenant was up to the people just as much as it was up to God. And as we know from history, the Jews, our spiritual ancestors, weren’t able to keep it.

But God made a very different kind of promise to King David in 2 Samuel, chapter 7. There God swore that He Himself would build David an everlasting house. That is, He’d assured David a family dynasty with an unbroken succession of biological heirs. God promised David He’d raise up a son to succeed him and that he’d never take His love from him as He had from King Saul. He swore to establish the throne of the kingdom of David’s son before God forever. This promise required nothing from David and his heirs except humble, thankful acceptance. Its fulfillment didn’t depend on David, it all depended on God.

But how can God’s covenant with David possibly benefit us?

Actually, by Mary’s time, for long centuries many Jews probably wondered how it could benefit them. The promise was partially fulfilled in David’s son Solomon, and for a long time God made sure that a direct descendant of David ruled on the throne of Judah, no matter how wicked they might be. But then came the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem, and as we read in the prophet Jeremiah, God laid a curse on Jehoiachin, who was king at that time, swearing that neither he nor any of his offspring would ever again sit on the throne of David or rule in Judah. Then the Babylonians captured the city and took almost all the survivors away captive, and Jehoiachin was the last king of Judah to have any surviving offspring at all.

What’s more, after the Exile there was no more Davidic king in Judah. The Maccabees-- who are being celebrated now during Chanukah-- were priests who took over the kingship in the first and second centuries before Christ. And then there was the Herod family in Mary’s own time who claimed to be kings of the Jews. But they were not legitimate kings according to the promise of God. They were not kings from the house of David.

So where was this everlasting throne of David that God had promised? And who was the son of David who could sit on it?

These were hard questions! But faithful sons and daughters of Israel still held onto the promise of God spoken to King David and confirmed by Isaiah, Jeremiah, and other prophets. They knew that somehow the Lord would work it out.

And then one day, in a humble home in the village of Nazareth in Galilee (Galilee of the Gentiles, as Isaiah calls it in our passage), the angel Gabriel appeared to a young virgin descended from King David, not from the cursed line of Jehoiachin, several-times-great-grandson of King Solomon, but from David’s son Prince Nathan. And this girl was betrothed to a man named Joseph, who was a direct descendant of Solomon and his legal royal line. By His virgin birth, Jesus through Mary was of the line of David’s son Nathan and did not fall under the curse against Jehoiachin (also called Jeconiah and Coniah). But with Joseph as His adoptive father, our Lord was legally in the kingly line.

And so Gabriel announced to Mary that her Son Jesus would be the one who could at last fulfill God’s faithful promise to David and sit on David’s throne. And you’ll notice, that the angel doesn’t say that her Son would leave His throne to His sons and their sons. No. The promise is that her Son, Himself, would be king forever.

But again, what’s in this for us? Why should be to our good that Jesus should reign on the throne of His father David?

It matters to us, because of God’s plan for our salvation, made before the foundation of the world. God prepared His people Israel to be the channel through which His own appointed Saviour and Christ would come into the world; not to save Israel alone, but to bring salvation to all who believe in Him. As Jesus Himself says in John chapter 4, "Salvation is of the Jews." David was the best king who ruled over God’s people Israel; he was the beloved of God, and despite his sins he was the one who walked with God most closely. David himself could never have been the eternal king and saviour of the world promised even from the Garden of Eden; obviously, David needed a saviour himself. It is his descendant Jesus, coming from David’s house and lineage, who inherits the promises of eternal kingship. His kingdom is not only everlasting, it is also universal.
As it says in Isaiah 9:7,

"Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end."

And Revelation 11:15 says,

"The kingdom of this world has become
the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ,
and he shall reign forever and ever."

Jesus is not merely the king of the Jews, He is the king of the whole world, and the king of you and me.

But it’s worth asking, why is He also called the "Key of David"? We find that term various places in Scripture, and sometimes it also reads "the key of the house of David." Jesus is the Key of David because by His sacrificial death He opens the house of David to us. Through Christ we enter in and enjoy the blessings promised to God’s beloved Son and King. Until Jesus was born and died and rose to take away the sins of the world, God’s fellowship, love, and favor were open only to faithful Jews and those who were willing to become Jews. But Jesus has opened the door to the kingdom of heaven to all believers, and what He has opened no one can shut.

I doubt Mary had any idea of the scope of God’s glorious, world-embracing plan when she said, "I am the Lord’s servant" that day in Nazareth. But God has revealed it to us in the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, brought to us in the writings of His apostles and evangelists. No one in Mary’s day could have dreamed that God would ever invite all the nations of the world into the blessings promised to Israel . But those blessings are now freely given to everyone who, accepting Him by faith, willingly bows the knee to Jesus Christ as king. They’re available right now to us, whom God has chosen and reconciled to Himself through the blood of His crucified and risen Son.

Sadly, some people want the blessings of Christ without receiving Christ Himself. It isn’t possible. Every good thing Jesus grants from the throne of David is with Him and in Him and through Him. And so Isaiah sings in today’s passage, that Jesus our Messiah is our Wonderful Counselor and our Mighty God; He is the very representation of the Everlasting Father; He is our Prince of Peace. As a good king looks after the welfare and prosperity of his people, Jesus our king gives us everything we need to live and prosper in Him. He blesses us with the forgiveness of our sins, the indwelling of His Holy Spirit, with the promise of perfect joy in the presence of God forever, and innumerable graces beside.

Jesus Son of Mary has inherited the throne of His father David. He is the Son of the Most High, God of God from all eternity. He is the ultimate Child of promise, who confirms to us the love of God, love even deeper than that shown to David and Solomon. His kingdom and rule will never end, and so His love and favor to His people will never end.

And we? We can be His joyful servants, receiving His grace, welcoming His presence in Word and Spirit, and longing for His return. Or we can be enemies in rebellion against Him, doomed to defeat like Midian the enemy of Israel, whom Isaiah mentions in his prophecy. Either way, we will bow the knee to Him who sits on the throne of David. Receive the grace of your Lord Jesus Christ, acknowledge Him to be great David’s greater Son, and like Mary, humbly say, "I am the servant of the Lord."

Redemption Drawing Near

Texts: Jeremiah 33:14-22; Luke 21:5-36

A FEW YEARS AGO I WAS at a pastors’ conference where we were doing an in-depth study of the Book of Psalms. During one of the question and answer periods, one pastor gave his opinion that the psalms where God’s people complain of hardship, trouble, grief, oppression and so on simply shouldn’t be used in white middle-class American churches. Middle-class American Christians don’t have troubles like that, he said. Such psalms are irrelevant to our lives and we shouldn’t say them.

I wondered if he really knew what went on in his parish. True, we don’t tend to undergo suffering to the extent our brothers and sisters in Somalia or India or Saudi Arabia do. But we know what it’s like to have trouble. Especially with the economy as bad as it is and the future of our country as uncertain as it is, we find ourselves subject to worry, care, and for some of us, real hardship. The Psalms are given to us for our comfort, as is our passage from the Gospel of St. Luke.

. . . Comfort? Where’s the comfort in Luke chapter 21? It begins all right in verse 5, with the disciples pointing out the marvellous beauty of the Lord’s Temple in Jerusalem. Life was hard and uncertain when you were a poor Galilean peasant, and being a follower of Rabbi Jesus could make things even harder. The Temple, at least, was something solid and permanent. An ordinary Jew could rely on it and feel sure about things, even when life wasn’t so good. That’s because it was a sign of God’s covenant with His people Israel. The disciples and all the Jews could look at the temple and know that in spite of the Roman occupation and everything else they were going through, God was still with them.

So does our Lord Jesus confirm their confidence? No. He says, "As for what you see here, the time will come when not one stone will be left on another; every one of them will be thrown down."

What a knife in the gut! Good on the original disciples--they didn’t contradict Jesus (for once) or say, "But Lord! That’s impossible!" Instead, they asked, "Teacher, when will these things happen?" By now they’d learned to trust Jesus to know what He was talking about.

Jesus doesn’t answer their "When?" question. It wasn’t His will to give them an exact year and day and hour. Instead, He revealed to them and to us the circumstances surrounding the destruction of the temple and Jerusalem with it. And at the same time, Jesus let us know how we can recognise the end of the age and the time of His coming as Judge and King.

We’re looking forward to that, right? His coming will be the end of all our trouble and the beginning of our eternal bliss. But before that Day comes, things on this earth will not get better, they will get much, much worse. Wars. Natural disasters. Pandemics. Terror. Cataclysms in the heavens and on the earth. Jesus said so, and He can be trusted to know what He’s talking about.

A lot of Bible commentators and ordinary Christians, too, get confused over this prophecy. Some say the whole thing applies to the time in A.D. 70 when the Romans marched in and destroyed Jerusalem and dispersed the Jews to the four corners of the world. While others say it all has to do with events that will happen sometime in the future, and the destruction of Jerusalem long ago has nothing to do with it.

But Bible prophecy again and again is fulfilled in a layered way. God revealed His will in pictures and mirrors. One event in the short term would serve as a symbol for something to happen thereafter. For instance, God’s great salvation in freeing His people from Egypt is a picture of what God would do in freeing us His people from slavery to sin by Christ’s death on the cross.

And here in Luke 21, the terrible events Jesus prophesied for Jerusalem were a picture of what will take place someday in the future when God’s judgement descends on all humanity when the Son of Man returns as King. We know from the text itself that the two events have been put together in one prophecy, for the Holy Spirit has Luke write very clearly in verse 24 that "Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the time of the Gentiles are fulfilled." These events couldn’t all happen at once, in the past or in the future. When Jesus talked about the destruction of Jerusalem and about the end of the age, He wasn’t talking about the same time. Rather, He was talking about the same thing. And that thing is the process by which our sovereign God will judge unfaithfulness and evil in this world, install Jesus the Righteous Branch of David as King on the throne of the universe, and bring relief and redemption to His faithful people.

Advent’s a lot like that. It also has two parts. We look for the coming of Christ, the King. We prepare ourselves to receive Him in memory as the human Child born over two thousand years ago. But we also must make ourselves ready for His coming again in glory. We don’t know when that will happen; our Lord didn’t give us the year or day or hour. But it’s all part of God’s sovereign act of judging unrighteousness, making Jesus King, and bringing us redemption that He started long, long ago.

Let this passage be a warning to us, not to load God’s symbols with our own meanings. The Jews thought the Temple would stand forever as a sign of God’s favor to them. We humans see the Christ Child in the manger and think it’s all right to make God out to be weak and manageable and subject to our wants and desires. We sinners can cope with Jesus as a helpless baby. We can even take the grown-up Rabbi preaching woe to the Pharisees-- as long as we think "the Pharisees" are always Those Other People. But in our rebellion and idolatry we cannot take the Son of God hanging on a cross; much less are we ready to welcome the Son of Man come to judge us and rule over us forever.

None of us can accept Christ as He really is-- until God by His own unfettered will and sovereign initiative moves in our hearts by the power of His Holy Spirit and converts us into His own people. But when He does, we become a whole new people! People of redemption, people of righteousness, people of hope! In our Jeremiah passage, verse 16 says, "In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. This is the name by which it will be called: The Lord our Righteousness." But if you go to Jeremiah 23, it speaks there as well of the Righteous Branch raised up from David, and says "This is the name by which He will be called: The Lord our Righteousness." The Jerusalem Jeremiah foretells is not the city destroyed in his day. It’s not the rebuilt city overthrown by General Titus in A.D. 70. It is God’s new Jerusalem, His new Israel, His Church, and we can bear the name "The Lord our Righteousness" because it’s the name of our Redeemer Jesus, the righteous Son of David. We now belong to Him and live in Him, and because we do, we will escape the eternal judgement that will come on the God-hating generation of this world.

In verse 28 Jesus says, "Stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near." Interestingly, this word "redemption" doesn’t mean "ransom"-- for the payment that bought us out of slavery to sin was the blood He shed long ago on His cross. Rather, the word means "release" or "deliverance." When all the world is melting in terror and hiding from the wrath of almighty God, His people can stand on their feet like free men and women liberated by Jesus’ blood and expect to be freed from the persecutions and hardships of those last days. Be of good hope, Christian people! No matter how terrible things may get, God is in control and will bring you through. You may give your physical body as a witness to Christ and His gospel, but as to your soul, not a hair of your head will perish.

However, this is no time for complacency, Christian friends. As our Lord says in verse 34, both pleasure and hardship can weigh down our hearts so we lose faith in the goodness and saving power of God. At this season of the year, it’s doubly heart-breaking to hear someone say, "I’ve lost my job; at our house we won’t have any Christmas." Oh, no, no! You’ve lost your livelihood; does that mean you’ve lost Jesus the living Lord as well? You say you can’t give your children any Christmas this year? But my sad friend, God has already given Christmas to your children and to you as well! Tell them the story of the Son of God who became flesh, who died and rose for their salvation, and you’ve given your children more of a rich and blessed Christmas than most of the richest households will get around this fallen world!

Or there are hearts touched by tragedy, who say Christmas has been destroyed for them because of the grief that has torn apart their lives. If that is you, I beg you to see that this is the time for you to lift up your head, for your redemption is drawing near! Sorrow may have invaded your life, but the Son of God has invaded this world of sin and pain and death; His arm is stronger than the worse that can happen to any of us, and by His cross the victory is already yours.

The Devil wants us to be distracted and not be watching for the second coming of our Lord. He wants us to stop being faithful to Jesus in our everyday lives. For what is it for us to be on the watch? In every other place in Scripture where the return of Christ is described, keeping watch means to keep doing the work He has given you to do, cheerfully, in His name and to His glory. To watch means to endure the ordinary hardships of human life gracefully, drawing always on the power of your Lord Jesus Christ, so that when the greater trials come we’re used to depending on Him. And always, always, to watch means for us to seek and enjoy the means of grace-- reading His word, hearing it preached, praying in Jesus’ name, celebrating and sharing the sacraments He has given us, assembling and serving with His people, the church. In this way Christ Himself will prepare you to be a witness to Him, both in times of peace and in times of persecution and hardship.

After our sermon hymn, we will administer the sacrament of holy baptism to D---, daughter of S--- and L--- and granddaughter of C--- and J---. Do not be deceived: You may see only something being done to an adorable baby. But baptism is a sign of the great conflict between heaven and hell that Jesus describes in the Gospels. War is waged over the souls of little ones such as this, and by baptism we signify that we claim her for Jesus Christ. Greater than that, in baptism God claims her for His own, that she might not be in terror on the Day when Christ comes as Judge, but lovingly look up and hail Him as Her Redeemer and King.

This is God’s promise to us in all our baptisms. If King Jesus comes soon, we will undergo a baptism of fire we never could endure on our own. But our God is strong. He is in control. And just as He brought us through the waters of baptism to new life in His Son, He will also bring us through the deathly fire of that Day to eternal life and peace with Him.

Be of good hope. Your sin was judged and destroyed on the cross of your Lord Jesus Christ. In this Advent season, prepare yourselves to relive the coming of your King as the Babe of Bethlehem. And at the same time, keep watch and live prepared to welcome Jesus your King when He comes to receive you into His glory. In His name and by His power, you can stand and look up, for your redemption is drawing near.