Video and Text of Sermon for the Third Sunday in Advent

Video of Divine Service at St. Luke, Rensselaer 

Third Sunday in Advent       

Isaiah 35:1-10                       
James 5:7-11             
Matthew 11:2-15

O Lord, your Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, my rock and my redeemer. Amen.

Last week, we heard the fiery, accusing, rhetoric of John the Baptist as he prepared the people and spiritual leaders for the coming Christ. He memorably declares that the spiritual leaders are a brood of vipers and that they are unworthy trees ripe for the axe and will soon be thrown into the fire unless they begin to bear fruit worthy of their repentance.  This week, we encounter a considerably less confident and strident John the Baptist who is now incarcerated because of his vocal moral criticism of Herod the tetrarch’s personal life choices. He is suffering from the mind games that forced waiting and solitude can do to a person. Let us recall that this is a man that is accustomed to dwelling in the wilderness and ranging far and wide as necessary for his survival and ministry. Incarceration, even if for just cause, can lead the prisoner to question even the most basic, core components of their convictions that gave their life purpose on the outside. 

This episode grants us opportunity to reflect on John the Baptist’s place and significance. First, John the Baptist is the last Old Testament prophet. Even though we encounter him in the New Testament, he is an Old Testament prophet. Four hundred years have passed since the Lord called a prophet to speak to the people in Israel. The last prophet to address Israel was during the re-building of Jerusalem and the Temple. 

The Persians defeated the Babylonians. The Emperor Cyrus granted permission to Israelites to leave Babylon and return to Judea to repopulate their former land. Malachi is the last of the prophets that supported the decades long re-building of Jerusalem and the Temple. Malachi followed Nehemiah, Haggai, and Zechariah. After Malachi, the Word of the Lord was proclaimed through the public reading of the Pentateuch, wisdom books, and the prophets. God spoke through the liturgy that accompanied the daily sacrifices of the animals for the propitiation of the people’s sins. But a Word from the Lord that addressed contemporaneous issues was dormant after Malachi until John the Baptist. After a four-hundred-year silence, John the Baptist dramatically reclaimed the prophetic mantle. The people received his candid preaching as the Word of God.    

As the final prophet, John is the immediate forerunner of the Christ. Jesus confirms John’s prophetic office, purpose, and role when he quotes Malachi 3:1. “Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way before you.”  While in the wilderness, John prepared by announcing the need for repentance. He did not direct people to the priests in the temple. As a visual and experiential trip to Israel’s past, God has John’s ministry planted in the wilderness. Before Israel entered the Promised Land for the long campaign of conquest, Israel first learned the hard lessons of faith and obedience in the wilderness. With the Baptist’s harsh and attention-grabbing words, he calls Israel to spiritual renewal. He calls them into a deliberate faith walk. No more business as usual. No more luke-warm, maybe if I feel like it, kind of faith. A new age is dawning with the coming Christ. The old age will shortly pass away as the new age dawns with the coming Christ and his sacrificial death on the cross. Faith, a willing faith, to listen and to hear, to look and to see, to believe, to confess, and to follow, is required.  

When Jesus’ ministry was just beginning, the Gospel of John records how John the Baptist had opportunity in town to see Jesus and to bear witness to him. Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world! So confident was he. But now, prison has affected him. 

Jesus directs John’s messengers and John to the Scriptures. Surely this will restore his sense of purpose. John the Baptist is fulfilling Scripture through His ministry. Jesus too is fulfilling Scripture. Jesus points to the messianic expectations in the Old Testament reading from Isaiah 35 and from Isaiah 61: “the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them.”

The promise of the coming Christ is that He will restore and re-create God’s world. Jesus is doing that. He personally brings healing to people’s bodies. We know from the gospels that Jesus also calms tormented souls and quiets minds that are disrupted by the demonic. With every act of healing, every touch, every sermon, every look of compassion, every embrace, Jesus is restoring the broken people in his midst. While these are small miracles which are a very big deal to the individuals and families that he impacts, it paves the way for the great act of healing that Jesus will enact upon the cross. Jesus is preparing the people for his triumphal entry into Jerusalem and his passion. 

On the cross, Jesus bears the horrific burden the world’s sin. The disorder that Adam’s sinful act of disobedience initiated, Jesus will now stop. Sin, death, and the devil have done their level best to arouse suspicion and fear in people’s hearts. They have kept people from receiving God’s good news. They have convinced so many that there is no forgiveness, no hope, no second or third chances because of what you have done. They fan the flames of paralyzing anxiety, perpetual fear, endless regret and sorrow, heaping anger, and murderous rage. Sin, death, and the devil work tirelessly to turn people’s hearts and heads from the hope and release that God offers toward their dark abyss. 

But not anymore.  Jesus comes. The Christ comes to be the sacrifice for all of humankind, past, present and future. Where the animals had to be sacrificed every day for the limited propitiation of the people’s sins, in Jesus, his is the final, and complete sacrifice for us. His death is the end of the perpetual grip of sin, death, and the devil. On account of Christ’s righteousness, through faith, we receive our Lord’s gift of grace. He forgives us of our sins. Through faith, we receive Christ’s righteousness. Through faith, we receive our Lord’s gift of peace. Yes, sin, death, and the devil still afflict us, but on account of Christ, their power is weak. Through Christ, all things are possible. Through Christ, we have the promise of eternal life with God. Our sins are forgiven. 

The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.