Sermon for Advent 4: "Advent is for Singing"

 + 4^th Sunday in Advent – December 19^th, 2021 +

Series C: Micah 5:2-5; Hebrews 10:5-10; Luke 1:39-56

Beautiful Savior Lutheran

Milton, WA

 

 

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

 

“The Grinch paused and he put his hand to his ear.
And he did hear a sound rising over the snow.
It started in low. Then it started to grow.
But the sound wasn't sad! Why, this sound sounded merry!
It couldn't be so! But it WAS merry! VERY!
He stared down at Whoville! The Grinch popped his eyes!
Then he shook! What he saw was a shocking surprise!
Every Who down in Whoville, the tall and the small,
Was singing! Without any presents at all!”

 

The great theologian Dr. Seuss was right. Christmas doesn’t come from a store…it does, quite often, however, come to us in a song. After all, with such good news – that God is born to save you – how could we not sing? When the Lord opens our lips, they can’t help but praise him. Every good Advent and Christmas hymn tells us the story of the Christ child, the God-Man Jesus born to save us. 

 

Advent and singing go together…like PB&J or coffee and donuts. Just think of how many times in the story of Jesus’ birth when singing breaks out like it does in a Broadway musical. These biblical songs aren’t mere fluff. They advance the plot of the salvation story and tell us something essential. 

 

Zechariah sing the Benedictus as John the Baptist’s birth is foretold. The angels sing the Gloria to the shepherds. Simeon sings “Lord now you let your servant depart in peace” as he holds the Christ-child in his arms.” Even our own Sunday School children here at Beautiful Savior have helped us sing and hear and rejoice in the story of Jesus’ birth to save us today.

 

We could take away all the trappings of Christmas - as the Grinch tried to do– and we’d still have Christmas. We’d stand in our pews or in our homes like the Whos down in Whoville in joyful defiance singing: “Joy to the World, the Lord, is come”.

 

On this fourth Sunday in Advent St. Luke invites us to strike the harp and join the chorus in singing an ancient song. A song of God’s great reversal in raising the lowly in Jesus humble birth and death for us. A song of promise and great rejoicing. A song we call the Magnificat.

 

“My soul magnifies the Lord, And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.

 

Mary may be the vocalist of the Magnificat in Luke 1, but she is no soloist. As Gabriel announces the birth of Mary’s son, who is the Son of God, Mary does what Old Testament Christians have always done… she intones the psalms to God, for God had acted on her behalf. She praises the arrival of the very One who fulfills every word of the psalms she is singing. 

 

Mary’s song is also a cover of an older song, the song of Hannah in 1 Samuel. There, Hannah prayed for a son from God. Now Mary sings because she bears a child who not only is from God, but who is God. In 1 Samuel, God remembered Hannah and she became the mother of Samuel. Here in Luke 1, God remembers Mary, Israel, and all nations, and she became the Mother of God.

Consider the first line or two…“My soul magnifies the Lord, And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.For He has regarded the lowly state of His maidservant;

Lowly. Mary describes herself here. A humble peasant from a humble village. An unwed, pregnant, teenager. Poor in the eyes of the world. In the eyes God, however, she is blessed. Why? Listen closely.

 

He who is mighty has done great things for me,
And holy is His name.
And His mercy is on those who fear Him
From generation to generation.
He has shown strength with His arm;
He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
He has put down the mighty from their thrones,
And exalted the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things,
And the rich He has sent away empty.
He has helped His servant Israel,
In remembrance of His mercy,

 

Mary’s song describes us as well. Lowly. Brought low by life in a wicked, broken, fallen world. Brought low by the weight of our own grief, guilt, or shame. Brought low by our own pride and folly and sin. Sometimes, by God’s grace, we’re humble; and other times we’re humbled by his word. 

 

Mary’s song is surprising. Not because she sings, but because she sings a song that isn’t all about Mary. Mary sings about Jesus. You see, Mary’s Magnificat magnifies, not Mary, but her Son, our Lord Jesus.

 

As Mary sang the Magnificat, the Mighty One was in her womb growing, squirming, and kicking, preparing for his birth for you. 

 

As Mary’s spirit rejoiced in God her Savior, her Savior, and ours, was months away from his humble birth to rescue us. Indeed, Jesus fulfills every note and word of the Magnificat. He has shown strength with his arms, nailed to the cross for you. He has exalted us in his humility. He has helped you in remembrance of his mercy. 

 

As Mary sang the Magnificat, Jesus the Bread of Life, was preparing to fill the hungry with good things on the night in which he was be betrayed; his body and his blood, given and shed for you.

 

Today and always, Mary’s song is our song. My soul magnifies the Lord, And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.

 

 

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

 

 

Sermon for Advent Midweek 3: "As One Man"

 + Advent Midweek 3 – December 15^th, 2021 +

Text: Judges 6:11–24; (7:2–9)

Beautiful Savior Lutheran

Milton, WA

 

 

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

 

A mighty man of valor. That’s what the Angel of the Lord, the Son of God, calls Gideon when he appears before him in Judges 6. With a title like that you might think that Gideon was a Hebrew Hercules, a Jewish John Rambo, Manasseh’s own General MacArthur . But no…Gideon’s story sounds more like a diary of a wimpy kid than the valorous feats of a decorated warrior. 

 

When the Angel of the Lord, Christ in the OT shows up. Gideon is hiding from the Midianites, who were oppressing the children of Israel. The Midianites would come up like locusts on the land and destroy Israel’s crops and kill or take their animals (Judges 6:1–10). As a result, many of the Israelites were forced to make dens and strongholds for themselves in the mountains and in caves. What little wheat Gideon was able to gather he was forced to thresh in secret, in a winepress. Gideon’s clan was also weakest in Manasseh, and he himself was least in his father’s house. Not exactly a poster-boy for Israelite army recruiting. Gideon is lowly, weak and even whiny

 

So we can understand Gideon’s response to the Angel of the Lord’s greeting: “the Lord is with you.” Gideon said to Him, “Please, my lord, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all His wonderful deeds that our fathers recounted to us? . . . But now the Lord has forsaken us and given us into the hand of Midian.”

 

We see in Gideon a reflection of ourselves. There are times when the people of God’s new Israel, the Church, feel like Gideon. Perhaps there have been moments in the darkening days of this Advent-tide when you have asked similar questions. If God is with us, if He really is Immanuel, why is the Church struggling or mistreated or ignored? If God is with me, why is life so often such a mess? Why do I feel alone? Why am I sick and suffering? And our list goes on. 

 

Like Gideon, we, too, find ourselves feeling forsaken. And, like Gideon, sometimes the messes are of our own making. That’s how it was in Gideon’s day. God allowed Israel to be overrun by the Midianites because the Israelites had done evil in His sight. That’s the pattern of the Book of Judges. The Israelites would forsake the Lord and run after other gods thinking they’ll give them more of what they want. God’s anger is roused against His rebellious people, and He allows their enemies to overtake them. Then, in their distress, they cry out to the Lord for help. And the Lord raises up a judge, a deliverer, to rescue them from the power of their enemies. The land has rest, and everything goes well for a period of time. But then, the judge dies, the people become spiritually complacent and apathetic, and they forsake the Lord again, and the whole process starts all over.

 

There’s a warning for us here. When everything is going well, we, too, can be tempted to become complacent in our faith’ and forget the Lord and forsake Him for the things of this world. And yet even in the midst of suffering, some of which we experience as a result of sin against us, and some as a result of our own sin, and some because we live in a fallen broken world – our Lord uses to point us back to him, just as he did for Gideon and Israel. 

 

The Lord works repentance in our hearts so in faith, we might call upon His name. And yes, at times, he disciples us like a son whom He loves in order to turn us away from our idols. And then by his Gospel, draw us back and restores us to Himself. To Christ, our Deliverer and Savior. 

 

In Gideon, we also have a picture of Jesus. Gideon was the one chosen by God to deliver Israel in that day and to bring them rest again. Even though he was weakest and least, he was the Lord’s man for the job. This is a consistent theme throughout the Gideon narrative. Instead of defeating the Midianites with a massive army, the Lord reduces Gideon’s army down from thirty-two thousand to a mere three hundred men. Why? So that Israel and Gideon, and we, would see that victory is not won by human strength, so that Israel and Gideon, and we, would see that our boasting is not in ourselves, but in the Lord. So that Israel and Gideon, and we, would rely solely on the grace and wisdom and strength of the Lord. 

 

His grace and wisdom and strength that comes to us hidden beneath the lowliness and weakness and seeming powerlessness of God incarnate.  

 

The victory God gave Gideon foreshadows the greater victory over sin and death and the devil, which the Lord brings to us at Christmas. Jesus who is first becomes last for you. Jesus who is highly exalted humbles himself on the cross for you. Jesus is the almighty and eternal Son of God, and yet how does he come to us? In weakness and humility. Laid in a cattle trough for a crib. Born in Bethlehem, which was little among the clans of Judah. 

 

Jesus, God incarnate, may not look like a mighty man of valor at first. He appeared vulnerable and helpless—not only in His birth but also in His death. And yet, He fulfills His own words spoken to Gideon, “I will be with you, and you shall strike the Midianites as one man”. 

 

Gideon and his mere three hundred would defeat the countless Midianites as one man because the Lord was with them. The Lord Jesus defeats the greatest enemies of sin, death, and the devil, quite literally, as one man. By His incarnation, He has taken our humanity into Himself, and by His death and resurrection, He has destroyed sin, death, and the devil once for all. “For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous” (Rom 5:19).

 

Jesus is an army of one, who delivers us from our enemies. And he does it through his weakness, for the weakness of God is stronger than the strength of men. Out of lowly Bethlehem came the One to be the ruler and deliverer of Israel. The Midianites, in their confusion, would end up turning on and killing one another in their camp. So too, Jesus turned death and Satan against themselves on the cross, delivering us forever from their power and the sin that oppresses us. The one man Jesus assumed the humanity of all people in His conception and birth. And so this one man’s victory also counts for all people in His death and resurrection. The name Gideon means “one who breaks or cuts down.” Jesus is our Gideon; he has broken and cut down all false gods and the devil himself by the wood of the manger and the wood of the cross.

 

The Angel of the Lord first appeared to Gideon when he was threshing out wheat for bread in a winepress, and He departed from sight after Gideon offered up bread and meat on the rock. It’s a marvelous picture of the Sacrament of the Altar, where the Lord fulfills His promise to be with us in the flesh—where His body and blood, offered up on the rock of Golgotha, are given to us in bread and wine. 

 

Finally, when the Angel of the Lord departed from Gideon, he perceived fully that he had been in the very presence of God. Gideon thought he would die for having seen the Angel of the Lord face-to-face. But Gideon is given a word of peace. And so are you. 

 

“Peace be to you. Do not fear; you shall not die.” For the Lord Jesus is both the Mighty God and the Prince of Peace. The Mighty God-Man of valor, and a humble Savior born to save you.

 

Sermon for Advent 3: "Unnamed Disciples"

 + 3^rd Sunday in Advent – December 12^th, 2021 +

Series C: Zephaniah 3:14-20; Philippians 4:4-7; Luke 7:18-35

Beautiful Savior Lutheran

Milton, WA

 

 

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

 

King David. The prophet Isaiah. Zechariah and Elizabeth. John the Baptist. Mary and Joseph. These are the usual Biblical names in Advent. As the Advent season moves on, so too does the story of God’s salvation. God gave each of these memorable names a part to play in fulfilling Christ’s incarnation. In Advent we remember these names, the people and stories that point us to Jesus’ birth to save us. 

 

It’s also good to remember the people in the Biblical story whose names are unknown. Nameless shepherds watching their flocks by night. The unknown owners of the colt Jesus rode into Jerusalem upon. The anonymous thief on the cross who believed in Jesus. Again and again, their stories point us to Jesus’ birth and life and death for us as well. 

 

“Why don’t we know their names?, you might ask. Well, perhaps the gospel writers didn’t know their names either. Though I’m guessing they knew some of them. Perhaps they knew them but didn’t want us to focus more on their names than the name of Jesus, to whom they are pointing us.

 

Whatever the reason(s), there are blessings in remembering these unnamed biblical figures, whose names are known only by our Lord. Remembering the unnamed and unknown serves as a reminder that God knows even the people unknown and unnamed to us. By his grace, they too, have their God-given parts to play in fulfilling the story of Jesus’ life, birth, and death for us. It’s also a reminder that our Lord did not come only for the big named, celebrity types of the world. Jesus came to rescue the lowly, the forgotten, the unknown, unnamed. The sinner lost.

 

It’s also true that quit often these unnamed people in the Bible help us find our place in this great story of salvation.

 

At the center of today’s gospel reading from Luke 7, we find two such people. Unnamed. All we know is that they’re disciples of John the Baptist. Luke doesn’t tell us their names, but rather focuses our attention on the task they’re given by the baptizer. John sends these two disciples to ask Jesus a question. It’s question is every Christian asks at some point in life, and the answer they receive from our Lord is ultimately the only answer any of us ever receive.

 

“Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another?” 

 

Many have attempted to probe the mind and heart of John in order to parse the question. Did he doubt? He certainly had good reasons. Where was the axe swinging at the root? Where was the winnowing fork sorting the wheat from the chaff? Where was the baptism with holy wind and fire? Did he point to the wrong one? Are you the coming Messiah, Jesus, the Lamb of God, the one so great that I am not worthy to untie your sandals? Or do we look for someone else?

Perhaps John sent his disciples for their benefit. Maybe this was the only way he could point to Jesus now. Send his disciples two by two to Jesus and have Jesus speak for himself. Perhaps John knew that the day was fast approaching when his own head would be served up on a silver platter.

More than likely, it’s a little bit of both. John is a proxy. As the last of the prophets, John asks the question on behalf of all of Old Testament Israel who was watching and waiting. “Are you the coming One?” He asks it on behalf of Malachi and Zechariah and Obadiah. Ezekiel, Jeremiah, and Isaiah. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Moses and Elijah and Adam. Are you the One we saw in type? Are you the One who walked with Adam in the cool of the day, whom Moses heard in the burning bush? Are you the Passover Lamb, the Priest, the Prophet, the King, the Servant who suffers for the people?

 

“Are you the One who is to come or do we look for another?” John asks the question, that at some point, we’ve all asked. We ask it as we look around our country and see people, neighbors, friends, even family members, bitterly divided on everything from the pandemic to politics. We ask it as we sit by a hospital bedside – if we’re even able to be at that bedside – when our loved one is sick or dying. We ask it when we discover that John the Baptist lays the axe to the root of our own guilt, shame, despair, and sin as well. We ask it when we suffer for the sake of confessing Jesus’ name and living as his people. We ask it for our families and friends. We ask it for ourselves. 

 

“Are you the One who is to come or do we look for another?”

 

In suffering, in our pain, and grief, it is all too easy to think that we too, are unnamed. Unknown. Forgotten.

 

But you are not. Neither were those disciples. You are known in Jesus. Named in him who bears the name above all names. Jesus. Immanuel. God with us. The list goes on because his love and mercy goes on as well.

 

“Go and tell John what you have seen and heard,” Jesus replies, “The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them.”

 

Jesus’ answer points these unnamed messengers to what He is doing. If you want to know who I am, Jesus says, look at what I do. These disciples saw these things (verse 21) for themselves. But John did not. When they returned to John, they only had a report, only a witness, only a word, only a promise.

 

It does not sound like much - the witness of a couple of unnamed disciples - but it was enough back then, for them. And it still is today. for you. 

 

In the manger of Bethlehem…on the cross in Jerusalem. That is where Jesus answers our question. “Yes! I am the one who has come. There is no other. I am the Word made flesh, born for you. I am the crucified one for you. I am the resurrection and the life for you. 

 

And I am still the one who comes for you. Take, eat; this is my body given for you. Take, drink; this is my blood, shed for you. 

 

And, I am the One who will come again that where I am, you may be also. Let not your hearts be troubled. I am coming soon.” 

 

Amen, come quickly, Lord Jesus.

 

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

 

Sermon for Advent Midweek 2: "The Word Tabernacled Among Us"

 + 2^nd Advent Midweek Service – December 8, 2021 +

Exodus 40:17-21, 34-38 (John 1:1-18)

Beautiful Savior Lutheran

Milton, WA

 

 

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

 

“O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.” It doesn’t take long, maybe just a note or two, and by the time you’re a few lines in, you know it’s Advent. O Come, O Come, Emmanuel is more than an iconic Advent hymn. It’s our prayer. Come quickly, Lord Jesus. O Come, Emmanuel. These words are also our confession of faith. Matthew’s gospel gives us the gospel-rich translation of Emmanuel: “God with us.” 

 

From Eden to the burning bush, from his tabernacle in the wilderness to his manger in Bethlehem. From his cross outside of Jerusalem to his dwelling place in Mt. Zion, the Scriptures reveal that God is the God who dwells with his people. Always has. Always does. Always will.

 

Emmanuel. “God with us.” Since Adam and Eve’s exile from Eden, that is what we desire and long for: for God to be with us, for God to come and dwell with us; to rescue and deliver us from exile. An exile, a separation, isolation from the God who loves to dwell with his people. By the curse of sin we were cut off from God. Exiles in a fallen, broken world. 

 

And then along comes Advent, a yearly reminder that God is the God who dwells with his people. God sends us His Son, Jesus. Emmanuel. God with us. 

 

We often think of Christ appearing and dwelling with us at Christmas. And rightly so. Christ was born for you. And it’s also true that Christ is active and present and dwelling with his people long before he takes up his nine month stay in the womb of the Virgin Mary. 

 

From the very beginning, the Son of God has been intimately involved with His people. The Scriptures say that all things were created through the One who is the Word, that is Christ. And Christ, God the Son, appeared to His chosen people in a preincarnate form throughout the Old Testament before He became man. 

 

The Son of God descended to this earth at various times to be with His people Israel, to speak His Word to them, guide them, and deliver them from their enemies. All of this, of course, was a glorious preview of the time when Christ would descend to earth in a far greater way by becoming man. Emmanuel. God with us.

 

Last week, we heard of how Christ came down to earth and appeared to Moses in the burning bush to announce the release of the Israelites from their slavery to the Egyptians. In today’s Old Testament reading, the Israelites have been freed, and travel in the wilderness. 

 

And, what does God do? That’s right…God dwelled with his people. This time in the form of a cloud that filled and covered the tabernacle. The tabernacle was like a mobile temple, a sacred, liturgical tent the Lord gave Israel for worship, sacrifice, and atonement of sin. Within the tabernacle was the Most Holy Place, where the ark of God was located. The ark contained the two stone tablets of the testimony, which God had given to Moses, and on it was the Mercy Seat, where the Lord was present to meet with and dwell with His people through the blood of the sacrifices. As God was present in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night to lead the children of Israel out of Egypt, so too, He was present among His people as a cloud in this tabernacle. When the cloud rose above the tabernacle, the Israelites would journey. When it remained on the tabernacle, they would stay put.

 

In John’s Gospel we’re reminded that although no one has ever seen God, Christ, the only begotten Son of God has revealed Him. This cloud was a visible revelation of God in His Son. It was the real presence of Christ, the Creator entering into creation for the sake of His people, to lead them to the riches of the Promised Land. It was a living prophecy of how the heavenly and the earthly would come together in forever in the conception of Jesus and His birth in Bethlehem.

 

 “The Word [that is, the Son of God] became flesh and dwelt among us.” That word, dwelt, is a fantastic word in the Greek. It’s a form of the word for “tabernacle” or “tent.” John is declaring that: “The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us.” Jesus “set up His tent” in our midst. 

 

The same Lord who dwelt in a tent made of animal skins has taken on our human nature—bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh. The glory of the Lord dwells in human skin in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. 

 

In the wilderness, the cloud would occasionally arise out of the tabernacle. But in Christ, the divine and human natures are an eternal communion. God the Son is and always will be true man, our brother, just as he is, and always will be true God. The human tabernacle which He now inhabits is His dwelling place forever. This is why Jesus said, “Destroy this temple (referring to His body), and in three days I will raise it up.” God and man dwell together forever in Christ. 

 

This is the joy of Advent and Christmas. God is the God who dwells with his people. Always has. Always does. Always will.

 

Though we were cut off from His life through our sin, in His incarnation, Christ bridged the gap between heaven and earth and brought us back to God. In Christ, we are reconciled to our heavenly Father. God and man are reunited in Jesus. In Christ, we are restored to His holy fellowship. 

 

This holy fellowship is foreshadowed in the cloud that descended on the tabernacle in the wilderness. And in the cloud of Jesus’ transfiguration as well. When Jesus revealed His glory to the disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration, a cloud enveloped them. When Jesus ascended into heaven, a cloud hid Him from the disciples’ sight. When Jesus returns, Scripture says, he will come riding the clouds with great power and glory. Then the words of Jesus in John’s Revelation will come to pass.

 

“Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be His people, and God Himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

 

God is the God who dwells with his people. Always has. Always does. Always will.

 

O Come, O Come, Emmanuel, And ransom captive Israel.

 

 

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Funeral Sermon for Shirley Brown: "Help of the Helpless"

 + In Memoriam – Shirley Brown +

December 4^th, 2021 – Yahn and Son Funeral Home

Isaiah 25:6-9; Revelation 21:1-7; John 11:17-27

Beautiful Savior Lutheran

Milton, WA

 

 

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

 

The Lord is my light and my salvation;
Whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the strength of my life;
Of whom shall I be afraid?

 

For in the time of trouble
He shall hide me in His pavilion;
In the secret place of His tabernacle
He shall hide me;
He shall set me high upon a rock.

 

So writes David in the Psalms (124 and 27). The Psalms, as with the rest of Scripture, are full of words like these. Words from God to us. Words our Lord gives to comfort, forgive, and save us. Words to help us who are helpless.

 

These words – and many more – are the kind of words that helped Shirley throughout her earthly life. 

 

When our members at church heard that Shirley had died, the first thing several people told me is what a great helper she was around Beautiful Savior. That’s a marvelous thing to be known for. To be known as a helper. As one who serves. No doubt each of you in some way were on the receiving end of Shirley’s help. Like the Beatles sang…I get by with a little help from my friends.

 

This helping, servant’s heart can come from one place, and one place only, the gift of faith planted, sown, nurtured, and fed by our Lord Jesus himself. 

 

As David declares in Psalm 27, Our help is in the name of the Lord, Who made heaven and earth.

 

Shirley knew and confessed and lived by this great Biblical truth. That on our own, apart from Christ our Savior, we are utterly and completely helpless. Yet she also knew and confessed and believed in our Lord Jesus who came to rescue and save we who are helpless and lost and dead in sin. 

 

This is what our Lord did for Shirley in the waters of her baptism, just as he does for each of you who are baptized as well. We come to those waters unholy and helpless, dead in our trespasses. But we come out of the water clothed in Christ, washed, forgiven, and alive in Jesus forever.

 

This is what our Lord promises through his prophet Isaiah when he foretells of a day when He will swallow up death forever, And the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces. That day arrived on Good Friday. A day when it appeared that Jesus, God himself in human flesh, hung helplessly on the cross. And yet, he was on the cross for Shirley and for you. 

 

This is what our Lord promises through the apostle John when he says, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God.” 

 

For Shirley and for you, God is not an absent God. He is present. With us in our grief. With us in life. With us in death. With us in his Word. With us in his promise. With us in the grave. With us in rising from the dead. With us forever.

 

This is what our Lord promises Mary and Martha, at the death of their brother Lazarus, the same word and promise he declares to us today… I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die.

 

There is no greater comfort, no greater promise, no greater word of help than this. Jesus’ words are our help and comfort today. For our Lord not only promises to be with us here in this life in all the ways he provides and cares for us. But he also promises an eternal help. Because he died and rose again, so too, Shirley and all who are in Christ, will also rise from the dead in him.

You see, death has a way of making us feel alone, helpless. Yet Jesus reminds Mary and Martha, and each of us, that in him, that’s no longer the case. Death does not get the last word for Shirley or for you. Our Lord Jesus rose on the third day, just as he said he would. A physical, tangible, visible, flesh and blood resurrection. So it will be for Shirley and for all the baptized when our Lord returns again. To make all things new. To crown us with the crown of Christ’s righteousness. To wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.”

Indeed, in Jesus, help is always on the way. And until that great day of our Lord’s appearing, the day of the resurrection of the dead and the life everlasting…may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

 

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sermon for Advent 2: "This is the Way"

 + Second Sunday in Advent – December 5, 2021 +

Series C: Malachi 3:1-7; Philippians 1:2-11; Luke 3:1-20

Beautiful Savior Lutheran

Milton, WA

 

 

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

 

You’re driving down I-5. Traffic begins to slow. WSDOT vehicles appear. Caution flags. Flashing lights. Huge orange signs. You know what’s coming. “Road construction…2 miles ahead.” “Alright! I love it! I can’t wait to sit in traffic.” Said no one ever. 

 

Whether it’s that Tacoma Dome traffic or a new bridge being put in over the Puyallup River, we don’t usually look forward to road construction

 

In Advent, however, we do. In Advent, God is hard at work undergoing his own theological, spiritual road construction. God’s go-to foreman for this project is none other than John the Baptist. The messenger, yes. The way-preparer, certainly. The preacher who announces the coming Messiah. You bet. But there’s more. Isaiah and Malachi remind us that John is also the Messiah’s highway builder; John is God’s road construction prophet preparing the way for Christ.

 

Behold, I send My messenger, And he will prepare the way before Me. “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; Make His paths straight. Every valley shall be filled And every mountain and hill brought low; The crooked places shall be made straight And the rough ways smooth; And all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’ ”

 

St. Luke pulls a page out of the prophets’ playbook as he introduces John the Baptist…

Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and the region of Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, while Annas and Caiaphas were high priests, the word of God came to John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness.

 

Luke opens chapter 3 with a reminder that John is a called and sent prophet – like Isaiah and Malachi and the prophets before him. Luke is also reminding us that God is acting in and through human history just as he’s always done, to accomplish his salvation in Jesus. Not in never-never land or a galaxy far, far away. A real Savior. In real human history. With a real death and resurrection rescue.

 

Notice, too, where God sends his prophetic highway builder. Not to Jerusalem. Not to Galilee. But to the wilderness. In the Jordan River. The same river that was parted like the Red Sea when Joshua led Israel across into the promised land of rest, where 12 stones were laid for posterity. The river where Elijah and Elisha passed through before Elijah was whisked off to heaven. The river where Naaman the Syrian Gentile is healed of his leprosy. 

 

The river where God sends John preaching a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. John’s message is clear. The Messiah in whom there is cleansing, healing, and salvation has come at last. 

 

Make way for the King. Jesus, the long-expected Messiah, the Christ foretold has come. He is here. Prepare. Repent. Believe. 

“The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; Make His paths straight. Every valley shall be filled And every mountain and hill brought low; The crooked places shall be made straight And the rough ways smooth; And all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’ ”

 

John prepares the way, for we are lost. John calls us to repentance because within each of us dwells a sinful nature that is as venomous as a brood of vipers. Our Lord sends John to level our mountains of pride, to fill in the sinkhole of death, and to make straight all the ways we’ve wander down crooked paths.

 

John’s preaching, no doubt, makes us uncomfortable. Makes us squirm. We don’t like to be reminded that we’re sinners. And yet this is necessary…good even. Repentance isn’t a bad word. It’s a good word. An Advent word. It doesn’t mean we’ve been bad and we need to try harder. It means we’re sinners and we need to die and rise in Jesus. Repentance is God’s work in you, paving a highway for Himself.

 

So Jesus sends John the highway builder, his road construction prophet. Like the prophets before him, John speaks a word of warning, and comfort. Judgment of sin, and rescue in Jesus the sin-bearer. He preaches repentance of sin, and remission of sin in the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. 

 

For us who were lost, Jesus finds us, rescues us, throws us over his crucified and risen shoulders, and brings us home. For us who were so full of selfish, sinful pride, Jesus humbled himself even to the point of death on the cross. For us who were trapped in the valley of the shadow of death, Jesus the Good Shepherd King has come in the wilderness to cleanse, heal, and save you.

 

John stands before us in Advent, in the wilderness, a bit like the Mandalorian. He points to Jesus and says, “This is the way.” Jesus is the way. Jesus is the way in which we come home to the Father. Jesus is the road home. Jesus is the One in whom we live, and move, and have our being. Jesus is the one in whom and by whom and with whom we live and walk. Jesus is the one whom Isaiah and Malachi and all the Scriptures point to

 

He is your righteousness, your strength, your healing, your shelter. The axe of the Law was laid on Him. The fire of God’s wrath consumed Him. Like Israel of old, Jesus our greater Joshua, has brought us through the Jordan of our Baptism to the promised land. Like Naaman, we are cleansed and healed by his word in the water. Like Elijah, we are given eternal rest. And like John, we are led through the wilderness by Jesus the Way.

 

 

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

 

Sermon for Advent Midweek 1: "An Old Testament Christmas"

 + Advent Midweek 1 – December 1^st, 2021 +

Exodus 3:1-14; (Matthew 1:18-23)

Beautiful Savior Lutheran

Milton, WA

 

 

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

 

A shepherd abiding in the field. Keeping watch over his flocks by night. When suddenly the Angel of the Lord appears. Sound familiar? Not the Christmas account from Luke 2, but Exodus 3. The shepherd was Moses, tending the flocks of his father-in-law Jethro. 

 

Behold, the Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. When the shepherd Moses saw it, he wondered at the sight, and as he drew near to look, the voice of the Lord came, saying, “I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob.” And the shepherd Moses trembled and hid his face, for the glory of the Lord made him greatly afraid. And the Angel of the Lord said to him, “Fear not, for I have surely seen the ill-treatment of My people that are in Egypt and have heard their groaning, and I have come down to deliver them. And now, come, I will send you to Egypt, and this will be a sign unto you: this bush that burns with fire and yet is not consumed.”

 

Perhaps you haven’t thought of the story of the burning bush as a Christmas story. But it certainly is. 

 

The same Lord Jesus who was born in Bethlehem and announced to the shepherds is present in both places, Luke 2 and Exodus 3. This is one of many occasions in the Old Testament, where the Angel of the Lord appears. The Malak YHWH in Hebrew. As we find out, the Angel of the Lord is no ordinary angel. In fact, not an angel at all – not like the angels Isaiah or John sees surrounding God’s throne. The Hebrew word for angel – malak – also means messenger. So does the Greek word. So you have angels, or messengers in John’s Revelation that are the pastors of the seven churches.

 

Here in Exodus 3, the Angel of the Lord is none other than the Son of God himself. He repeatedly calls himself God and so does Moses. Long before Jesus, the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity, took on flesh, he appeared to his people of old. The Angel of the Lord in Exodus 3 is Christ before his incarnation. 

 

St. John declares something similar in the opening verses of his Gospel when he says that Christ is the Word that became flesh and dwelt among us. As the uncreated, eternal, divine Angel of the Lord, Jesus is both the messenger and the message. He is God the Father’s final Word to us. The Word made flesh for you.

 

Notice what the Son of God does in Exodus 3. He descends to earth as He did at Christmas. And He does so in a very concrete and physical way, as a flame of fire within the branches of a bush. He did the same as he was laid wood of a manger, the Lord came down to us. Heaven and earth, eternal and temporal are united. As in Bethlehem, so too, in the burning bush. He takes on an earthly form that Moses—and later, we—could grasp and receive. In the incarnation, the Creator entered his creation so that sinful people could approach Him without fear, without being destroyed. The burning bush, then, is a prophetic event. It foretells the time when Christ would descend to this world again and permanently take on our human nature in the womb of the Virgin Mary.

 

Exodus 3 is a glorious preview of our Lord’s birth for us, an old Testament Christmas. It not only proclaims who God is but why he comes to Moses and for us at Christmas… I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good land…

 

In the same way, Christ came down at Christmas to rescue all of mankind. Joseph and Mary were told, “You shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.” Our Lord descended to deliver us from our enemies who had enslaved us. He came to release us from the power of our taskmaster, the devil, and to free us from the oppressive bondage of sin and death. By His holy incarnation, Christ became the new and greater Moses, who leads us out of the kingdom of darkness, through the baptismal waters of the Red Sea, and into the light of the Promised Land of the new creation. The One who appeared in a flame of fire said, “Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:12).

 

When Moses looked at the bush, he saw that it was burning with fire, but the bush was not consumed. Our Lutheran forefathers saw in this theophany – a God revealing himself event – a picture of the divine and human natures of Christ. By his incarnation Jesus is eternally and forever true God and true man. And just as the burning bush never burned so the union between God and man in Christ will never end. Christ is forever true God and true man; even as he sits at the Father’s right hand, he is our brother. And he has come, not for judgment, but to be judged in our place. Just as the fire of the burning bush was not a consuming, destroying fire, but one that reveals God’s deliverance and life and presence for his people.

 

Our Lord joined this visible sign of the burning bush with his voice. Christ spoke. Declared his word – in, with, and under the burning bush – we might say. The Lord Jesus reveals his name and promise to Moses. 

 

“Say this to the people of Israel, ‘I am has sent me to you.’” I am, the one who is, and who was, and who is to come. Jesus is the revelation of the divine name, for He teaches us, “I am the Good Shepherd.” “I am the light of the world.” “I am the vine; you are the branches.” 

 

And He who revealed Himself to Moses in the branches of a bush has now taken on your flesh and blood that you might become His branches, that you might be joined to Him and receive your life from Him. Apart from Jesus, the branches wither and die and are burned in judgment. But abiding in Jesus, the branches thrive and share in the fire of His divine life. In Bethlehem, as Micah and Isaiah foretold, Christ Jesus, the shoot of the stump of Jesse takes root, and spreads throughout the earth. 

 

Though you may not have ever thought of it this way, the burning bush is a marvelous Old Testament Christmas story. A great sign and symbol pointing us forward to our Lord’s coming in the flesh at Christmas. A great theophany – a God revealing event – directing our eyes forward to where Jesus once again will appear for us, not in a burning bush, but upon a tree for you. 

 

As you prepare to celebrate this nativity of our Lord, God grant that He who is that flame of living and life giving fire, and the Light of the World, enlighten your hearts with penitent faith and holy love.

 

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.