Sermon for Advent 2: "The God Who Calls"

+ 2^ndSunday in Advent – December 9^th, 2018 +

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

Beautiful Savior Lutheran, Milton

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

God is the God who calls. He called Abraham to leave his home to the land the Lord gave him. He called Moses to lead His people out of slavery in Egypt in the exodus. He called David the shepherd boy out of the fields to be anointed king of Israel. 

Later on, God called his prophets to declare his Word to his people Israel; some like Jeremiah and Isaiah are more well-known; others, like Malachi whom we hear today, are lesser known. But God called his prophets not to fame, but to faithfully declare his word. To prepare us for Jesus’ coming.

Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts.

At times God calls the most unlikely of people. Saul the persecutor of Christ and His Church is called and turned into Paul the Evangelist and Apostle. A preacher called to deliver the Good News of Jesus Crucified for you as we prepare for Jesus’ coming.

I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

Still at other times, God finds and calls his people in the most unlikely of places. Gideon in a winepress. Jonah in the belly of a fish. Elijah hiding in a cave. John the Baptist in the wilderness, in the spirit (and odd clothing and diet) of Elijah just as Isaiah and Malachi had foretold. the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness. And he went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet,

“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 shall be made low,
and the crooked shall become straight,    and the rough places shall become level ways,
and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’”

God is the God who calls. He called John out to the wilderness. To the Jordan. Where the river parted like the Red Sea while Israel walked through into the Promised Land. Where 12 stones were stacked as a remembrance of God’s faithfulness to his people, his Israel. Where Elijah rode the chariots to heaven. 

Like the prophets of old, John is a Word-giver, not an attention seeker. He is only the voice. John must decrease. Jesus must increase. John points us away from ourselves to the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Like the prophets of old, John preaches God’s Word and prepares them, and us, for Jesus’ coming. And yet, God calls John to do something new as well. A washing of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. A preparation for the sacrifice of Jesus the true Passover Lamb. 

That is John’s calling. His vocation. Preacher of repentance and forgiveness of sins. Prepare the way of the Lord. Make his paths straight. Bear fruits in keeping with repentance. For Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”

God calls John to preach repentance to us as well. John is God’s axe, laid to the root of our lifeless limbs. John is God’s bulldozer, called to level the swelling mountains of our sinful pride.

And to understand John’s message of repentance we must first understand that repentance isn’t primarily an emotion; it is an action. Turn away from sin. Turn away from ourselves. Turn away from our self-serving ways. Turn away from the thoughts, words, and deeds that turn us away from the Lord. Return to his Word. Return to your Baptism. Return to the Lord who has returned to you, and for you. 

For it is the Lord who repents us. Repentance is God’s work in us, not our work for God. He shows us our sin. The Holy Spirit works on us in and through the Word. He strips away everything that gets in the way of receiving Jesus’ Word. He turns our hearts back to the Father, through the Son. 

God is the God who calls. In repentance, God calls us out of our wilderness to journey to Bethlehem and Jerusalem where Jesus is born for us and crucified for us. He calls us out of the Egypt of death and slavery of sin to a new exodus in Jesus the Lamb of God who is sacrificed for us. He calls John and John points us to Jesus, the Lamb of God who takes away all our half-hearted “I’m sorry’s”. All the rotten fruit our sinful flesh produces. All the deadness of our sin. 

God is the God who calls. And he called Jesus to let the axe of his judgment fall upon his Son, not us. He called Jesus to bear our bad fruit and to become the bad tree on the cross to transform it into a good tree, a life-giving tree of salvation for you, and to graft us dead branches into Christ the Vine. He called Jesus, his only begotten Son, to bear the fire of his wrath and so call us sons, heirs, and baptized children of God.

Jesus is the good tree that bears the good fruit on behalf of all of humanity. And grafted to Him in baptismal faith, joined to Jesus as branches to a living Vine, feeding off of His death and life, you are a good tree too. 

Here too, in our daily life, God is the God who calls. He called John to a unique vocation of prophet, herald, and forerunner. So too, God calls each of us to unique vocations, callings in life where we are called to serve and love our neighbor, and when able, to give a reason for the hope that is within us. And in each of these vocations we find ourselves asking the same question the crowds, the tax collectors, and the soldiers asked John. “What, then shall we do?” 

Once again, John points the way: “Whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise.” “Collect no more than you are authorized to do.” “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or by false accusation, and be content with your wages.”

In other words, live as God’s redeemed, baptized children. Live as ones called by God. And so whatever our vocation is, whether it’s in the home, the church, or the workplace; wherever our Lord calls us, we live as people called by God. 

This is our life in Advent, and every season until Jesus returns. God calls us to faith in him love for our neighbor. To point them to the God who calls us his children in His Son Jesus crucified.

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