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.