2023-12-10 Advent 2B

The blue pyramids represent the season of Advent and remind us of God's presence in the Incarnation, the Word and Sacraments, and the Second Coming. Advent is a time of anticipation and preparation for the arrival of Christ. John the Baptizer recognizes his unworthiness compared to Jesus, the perfect Messiah. Baptism is a means of God's grace and salvation. John preached repentance and forgiveness of sins, preparing the way for the Lord. The focus is on preparing our hearts and minds for Christ's coming. Notice the blue pyramids around us. They tell us a number of different things, of course, but one of the main things they show us is that we're in the season of Advent, the time of Advent we know from the blue pyramids. Advent, of course, is the Latin word for coming towards. God comes to us, towards us, in the Incarnation, in the Word and the Sacraments, and in the Second Coming for judgment at the end of the world. But in our devotional readings and in our Advent services on Wednesday nights, we're learning another truth, that though we have these three time markers, the Incarnation, the Word and the Sacraments, and the end of time, yet God is not absent or slothful or uncaring between creation and the Incarnation. He appeared to many people in various ways throughout the Old Testament. In the same way, he is not absent or missing from his church in the New Testament era either, but is with us always, even as he has promised. Thus we call his name Immanuel. That's this side of my soul. Immanuel, God is with us. God is with us through Word and Spirit, through the Water and the Word, the Word and the Sacraments, through the means of grace. God is with us. We know that from the blue pyramids. But when I was growing up, the color of Advent was not blue at all. It was purple. It was purple. Purple is the color of royalty. When we are getting ready for the arrival of Christ Jesus, we acknowledge he is the King of the Jews. That's purple for royalty. Blue is the color of hope. Even so, when you hope for something that is weight with eager expectations, still you do not stand idly by. No either color, whether purple or blue, shows us that Advent is a time and a season of anticipation. And with that anticipation comes preparation. We prepare for our coming King. Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and our Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. In Mark 1, John the Baptizer makes an important distinction. On the one hand, here is John, a mere man, a mortal, a sinful human being, just like you and me, just like all the other pastors who had come after him, folks in dire need of the forgiveness that only God can give. I am not worthy to stoop down and untie his sandals, which, by the way, was the role of a slave. I am not worthy to do a slave's job. Why? Because Jesus, on the other hand, is the perfect Messiah. Jesus is that long time awaited for a Savior who would finally come and crush the head of the serpent, the devil, once for all, for good. The comparison is grand. John the Baptizer on the one hand, God on the other. A mere man in the one hand, man and God in one person, Christ Jesus on the other. It is grand because really there is no comparison. Neither would there be any comparison if any of us were transplanted into John's position. John was clothed with camel's hair and wore a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. And he preached, saying, After me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit. That's John's preaching. Now notice, I want you to learn an important thing about John's preaching here. He isn't saying that his baptism didn't save. He isn't saying that his baptism didn't save. Clearly it did. He also is not saying that there are two different baptisms Christians must undergo, as the water baptism and spirit baptism were two different things. No, he is simply showing the contrast between himself who only can apply the water, that's what baptism means, apply water, between himself and between God who gives the Holy Spirit to trust the Word of God included in God's command combined with the water and the sacraments. We learn quite clearly later on, Ephesians chapter 4, there is but one body and one spirit, just as you are called to the one hope that belongs to your call. One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all. And you even confessed it moments ago. Well, as it was in the days of John the baptizer, so it is in today's era. The pastor is just the agent, the tool who pours the water on your head, but it is God who comes to save you. And he is the one who comes to save you. And he is the one who comes to save you. And he is the one who comes to save you. But it is God who comes to save you. In fact, you search the scriptures, both the Hebrew and the Greek, in almost every instance where baptism is talked about with an active verb, God is the subject. God is the subject. Conversely, wherever in both testaments baptism is the subject and the verb is passive, the subject is the one being saved. The subject is the one being saved. Baptism is God's work to save you. And save you, it most certainly does. Here's how it happens. Mark chapter 1, 4 and 5. John appeared baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And all the country of Judea and all Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. John simply preached a Lutheran sermon. That's all he did. John was a Lutheran, right? John preached a Lutheran sermon. He preached law and gospel. He told his hearers what they needed to hear. That they were sinners worthy of eternal condemnation forever. That they should be sorry for that condition which they found themselves in, both during the inherited propensity to do wrong and violate God's commands, but also for the active performance of that propensity that is not doing what God tells us to do and repeatedly engaging in the thoughts, attitudes, speech and actions he solemnly warns against. What's more, though, is he didn't leave them dead in their sin. He didn't preach only the law, but also the gospel. He showed them the Savior who came to take that sin away, who gave them the gift of baptism, which daily drowns that propensity for wrong. We call it original sin, or the old Adam in us, the old man. It drowns it and lifts up a new man equipping us for every good work to the Word and the Holy Spirit. You see, John did not preach or cater to the whims of his culture. It was counter-cultural before it was cool. John did not seek sponsorships and preach according to whoever was influencing him. Right? After all, he who pays the piper picks the tune, right? Not so with John. He spoke the truth in its fullness and God's people responded in kind. They repented. They were sorry for their sin. They acknowledged their need for his Savior. They confessed that Savior to be Jesus. They promised with God's help to amend their sinful ways and they were baptized for the forgiveness of their sins. Mark records that this scene was to fulfill what the Bible already said in the Old Testament. Mark chapter 1, 2 and 3. As it is written in Isaiah the prophet, Behold, I send my messenger before your faith, who will prepare your way, the voice crying of one in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. The focus is on Isaiah's words. Now, it's not exactly clear how to take this. The Hebrew is ambiguous, so to speak, and the Greek isn't much better. On the other hand, there are two options how to render this verse. And the question is about preparation that must happen. Option A is this. A voice cries in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord. Okay. Option B is this. A voice cries in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord. The difference is subtle. It's subtle. It's fair. In the first scenario, the focus is on the preparation. I mentioned purple before because the preparation of the coming came. Purple also is the season or the color of repentance. Repentance. Even last week, the candle stood for hope. But Christian hope is more patient waiting or expectation. And when you expect something to happen, you make sure you're ready for it. Right? The in-laws say they're coming to town and what do you do? You clean your house. Amen. You get the guest room ready. You rearrange it. You clean it from top to bottom. You, ox or beaver, buy extra food. Right? You get ready. You get ready. And likewise, if the king were to come and visit your village, you would want to make sure everything was ready for him, that nothing would impede his visit. You would make sure, you would make sure that you filled in the potholes, that you smooth out the roads, that you straighten the winding roads as much as you could. That is, remove any impediment from the king to come to you. After all, which is easier to walk on? The red carpet or the wilderness? The red carpet? Flat and smooth and nice and pretty. The wilderness? Well, come on. Have you hunted in northwest Montana? It's steep. It's steep. Well, that just lends you to the other option, doesn't it? The other option is this. A voice cries, in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord. Now, that is a subtle change, but notice the focus now is on the location rather than on the preparation itself. It might not be easy for the president to visit you if the whole country were wilderness in which we hunt, right? But neither would it be easy for the delivery trucks to bring us ammo. So what do you do? Well, you build a road. You make it easy. You make it relatively straight. Make it easy to drive on. You make straight the paths. You prepare the way. John was preaching in the Judean wilderness. Okay. What was more important than the Judean wilderness was that he was cultivating the wilderness of the hearts and minds and souls of his hearers. You see option B. Option B, that is, in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, is a bit more potent a translation. In the wilderness, prepare the way. You see, if we're told to prepare the way, it means that the way is not quite at this time ready to go. There's still work to be done. There's still problems that need to be addressed. And that's what sweetens the deal for the season of Advent. In the wilderness of your hearts, prepare for the Lord's coming. Be ready. In its natural state, that is, post-fall condition, that's every one of us, your heart is not a ready, welcome place for the King of Kings. Think of real estate, piece of property left on its own. It will soon become overdrawn, taken over by vegetation, such that you would never know that humans ever had an impact on that place. Just so, it's an extension of what happened to Adam and Eve as a result of their sin. Genesis 3, 17 and 18, to Adam he said, because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, you shall not eat of it, cursed is the ground because of you. In pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the plants of the field. That sounds like wilderness to me. Sounds like wilderness to me. Because you have listened to the voice of your wife. Now, not everyone has a spouse. And only half of those who do have a spouse have a wife. But regardless of marital status, everyone is guilty of the same problem. We listen to the wrong voice. We listen, that is, to the voice of the tempter, of the devil, of him who would destroy us through sin. And in that sin there have come up in your hearts thorns and thistles and briars and weeds, and it is no longer a fit habitation or place of visitation for a king. In the wilderness prepare ye the way of the Lord. It means, dear Christian, that you must repent. You must repent and ponder and think and be sorry and understand what is it? What is it that is thorny against your side, against your soul? What weedy problems do you struggle with that would prevent a king from visiting you? When the path fell among weeds, the weeds choked it out and it died. What sins, specifically, are viny branches or roots that impede your walking with God in the way that he commands? Sin is like a heavily rooted trail. It will trip you up. Like John's here is, dear Christian, for these sins we must repent. But please, please take notice of the addressee of Isaiah, quoted by Mark. In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord. He is preaching to pastors, to preachers, to John the baptizer before them. They don't preach any old thing. They don't preach willy-nilly. They don't preach whatever they feel like. They don't preach whatever will sell more donations. They don't preach whatever society around them is saying in the cacophony of their own echo chamber. No. They preach the fullness of God's Word. They preach the law and the gospel. You see, the preparation happens by God himself. Otherwise, it would be an impossible burden for you to bear. You cannot adequately prepare the way of the Lord. You can no sooner stop sinning than you can prepare your heart to be worthy of the King. But God most certainly can. And God does. Yes, in your heart, yes, in your heart, because of your sin, it is a wild, thorny, scary wilderness. But listen to what Jesus has said about the solution. I am the vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he takes away. And every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. And already you are clean. That's connected to the word for prune and vine. Already you are clean because of the Word that I have spoken to you. You are clean because of the Word that I have spoken to you. You are a pruned, clean, thornless branch, dear Christian, bearing fruit, the fruit of repentance, the fruit of the Spirit, living a life of salvation. What made you so? It wasn't your words. It wasn't your decision. It wasn't your earnest desire. It wasn't your heartfelt feeling. It wasn't your intuition. It was none of these things. It was simply the Word of God spoken to you by your friends, by your relatives, by your pastor. The Word applied to you, combined with water in holy baptism, to make you one redeemed by Christ the crucified. And so you are. That Word is good news, dear Christian friends. And if we were to say it another way, good news comes out gospel, the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. The gospel is the Word of God that prepares the way of salvation for you in your 40 years 40 sin-filled hearts. The Word incarnate who came to earth to bear your sin and crush the head of that liar, the devil. The Word who comes to you every Sunday as you invoke his name and enjoy his presence. The Word who in his incarnation took your sin, nailed it to the cross, died and rose triumphant on the third day for the forgiveness of your sin. May we this Advent season then pray with the church, having been fully prepared for his coming to the preached Word of the gospel and the law, the law and the gospel. Just like the college said, Lord, stir up your power and prepare our hearts for your coming that we may be ready to serve you. God grant it so in the name of Jesus. Amen. May that peace of God which you pass for understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our risen Lord and Savior. Amen.