Sermon preached on Saturday, December 8, 2018 at Church of the Savior in Wheaton, IL. Scripture: Luke 3:1-6.
I’d actually like to pray this week’s collect again, because I think it’s so good. So, pray with me.
Merciful God, who sent your messengers, the prophets, to preach repentance and prepare the way for our salvation, give us grace to heed their warnings and forsake our sins, that we may greet with joy the coming of Jesus Christ, our Redeemer, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but it’s been a particularly difficult week here at Church of the Savior. If you’re not familiar with what’s been going on here, since the end of the sermon last week, we found out that Father Kevin has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s. We lost a founding and foundational member of this church, Marilyn Stewart. We just celebrated her life at a funeral this afternoon, and I’m sure that there’s numerous other things that all of us are carrying at this point.
And so, this evening, to borrow the words of Zechariah that we all said in unison, it sure feels like we gather as those who dwell in darkness and sit in the shadow of death. We sit in the shadow of a particular death. Our beloved sister Marilyn.
And so, we gather tonight, again to borrow Zechariah’s words, as those who need the tender compassion of our God. We need the dawn from on high to break upon us, to give us light, and to guide our feet into the way of peace.
We need peace. We need light. We need comfort. And instead, we’re given John the Baptist.
Wild-haired, crazy-eyed, locust-eating John the Baptist. God’s fiery messenger crying out in the wilderness, prepare ye the way of the Lord. Next week’s lesson, repent, you brood of vipers.
Now, nothing against John, of course, but from our perspective, at least, isn’t this at least unfortunate liturgical timing. I mean, come on, John, we’re struggling here. Can’t you come back another time? Maybe wait, come back at Lent? Right now, we need some good news. We need some comfort. Do we really need to hear from John the Baptist right now?
I think we do. And it’s not just because I didn’t feel like changing my sermon. Here’s why.
As we wait for the Lord’s return, we must also, like John the Baptist, prepare the way of the Lord in the wilderness, in darkness, in the shadow of death. And John reminds us that preparing the way of the Lord is not comfortable, but it is comforting. It’s not comfortable, but it is comforting.
Preparing the way of the Lord in the wilderness is not comfortable. It’s not characterized by comfort. But preparing the way of the Lord in the wilderness is comforting because it brings God’s comfort.
So, first, what does it mean to prepare the way of the Lord? Well, it simply means to get things ready for God’s arrival. But it specifically means to get a people ready for God’s arrival. See, we’re not talking about a literal road that needs to be leveled and straightened and paved. We’re talking about a group of people who need to get prepared for their God to arrive.
That’s what John the Baptist is up to. He’s getting people from the house of Israel ready to receive their Lord’s arrival as good news of deliverance instead of as bad news of judgment.
The angel Gabriel said as much to John’s father, Zechariah, in Luke 1, 16 and 17. This is Gabriel talking, he says, And John will turn many Israelites to the Lord their God. He will be a man with the spirit and power of Elijah. He will prepare the people for the coming of the Lord. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and he will cause those who are rebellious to accept the wisdom of the godly.
And when Zechariah himself prophesied about John’s ministry in Luke 1, 76 and 77, he said, and we just all said this in unison and slightly different words, And you, my little son, will be called the prophet of the Most High, because you will prepare the way for the Lord. How? You will tell his people how to find salvation through forgiveness of their sins.
So preparing the way of the Lord means getting people ready for God to arrive. John prepared the way for our Lord Jesus Christ’s first arrival. And we Christians today prepare the way of the Lord for his second arrival, when he returns to judge the living and the dead on one hand, and to wipe away every tear from our eyes on the other. That’s what it means to prepare the way of the Lord.
So why is getting people ready for Christ’s return not comfortable? First, it’s not comfortable because it’s done in the wilderness of human history. We prepare the way of the Lord in the midst of a world that, though it still belongs to God, has been infected and affected by sin and death at every level.
But when faced with such a world, the good news of Jesus Christ is not escapist. It’s not some pie-in-the-sky pipe dream that touches lightly on the carnage of human history. No. Instead, the good news of Jesus Christ doubles down on space and time, on the here and now, and on flesh and blood.
Did you notice all those names at the beginning of our gospel lesson? Great job reading them, Sandy, by the way. Our gospel lesson starts in the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar. And if all Luke was trying to do there was indicate the year in which these things took place, he could have stopped.
But instead, he continues to list Pontius… I’m going to give it a go. Pontius Pilate, Herod, Philip, Lysanias, Annas, Caiaphas. These were very real, very powerful men. Men with the very real blood of the people of God and of the Son of God on their hands.
And where does the Word of God show up? To John, the son of Zechariah, in the wilderness. You see, the Word of God offers us no escape from human history. Instead, it offers us a redemption of human history.
And this redemption, as it turns out, includes some reversals of fortunes. As Mary sang in Luke 1, 52 and 53, when God redeems, he brings down rulers, like those seven men we just named. He brings down rulers from their thrones, but he lifts up the humble. When God redeems, he fills the hungry with good things, but he sends the rich away empty.
As our gospel lesson put it, quoting Isaiah 43 and 5, three through five. When God redeems, valleys are raised up, mountains are brought low. Crooked roads are made straight, and rough roads are made smooth.
Yes, amen. I mean, that sounds like good news, right? Especially if we’re humbled and hungry in the valley of the shadow of death. That sounds like great news. Let’s get some reversals going on in here.
You know what? I say we get some bulldozers, and we start chipping away at those mountains. I say we knock some cracks into the foundations of the halls of power. I say we let the Tiberiuses of this world know that their days in power are numbered. Right?
But here there’s a second reason why preparing the way of the Lord in the wilderness is uncomfortable. It’s because that process begins with us, the people of God. You see, John, when the word of God shows up to him in the wilderness, he doesn’t go to Tiberius’s palace. He doesn’t pay a visit to Pontius Pilate’s mansion. I mean, yes, he does speak the truth to Herod, which gets him thrown in prison. But the summary of John’s ministry that we’re given this week in our gospel lesson in Luke 3, verse 3, is that John tells ordinary Israelites that they need to repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of their sins.
Now, wait a second, John. I thought this was all about reversal. We’ve been brought low by Assyria, by Babylon, by Persia, by Greece, and now by Rome. Surely we don’t need to repent. We’re the victims here. Go tell the Romans and those Roman-loving sellouts that they need to repent.
But, of course, God’s redemption involves both reversal and renewal. The good news of Jesus Christ is radical in many ways, but particularly in this, that it calls both the strong and the weak, both the oppressors and the oppressed, to repent. To turn away from sin and turn toward God. To embrace God’s agenda by living a transformed life. You see, God doesn’t need our bulldozers. He wants our repentance and our obedience.
And as our collect this week that I prayed at the beginning of this sermon reminds us, if the return of Jesus is to be received as good news, it must be preceded by repentance. Otherwise, the return of the judge is bad news for the unrepentant.
This reminds me of Jesus’ words later in Luke’s Gospel, chapter 18, verses 7 and 8. Jesus says, And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?
When Jesus returns, will he find faith on the earth? Getting people ready for Christ’s return in the wilderness is not comfortable, because we need to ask ourselves that question before we can ask it of anyone else.
And yet, I insist that preparing the way of the Lord is comforting.
You know, I find it fascinating that all four Gospels link John the Baptist’s ministry with Isaiah, chapter 40. Isaiah 40 is a major turning point in the book of Isaiah. This is a painting with an overly broad brushstroke here. But broadly speaking in Isaiah, chapters 1 through 39 contain oracles of judgment. And then chapter 40 comes along and begins like this.
Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed. Her sin has been paid for. That she has received from the Lord’s hands double for all her sins.
And then in the very next verse, the voice in the wilderness crying out shows up. So the voice crying out in the wilderness, which all four Gospels say is John the Baptist, is preparing the way, getting people ready for the arrival of God’s comfort in and through Jesus Christ.
So preparing the way of the Lord brings comfort first, because though we have sinned and we need to repent, forgiveness is freely available through Jesus Christ. We are not saved by how well we repent. If that were true, that would be very bad news. Because we’re not all that great at repenting. Instead, we are saved by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Turning away from sin and toward Jesus might not be comfortable, but it’s comforting because he’s more worthy of our faith than we are. We don’t have to run the rat race of trying to earn God’s favor and give our own lives meaning. Instead, we can cling to Jesus and find forgiveness, purpose, and value in him.
Preparing the way of the Lord brings comfort. Secondly, because the wilderness will not have the final word. The word of God in the wilderness is not, get used to it, this is the way things will always be. No.
I don’t care how common they are, even in the church, even in this church. Sin, death, and disease are not the way things are supposed to be. God will not let them stand. He is at work against them even now, and one day he will return to abolish them forever.
So getting ourselves ready for Jesus’ return is comforting, even when it’s done through tears. Because the people thus prepared are the people who await the fulfillment of Revelation 7, 16 and 17.
Never again will they hunger. Never again will they thirst. The sun will not beat down on them, nor any scorching heat. For the lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd. He will lead them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.
No more decay. No more disease. No more Parkinson’s. No more metastatic melanoma, or any other kind of cancer. No more death. That’s what we’re preparing for, and that’s why it’s comforting.
So how should we prepare the way of the Lord today here at Savior? How should we get ourselves ready for Christ’s return? Well, Father Kevin is going to preach next week, I think, right? About repentance, based on the content. So Luke chapter 3 goes on and gives us some of the content of John’s preaching, and Father Kevin is going to preach on what it looks like to repent next week. So come back. But in the meantime, I’ve got three pastoral suggestions based on this week’s introduction of John’s ministry.
First, avoid escapism and tell the truth about the wilderness. Maybe I’m just speaking to myself here, but it seems like one of the easiest approaches to suffering, the suffering we’re enduring here at Savior right now, would be to ignore it.
Let’s put a smile on. How are you doing? Fine. You? Fine. Everybody’s fine.
No, that’s not how the church is supposed to behave in the wilderness. Instead, let’s be honest with God and with each other about the wilderness in which we find ourselves. How are you doing? Honestly, how are you really doing? Maybe instead of just saying, fine, you should tell the truth.
I’m lonely. I’m afraid. I’m overwhelmed. I’m angry. I don’t understand why God is allowing this to happen.
Friends, if the gospel tells us anything, it tells us that things right now are not the way they’re supposed to be. And if we can’t be honest about that here with each other as brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ, what hope do we have?
Yes, we should be grateful. Yes, we should be hopeful. But we also need to be unflinchingly truthful, especially in difficult seasons like the one we’re in right now. So first, avoid escapism and tell the truth about the wilderness.
Second, radically resist busyness and hurry. And if that sounds familiar, it’s because it’s one of our stated values here at Savior. It’s up on our website. It’s baked into the culture of this church. But I bring it up again because of the temptation that I mentioned earlier to get bulldozers and try to level those mountains on our own.
Now, I’m not saying that the gospel shouldn’t lead us to oppose the effects of sin and death in the world around us. It should. But we can’t allow mere activism to replace the uncomfortable work of examination and repentance. Because when the going gets tough, it’s often easier to lose ourselves and our work, perhaps especially when it’s kingdom work. It’s easier to do that than it is to stop and tell the truth about how we’re doing.
Confession and repentance are both more difficult and less comfortable than volunteering, than giving, than preaching. So let’s not use getting lost in the Lord’s work as an excuse for avoiding the Lord’s word to us.
Avoid escapism. Resist busyness and hurry.
And thirdly, let’s lead the way in repentance by preaching the gospel to ourselves daily. It might not be comfortable, but God’s comforting word to us in the wilderness is that we are sinners and we need to repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of our sins. We need to turn away from sin and turn toward our forgiving and comforting God. We need to be united through baptism into Christ’s death that we might experience the new life of his resurrection.
And here’s the thing. We never outgrow our baptism, but we often need to return to it. And we never outgrow our need to hear the gospel, to repent, and to cling to Jesus. But we often need to be reminded of it. So let’s remind ourselves. Let’s remind each other.
Like I said earlier, right now, this week at Church of the Savior in Wheaton, Illinois, we need some good news. We need some comfort. And we need to hear from John the Baptist because he points us to Jesus. And the good news of Jesus Christ might be uncomfortable, but it’s the only source of true comfort in the wilderness, in the darkness, and in the shadow of death.
So like John the Baptist, let’s prepare the way of the Lord. Let’s get a people ready for Christ’s return by getting ourselves ready every day to repent and cling to Jesus for the forgiveness and comfort we so desperately need. Amen.