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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Have you ever been in jail? Do you and I know anyone who has ever been in jail? For some time our Pilgrim congregation has been praying both for Jordan Myers, an Indiana friend of the Watts family, who was convicted of a crime and is in a North Carolina jail, and for his family, as Jordan serves his sentence and so waits to be set free. So waiting in jail certainly provides a lot of time to think and maybe also to question what you believe. In today’s Gospel Reading, John the Baptizer apparently was at least somewhat questioning what he believed, if we take at face value what the Divinely‑inspired St. Luke tells us. We heard John question Jesus and Jesus answer John, and then we heard Jesus talk about John to the crowds. The Gospel Reading may seem to be more about John, but really it is more about Jesus, Who He is and what He does. This morning, we reflect on this Gospel Reading under the theme “Liberty for the captives”. “Liberty for the captives.”
As St. Luke tells us, John’s disciples reported to him all the things that Jesus was doing, which at a minimum surely included Jesus’s healing the centurion’s servant and Jesus’s raising from the dead the son of the widow of Nain, both of which St. Luke had just narrated (Luke 7:1‑10; 11-17), but John’s disciples’ report may also have included everything Jesus had done since the beginning of His ministry (Luke 4:14 ff.). Very early in His ministry, in a Nazareth synagogue, Jesus preached on the beginning of Isaiah chapter 61, how the Spirit of the Lord was upon Him to do such things as proclaim good news to the poor and proclaim liberty to the captives (Luke 4:16-21; Isaiah 61:1). Imagine being John the Baptizer and hearing that!
St. Luke tells us earlier in his Gospel Account about John the Baptizer’s being in prison unjustly for condemning Herod the tetrarch’s divorce and adulterous remarriage (Luke 3:19-20), and St. Luke tells us later in His Gospel Account about John the Baptizer’s being beheaded by Herod (Luke 9:7), but we know from St. Matthew’s Gospel Account that John was in prison when the events of today’s Gospel Reading took place (Matthew 11:2). John called and sent two of his disciples to ask Jesus if He was the One Who was to come, or if they should look for (or “expect”) another. John’s disciples asked Jesus that question, and, right then and there, Jesus healed many people of diseases and plagues and evil spirits, and Jesus graciously bestowed sight on many who were blind. Jesus told John’s disciples to report to John what they had seen and heard, and then Jesus listed various things Old Testament prophecies said that the coming Messiah would do (Isaiah 29:18; 35:5-6; 26:19; 61:1), which things Jesus Himself had done. And, John must have known those prophecies, as Jesus seems to have expected that John would recognize Jesus for Who Jesus was and not be offended by Jesus, that is to say, not fall from faith while John waited for his full and complete deliverance.
Like John the Baptizer, you and I are certainly at least tempted to fall from faith while we wait for our full and complete deliverance. And, probably too often we give in to that temptation. We may question whether Jesus really is God’s promised Savior, whether we should look for another, or maybe even whether we should believe in one at all. We become impatient and discouraged under our afflictions, many of which we probably deserve on account of our sin, even if we do not connect our specific afflictions to specific sins. And, still sinful by nature, even we who believe also sin in countless other ways, for all of which sin we deserve nothing but sickness and death now and eternal torment in hell. Truly we are captives of sin, death, and the power of the devil, at least until God’s proclamation of liberty itself sets us free.
When Jesus spoke to the crowds concerning John the Baptizer, Jesus praised John in three ways, in part by contrasting John to Herod, and in the process indirectly criticizing Herod. First, at least in John’s condemning Herod’s sin, John was not a reed shaken by the wind, but Herod, who used a reed as a symbol on the coins he minted, flexibly swayed from one capital, wife, and political allegiance to another (Proctor) and would be further shaken by God in judgment (confer 1 Kings 14:15; 3 Maccabees 2:22). Second, John wore camel’s hair and a leather belt and ate locusts and wild honey (Matthew 3:4; Mark 1:6), while, maybe even inside the very same court (or “palace”), Herod dressed in soft, splendid clothing and lived in luxury. And third and finally, Jesus said John the Baptizer was the prophesied messenger (like Elijah), who prepared the way before Him, the coming Messiah (quoting Malachi 3:1).
As great as John was—going before the Lord in the spirit and power of Elijah to prepare the people for the Lord (Luke 1:17, 76)—Jesus as true God was greater, although according to His human nature He might have seemed to be least in the Kingdom of God. John himself readily admitted that he was lesser than Jesus, saying he was not even worthy to untie the strap of Jesus’s sandal (Luke 3:16; John 1:15, 27, 30). Jesus is the greatest; we should look for (or “expect”) no other Savior beyond Him (Lenski, ad loc Lk 7:19, 403). John baptized Jesus to fulfill all righteousness (Matthew 3:15), and John identified Jesus as the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29, 36). The way John prepared for Jesus led to an appearance before Herod (Luke 23:6-16) and ultimately to the cross (Just, ad loc Lk 7:24-28, 316), where Jesus died for your sins and for mine. In the God-man Jesus Christ, there is liberty for us captives to sin. When we turn in sorrow from our sin and trust God to forgive our sin for Jesus’s sake, then God graciously forgives our sin, all our sin, whatever our sin might be. God forgives our sin, even if, like John the Baptizer, we do not yetexperience the fullness of His salvation.
In the Gospel Reading, Jesus’s miracles showed Him to be the coming Savior, Who victoriously brings the Kingdom of God into our suffering world. One might say the “real miracle” is His “victory in the conflict with forces [that] struggle for mastery over this [universe]” (Beyer, TDNT 3:129-131). In today’s Psalm (85), we sang that God forgave the iniquity of His people and covered all their sin, that His salvation is near to those who fear (or “believe in”) Him. God’s forgiveness and salvation are near to us in specific ways. With power to bring into effect what is spoken (Friedrich, TDNT 2:718), God’s liberating Word forgives sins and so brings salvation as its good news is read and preached to the poor captives who repent. That same Word combined with water in Holy Baptism rescues those who believe from death and the devil. That same Word spoken by a pastor in Holy Absolution forgives our sin individually, as Jesus dealt with John through the messengers. And, in Holy Communion Jesus, the friend of sinners, gives Himself—His true Body and Blood, in bread and wine—for us to eat and to drink and so have the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation (confer Luke 7:34). On this Altar and at this Rail, God Himself is truly present with us in the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, and, as we heard in today’s Old Testament Reading (Zephaniah 3:14-20), when the Lord our God is present in our midst to save and rejoice over us, we ourselves can sing aloud, rejoice, and exult.
In today’s Epistle Reading, somewhat in contrast to John the Baptizer in Herod’s prison, St. Paul, likely during his first Roman imprisonment, exhorted the Philippians to rejoice in the Lord always, telling them that the Lord is at hand, and encouraging them not to be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving to let their requests be made known to God. And by so doing, he said, the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, would guard their hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. The same is true for us! Our King has come, comes now, and will come again. There is “Liberty for the captives”. Like the messengers, we tell others what we have seen and heard, but, more importantly, we rejoice!
The rose (or “pink”) candle on the Advent wreath reflects today’s theme of rejoicing. We have imagined how hard it was for John the Baptizer to keep the faith unjustly imprisoned (much less rejoice!), but we do not have to be imprisoned to suffer unjustly for something we have been falsely accused but are innocent of doing. And, whether we suffer unjustly or justly, there is no need for us to carry any guilt, for Jesus Christ has carried it all for us. As we live every day with repentance and faith, we know that our sins are forgiven, and so we have the full salvation Jesus Christ earned for us on the cross, even if, for a time, we still have to wait with expectant hope and joy. “Yet a little while,” the Divinely‑inspired author of Hebrews writes, “and the Coming One will come and will not delay” (Hebrews 10:37). In the meantime, Jesus and His messengers preach and so bring “Liberty for the captives”, and we rejoice and praise Him for it.
This Advent we as a congregation have been learning some Advent hymns that we have not previously sung together. The Closing Hymn again today is such a hymn, this time one written by Johann Horn, someone who back in 1522 came to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther for help with the churches of Bohemia (Precht, 654). We pray now as we will sing in a few minutes, his translated words (Lutheran Service Book 333:4):
Come, then, O Lord Jesus, / From our sins release us.
Keep our hearts believing, / That we, grace receiving,
Ever may confess You / Till in heav’n we bless You.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +