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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.
Songs tell us that “Santa Claus is coming to town” and that “He’s gonna find out who’s naughty or nice” and “He knows if you’ve been bad or good”, so “be good for goodness sake”. A different song tells us that “The eyes of Texas are upon you / all the livelong day”, so “you cannot get away”, “at night or early in the morn’”, “’til Gabriel blows his horn”. Clearly familiar to us is the idea of someone (such as Santa) or some-ones (such as the University of Texas, its alumni, or the whole state) observing us all our lives and holding us accountable for who we are (naughty or nice) and what we do (been bad or good). Yet Santa’s coming and Texas’s observation certainly do not mean judgment the same way that the coming of Jesus means judgment. Jesus’s coming again with glory to judge both the living and the dead is the third and final “coming” we consider in our Midweek Advent Vespers this year, and tonight we do so under the theme “Jesus Will Come”.
The Psalm we sang tonight (Psalm 50), the First Reading (Daniel 7:9-13), and the Second Reading (Matthew 24:1-51) all touch on the fact that “Jesus Will Come”, in the future, a final time, for judgment. The Latin version of the Second Reading even uses the Latin word that gives us our English word “advent”. And, we remember well that Jesus’s having come in the flesh once as promised in the past in some sense guarantees both His coming to us now in His Word and Sacraments and His coming that final time in judgment.
Tonight’s Psalm describes God the Lord calling all people to account, including His faithful ones, the mindlessly religious, and the outright wicked. The mindlessly religious God the Lord rebukes for going through the motions of worship without actually trusting in Him; He tells them to offer sacrifices of thanksgiving, perform their vows, and to call upon Him in the day of trouble, so that He will deliver them and they will glorify Him. The outright wicked God the Lord rebukes for hating His discipline, casting His Word behind them, being pleased and keeping company with those who sin openly, and speaking evil and deceit, even slandering their own family members. They wrongly think that God’s delay in bringing about judgment means that He will not bring about judgment.
How like the mindlessly religious or the outright wicked are we? Do we go through the motions of worship without actually trusting in God the Lord? Do we hate God the Lord’s discipline and cast His Word behind us? Are we pleased and do we keep company with those who sin openly? Do we speak evil and deceit, even slandering our own family members? Do we wrongly think that God’s delay in bringing about judgment means that He will not bring about judgment? Even if we think we do not sin in those ways, we sin in countless other ways, for we are sinful by nature. “Naughty” and “been bad” hardly begin to describe us! And, on account of our sinful nature and actual sins we deserve far more than a lump of coal in our stockings! Through the prophet Malachi, the Lord God says, “the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble. The day that is coming will set them ablaze, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch” (Malachi 4:1).
But, before that happens, Malachi also says, the Lord God sends messengers like John the Baptizer and his successors in order to turn people’s hearts (Malachi 4:5-6). The Lord God’s seeming delay—His kindness, forbearance, and patience—is meant to lead us to repent (Romans 2:2-3). God calls us to turn from our sin, to trust Him to forgive our sin, and to want to do better than to keep on sinning. Whether or not we so repent in effect determines the outcome of the final judgment and what our response is to the Lord’s final coming.
The Lord’s final coming and judgment means condemnation for unrepentant unbelievers, which leads to their deeply wailing, as we sang in the Opening Hymn (Lutheran Service Book 336), but the Lord’s final coming and judgment means no condemnation for repentant believers (Romans 8:1), which leads to their rapturous alleluias! Condemnation and no condemnation are, as it were, two different sides of the same coin of Jesus’s final coming. As He condemns the unrepentant unbelievers, He thereby also delivers repentant believers. The setting is one of judgment, but the faithful are judged in view of Christ’s righteousness and so receive incomparable joy. Of this third “coming” we sang in the Office Hymns (LSB 333:3):
Soon will come that hour / When with mighty power
Christ will come in splendor / And will judgment render,
With the faithful sharing / Joy beyond comparing.
Daniel’s vision of the Son of Man coming with the clouds of heaven, which we heard in the First Reading, is in many ways the foundation of Old Testament and New Testament understandings of the Divine and human Messiah, both distinct from but also one with the Ancient of Days and the Spirit of God (confer Ezekiel 2:1). Jesus draws on the Divinely-inspired Daniel’s description when He Himself describes the final judgment, as we heard in the Second Reading (Matthew 24:30; confer Mark 13:26; Luke 21:27), and so do others draw on that same description from Daniel (for example, Revelation 1:7, 13; 14:14). What is more, at His trial Jesus identifies Himself as that Son of Man (Matthew 26:64; Mark 14:62; Luke 22:69), which leads the Jewish leaders to charge Him with blasphemy and have Him put to death. But, that death is for our benefit. On the cross, Jesus dies for your sins and my sins, that we do not have to die eternally. By grace for the sake of Jesus, through faith in Him, our sins are forgiven, and we have eternal life already now, even before the final judgment (John 3:18). With the Gospel of the Kingdom proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and so all nations judged fairly, in some ways, the challenge for us is to remain faithful as we wait for Him to come in the same way as the disciples saw Him go into heaven at His Ascension: on the clouds (Acts 1:11).
When you see several things off on the horizon, like the Dallas skyline as you drive in on the interstate, the buildings can appear to be one big two-dimensional mass, and distinguishing them and telling how far apart they are is difficult if not impossible from a distance. Similarly, in the Second Reading, as Jesus answers His disciples’ questions about both the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple and the End of the Age, distinguishing them and telling how far apart they are in some ways is difficult if not impossible from a distance. But, we can and do note especially Jesus’s primary and repeated concerns that we not be led astray or give way under persecution. We see the signs and know that He is very near but also remember that no one knows the precise day and hour. We know His unmistakable coming and its Divine judgment will divide coworkers (not to mention families [Matthew 10:34-39; Luke 12:49-53]), with one person’s being taken away to hell and one person’s being left for eternity with the Lord. So, we are always ready, returning to our Baptismal grace with daily contrition and repentance, and partaking of the food of the Lord’s Supper, which our Lord’s faithful and wise servants give us at the proper times.
“Jesus Will Come”. The material things here and now are provisional and will not endure. Not in Santa, or the University of Texas, its alumni, or the State, but our highest hope is in the Lord and His new or restored heaven and earth. We pray in the Lord’s Prayer for our Heavenly Father’s Kingdom to come (Matthew 6:10; Luke 11:2), and we think especially of His giving us His Holy Spirit so that by His grace we believe His holy Word and lead godly lives here in time and there in eternity (Small Catechism III:8). And, we conclude now by praying, as we did in the final stanza of the Office Hymn:
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 + + +