Listen to the sermon with the player below, or, download the audio.
+ + + 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.
In what has seemed like the U-S House of Representatives’ slow, inexorable march to impeach the current President of the United States, there actually has been a variety of possible ways that the House could proceed, such as in the number and range of its impeachment articles, and, if the House eventually passes one or both articles of impeachment that at last check the House was still debating, there remains a variety of possible ways that the U-S Senate might respond. Most likely is that the President will end up having been impeached by the House but acquitted by the Senate after some form of a “trial”, but even that is not yet certain, as the House could withhold the articles and thereby delay Senate action or the Senate could vote to acquit the President without hearing any witnesses. For as “apocalyptic” as the rhetoric coming out of Washington has been, the situation there is not nearly as dire and truly “apocalyptic” as the situation addressed in tonight’s Readings, which essentially deal with not a variety but two potential outcomes for every person on earth: each person will either be burned or delivered. Tonight we reflect on those readings under the theme “Burned or Delivered”.
In the First Reading, God through the prophet Malachi promises to send one like Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome Day of the Lord that results in all people’s either being burned or delivered. And, in the Second Reading, the Divinely‑inspired St. Luke tells of the birth of John the Baptizer, Whom the Lord Jesus later identified as that Elijah who was to come (Matthew 11:14), in order to be a part of people’s turning in repentance and faith, so that they would not be burned but instead be delivered (confer Luke 1:16-17).
Eternal torment in hell and eternal bliss in heaven are the only two possible outcomes. At times we might like for there to be more possible outcomes, maybe like the limbo and purgatory that Roman Catholic theologians have imagined over the millennia, though even purgatory is not for the Roman Catholics a final but only an intermediate destination. What about the babies who die before birth? What about people who are said to be in some deep jungle somewhere and never to have heard the Word of God? What about some other scenario that we might sinfully imagine that for us makes unjust God’s holy and righteous judgment of people’s either burning or being delivered? To be sure, Holy Scripture can be taken as indicating: that saving faith can exist before birth; that the Gospel has been preached in the whole world; and that God is just in all of His judgments. If there is another plan of salvation out there other than repentance and faith, God has not revealed it to us, and we should not count on it.
Rather, we should repent and believe and so have forgiveness and be eternally delivered, instead of refuse to repent and believe and so lack forgiveness and be eternally destroyed. In tonight’s First Reading, those who fear the Lord’s Name go out rejoicing, while all the arrogant and all the evildoers end up set ablaze. (We should note that neither root nor branch’s being left should not be taken as teaching that the unrepentant unbelievers are annihilated, for the figure of speech breaks down at that point, and we know from elsewhere in Holy Scripture that, whether the flames are literal or figurative, unrepentant unbelievers are tormented apart from God for eternity.) Found in both of tonight’s Readings, repentance is appropriately one of the emphases of this Advent season, but it also should characterize our whole lives. By daily sorrow over our sin and trust in God to forgive our sin, our sinful nature should be drowned and die with all sins and evil desires and a new nature should emerge and rise to live before God in righteousness and purity forever (Small Catechism IV:12). Then, God has prepared His own way in us and so prepared us for His Last Day or the day of our deaths, whichever comes first and so brings our judgment.
Our fear of the Lord’s Name, our trust in God to forgive our sinful nature and all of our sin, is ultimately faith in the merits of Jesus Christ, the God-man, Who out of God’s love was born, lived, and died for us and for our salvation. By our God-given faith in Him, in His death on the cross and in His resurrection from the grave, the Lord, to paraphrase tonight’s Additional Psalm (Psalm 85; antiphon: v.5), forgives our iniquity and covers all of our sin; He withdraws all of His righteous wrath and turns from His hot anger; He shows His steadfast love and grants us His salvation. Jesus is Who God through Malachi called “the Sun of Righteousness” and Who the Holy Spirit inspired Zechariah to call “the Sunrise” Who would visit us from on high, to give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace. Truly, as Zechariah said, the Lord is to be praised for visiting and redeeming His people—purchasing and winning us from all sin, from death, and from the power of the devil, not with gold or silver but with His holy, precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death, that we may be His own and live under Him in His Kingdom and serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness (Small Catechism II:4).
As prophesied through Malachi, John the Baptizer’s role in relationship to Jesus was to turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers. As described by Zechariah, with at least allusions to the Old Testament, John the Baptizer’s role in relationship to Jesus was to go before the Lord to prepare His ways, to give knowledge of salvation to His people in the forgiveness of their sins. We know from elsewhere in Holy Scripture that God through John forgave people their sins by John’s preaching and baptizing, and now God through John’s successors forgives people their sins by John’s successors’ preaching and administering all the Sacraments—Holy Baptism, as well as Holy Absolution and the Sacrament of the Altar. In all of these ways we are named as God’s Children, forgiven, and fed—especially on bread that is Christ’s Body given for us and with wine that is Christ’s Blood shed for us.
As Zechariah said in the Second Reading, delivered from the hand of our enemies—in our case, delivered from sin, death, and the power of the devil—we serve the Lord without fear in holiness and righteousness before Him all our days. That service is the worship of God by seeking and receiving His forgiveness of sins in the ways that He establishes for us to receive His forgiveness of sins. That service is the worship of God by making offerings from what He has given us. And, that service is the worship of God by loving God and our neighbors, not only in thought but also in word and deed, doing our duties according to our various vocations, or the callings in life that God has given us, as children, spouses, parents, students, employees, employers, and the like. We do everything that flows from our repentance and faith and forgiveness joyfully and with excitement, as one commentary put it, “with the same kind of energy as calves at play” (TLSB, ad loc Malachi 4:2, p.1549).
As the old broadcast journalism cliché puts it, “time will tell” what will happen with the U‑S Congress and its handling of the impeachment of the current U-S President. In a similar way, the “Burned or Delivered” outcome for every person will be revealed in time. God certainly wants all people to repent and believe and so not be burned but instead be delivered, and so He has sent prophets, His Son, and pastors to this day. Again to paraphrase what we sang in tonight’s Additional Psalm, let us hear—in the fullest possible sense of hearing, including listening to, consenting to, and obeying—what God the Lord speaks, for He speaks peace to His people, to His holy ones!
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +