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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. (Amen.)
The theme of this year’s Midweek Advent Sermon Series is “Making‑ready a people prepared” (Luke 1:17; confer v.76). The last two weeks, we focused both on our, in the past, being “Prepared in creation” and on our, in the present, being “Prepared in redemption”, and, this week, we focus on our, with a view to the future, being “Prepared for glorification”. One of the various original‑language words translated as “making‑ready” and “prepared” can also mean such things as “establish”, and so, as those words have provided something of a matrix for us to reflect on God’s work “preparing” us, tonight we prayed an additional Psalm that speaks of the Lord’s “establishing” our steps (Psalm 37:18-29; antiphon: v.23), heard a First Reading about the Lord’s “establishing” the mountain of the house of the Lord as the highest of the mountains, heard a Second Reading about what God has “prepared” for those who love Him, and heard a Third Reading about the holy city, new Jerusalem, “prepared” as a bride adorned for her husband. By our hearing them tonight, I am suggesting that all four passages say something about our being by God “Prepared for glorification”.
Of course, there are also other passages that speak of God’s work of “preparation” and our “glorification”, which passages we did not hear tonight. One of those passages is the Lord Jesus’s description of His coming in His glory and His sitting on His glorious throne and all nations’ being gathered before Him and His separating people from one another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats (Matthew 25:31-46). For, in that passage the Lord Jesus speaks both of the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels (v.41) and of the kingdom prepared from the foundation of the world for those who are blessed by His Father (v.34). You may remember that the basis for the judgment that the Lord Jesus describes is what the goats did not do to one of the least of the brothers, and so not to Jesus, and what the sheep did do to one of the least of the brothers, and so to Jesus—things such as gave food to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, or clothing to the naked; welcomed strangers, visited the sick, or ministered to the imprisoned. Similarly, in tonight’s Third Reading, we heard how the lake that burns with fire and sulfur is the portion of the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, the murderers, the sexually immoral, the sorcerers, the idolaters, and all liars.
If you and I are not guilty of those sins or not described by those terms, then we are guilty of other sins and are described by other terms. For, we are sinful by nature, and our sinful nature leads us not to think holy thoughts, speak holy words, and do holy deeds, as our sinful nature also leads us to think sinful thoughts, speak sinful words, and do sinful deeds. In commenting apparently on tonight’s additional Psalm, St. Augustine reportedly said that, if the Lord did not establish our steps, then they would always go through crooked paths (Augustine, NPNF1 8:97, cited by TLSB, ad loc Psalm 37:23, p.881). As we heard in tonight’s Second Reading, the natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. But, the Holy Spirit reveals them to us; the Holy Spirit calls and so enables us to repent: to turn in sorrow from our sinful nature and all of our sin, to trust God to forgive us, and to want to stop sinning. When we so repent, then God does forgive us. God forgives our sinful nature and all of our sin, whatever our sin might be. God forgives us for Jesus’s sake, delivering us from the eternal torment that we deserve to eternal life that we receive freely by His grace.
In tonight’s Second Reading, the Divinely‑inspired St. Paul says that, if the rulers of the age had understood the secret and hidden wisdom of God, then they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But, the rulers of the age did crucify the Lord of glory, and thanks be to God that they crucified Him! Jesus’s crucifixion and resurrection are said to be what prepare eternal salvation for God’s people (Grundmann, TDNT 2:705), including us. Tonight’s Third Reading described the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And, we might remember how St. Paul elsewhere describes Christ’s loving the Church, His Bride, giving Himself up for Her that He might sanctify Her, so that He might present the Church to Himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish (Ephesians 5:25-28). Because Jesus took our sins upon Himself and died on the cross as our substitute, we who repent receive His righteousness.
St. Paul refers to Christ’s cleansing His Bride by the washing of water with the word (Ephesians 5:26), to His saving us by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit (Titus 3:5), in other words, to the one baptism (Ephesians 4:5) of repentance for the remission of sins (Luke 3:3). For us, the Baptismal Font becomes what the Third Reading called “the spring of the water of life”, and we receive from it “without payment”. By Holy Baptism we are gathered into the Church, this is the place prepared by God for us during the days of our pilgrimage (confer Revelation 12:6). We are part of the nations and many peoples that tonight’s First Reading described flowing to God’s house. Here, we privately confess to our pastor the sins that we know and feel in our hearts for the sake of our receiving individual Holy Absolution, and, so absolved, we receive in the Holy Supper bread that is the Body of Christ given us and wine that is the Blood of Christ shed for us, and so we receive also forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation.
Through the ministers of His Word and Sacraments, the Lord does impart wisdom, as the Second Reading described, in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. We who are receptive to God’s Word and Sacraments have compassion on those who are not receptive to His Word and Sacraments, and we reach out to them. As we prayed in the additional Psalm, our steps are established by the Lord now, as we turn away from evil and do good, with daily repentance living in God’s forgiveness of sins now and so being among the righteous who will inherit the land and dwell upon it forever. Then, by God’s love, mercy, and grace, we will experience fully the peace described by the First Reading, when weapons of war and military training are no longer necessary. Then, as the Third Reading described, God will wipe every tear from our eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things will have passed away, and God will have made all things new. So‑beyond our experience of fantastic things, what all the “new”, or “restored”, sky and ground will bring then is hard for us even to imagine now. We arguably can apply St. Paul’s Second‑Reading use of prophecy from Isaiah: “No eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love Him” (confer and compare Isaiah 64:4).
This year our Midweek Advent sermon series has focused on God’s through His Word and Sacraments “Making-ready a people prepared”. The first two weeks we considered how we are by God “Prepared in creation” and “Prepared in redemption”, and tonight we considered how we are by God “Prepared for glorification”. For all His work preparing us, thanks be to God, now and forever!
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +