ChrisTmas

Week of Second Sunday in Advent 12/12/12, Sermon ~ Rev. J.C. Olson

Often the Season of Advent becomes merely pre-Christmas, a time to prepare to meet the Baby Jesus in the manger. Of course, we all know that we cannot travel back in time to meet him. This would be like saying during the four weeks prior to Martin Luther’s birthday, “now is the time to prepare to meet the great theologian Martin Luther”. Everybody knows that we cannot prepare for an event that has already occurred.

A better way to understand the first coming of the Messiah, the incarnation, is that it enables us to look forward with joy to Christ’s second coming in judgment. Because of Jesus’ path from the manger to the cross to the grave and to His glorious resurrection, we can lift up our heads to see the kingdom of Christ coming to its fulfillment among us now today.

The Lord through His speaking brings judgment upon His people. His Law crushes our claims of righteousness. No greater burden could be placed on the human heart than to face the judging and powerful word of God’s Law. When God speaks His Law against our sins are revealed. “Out of Zion shall go the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem”. (Is. 2:3)

Judgment falls on us each and every day. The goal of such judgment is to produce repentant hearts, willing and wanting to hear and receive the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is through the Word made Flesh that God chose to judge His people. In Christ, God graciously grants us pardon and forgiveness. In Christ, God graciously gives to us a perfect life, suffering and death that satisfies God’s wrath and demands for justice because of our sinfulness.

The Christian Church exists on earth to proclaim and send forth the message of forgiveness in Christ. For it is the Word of God alone that creates and sustains faith in the hearts of people. Holy men of God were moved by the Holy Spirit to write down that the Lord comes to judge His children not guilty through the incarnate Christ. This is what, or rather WHO the Bible is all about.

The Lord will use His shepherds, His pastors, to instruct you in the Word of God. Christ commissions men to speak on His behalf, telling us that in His first coming there is Spirit and life that will stand at His second coming in Judgment.

Christ’s second coming on the Last Day holds no terror for us Christians because Christ’s first coming in the incarnation tells us the meaning of His ultimate return. In these last days, through His speaking, we will be declared blameless, and there will be peace on earth and good will from God toward man. Christ paid the ultimate price that we may have peace now and at the last.

Christ comes to bring peace with God, a peace that remains forever a gift of God. If left to figure out our own plan of salvation, we would be forever sharpening our swords to kill this God who demands holiness and righteousness. Like a child who pitches a temper tantrum when he doesn’t get his fruit snacks when he demands them for breakfast at 7 in the morning, we are born on a warpath against our gracious God. And like a parent who holds tightly to a child who is raging out of control, our God smothers us in His Son’s weak body offered for us upon the cross.

The Christ child leads us in the way of peace. He alone rescues those who desire to make war on God and His Word. So why did He come? He came to “give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace”. (Luke 1:79) Christ has defeated all our enemies of sin, death and the power of the devil and even war itself. By His blood of the New Testament, give and shed for you, for the forgiveness of all your sins, Christ declares all hostility between Himself and you to be over.

In the end, instruments of war will become signs of peace. After WWII, all the naval scrap iron was converted into raw materials to be reused by cruise ships, skyscrapers, and cars. Material once used to wage war was recycled and used to produce things that were symbols of peace and prosperity. The ultimate sign of warfare with God is the cross of Christ. God converted that which had been our weapon against His Son into the sign of our new life in Christ, who died to save us and give us life.

Though God’s plan of salvation began in a feeding trough for animals, thankfully it did not end there. For what did He come? Jesus went on in his short earthly life to keep the Law of God in your place, die upon the cross for your sins, and be raised from the dead for your justification. All of the seasons of the Church year find their fulfillment in the Cross of Christ.

Merciful God, Your Son, Jesus Christ, was lifted high upon the cross that He might bear the sins of the world and draw all people to Himself. Grant that we, who glory in His death for our redemption, may faithfully heed His call to bear the cross and follow Him, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.