Advent 3B
Sermon • Submitted
0 ratings
· 12 viewsThe appearance of the messenger is proof of God's faithfulness, and that His Promises will be fulfilled.
Notes
Transcript
3rd Sunday in Advent, Year B
3rd Sunday in Advent, Year B
In the name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Brothers and sisters in Christ: grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Today, the 3rd Sunday in Advent, is known as Gaudete Sunday. Gaudete is a Latin word that means “rejoice ye”. It is an imperative, a command for all of us to rejoice. Why should we rejoice? That’s what today is all about, and that is what our lessons tell us today.
The season of Advent is a season of repentance. It is a 4-week reminder of the dark times in which God’s people lived before the Christ Child was born. For centuries, the Hebrew people had lived sinful lives, abandoning God and His Law, living as though God was not part of their lives. Sometimes, God would grant their wish, lifting His protection from them and allowing them to have it their way - life without God. Inevitably, this would result in utter misery for the children of Abraham. They would end up being conquered by their enemies, taken from the Promised Land, enslaved or slaughtered, their national treasures stolen, their temple ransacked and robbed of its riches. In their misery, the people would eventually turn back to God and cry for His mercy and help. And, being the Loving God that He is, He would rescue them.
The period right before the birth of Jesus is such a dark time. Centuries before, the Hebrew people had been conquered by both the Assyrians and the Babylonians. They had been taken captive and moved out of the Promised Land and separated from the home of their faith - God’s Temple in Jerusalem. Eventually, they were released by a generous foreign king and allowed to return…and many did. And for a time, God’s people enjoyed some independence.
But soon, another conqueror would come to the land of Judah - this time it was the Romans. The Romans would conquer Jerusalem in 63 B.C. and appoint a local leader to oversee activity in that region. So once again, God’s people found themselves once again oppressed by a foreign power. They were no longer free to live the lives that God wanted for them. And so it was a dark time for the Hebrew people, and they prayed to God to free them from their oppression. They prayed to God for a Savior.
What they didn’t realize is that it wasn’t the Romans who were keeping them from living the lives the God wanted for them. It was an oppressor far more powerful and insidious than the Romans. What was keeping them from enjoying life the way God wanted them to was SIN. And sin makes the world far more dark than any government, any enemy military force, or any tyrannical leader can ever make it. It was in this centuries-old darkness that God decided to finally send the Messiah…the One He had promised through His prophets over the course of Jewish history.
But before that Messiah would arrive, God sent someone to prepare the way. That someone was John the Baptist. Note how the Gospel-writer describes this messenger: There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light. The Evangelist goes to great length to point out that this man was NOT the Messiah, but was sent by God to point people to the Messiah.
And John the Baptist himself goes to great length to draw attention away from himself. “I am not the Christ.” “What then, are you Elijah?” “I am not” “Are you the Prophet?” “No.” “Who are you?” “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’ as the prophet Isaiah said.” He put great effort into making sure that everyone heard that he was only a messenger. It was his job to point people to the Messiah. He wanted no glory for himself.
We hear different versions of this introduction in all 4 Gospel accounts. But John’s Gospel has a part that does not appear in the other 3. Look again at verse 26: “John answered them, “I baptize with water, but among you stands one you do not know, even he who comes after me...” In other words, the Messiah is ALREADY among them! The Messiah is coming very soon!
It’s important to remember that while so many prophecies in the Old Testament point to the coming of the Messiah, John the Baptist is also a fulfilment of prophecy, and he reminds these priests and scribes of that by quoting Isaiah (as we heard in last week’s lessons): “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness...” This is further proof that God *does* keep His promises. John is sent by God, and he is, in many ways, very much like Elijah. And the Jews of that time would have recognized that, at the very least that he wore a coat made of camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist (Mark 1:6). This is an exact description of Elijah (“He wore a garment of hair, with a belt of leather about his waist.” 2 Kings 1:8). This was not coincidence. This was fulfilment of prophecy. Even the prophet Malachi tells the people that Elijah will return: “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes.” (Malachi 4:5)
By his very appearance, John the Baptist is a sign of God’s faithfulness. Just by being who he is, John shows the Jewish people that God keeps his promises. Here he is, looking like Elijah, doing God’s work. He’s showing everyone who knows the Law and the Prophets that the darkness is about to end, and the light of God - the Christ Himself - is about to come into the world.
The people of God talked about being in darkness. They thought the darkness was the oppression of the Romans. Or the Babylonians before that. Or the Assyrians before that. Whoever it was who would go to war with them and defeat and enslave them. But in reality, the real darkness surrounding God’s people was SIN. Sin is that which separates us from God. This is where we must remember that without Christ, we would never know how God feels about us. We would only know God as our Judge. We would be forever in darkness.
And so Christ’s birth is indeed the coming of light into the world. Today begins the week that we light the 3rd candle in our wreath - we’re getting closer to the birth of the Savior. I don’t know if you’ve ever thought of it this way, but the closer we get, the more candles we light, the brighter the light coming from the wreath? The light is coming soon!
This year - 2020 - has been just awful at times. The virus by itself would have made this year one of my least favorite years in my lifetime. But when you add in the violence in our cities, the awful political mess we’ve witnessed through the election, and the division in our country…this year is just one of the worst in the history of our nation. If you’re anything like me, well, I can’t wait for this year to be over. It seems, well, kind of dark in some ways, don’t you think?
And so maybe, in some way, we can possibly empathize with the situation God’s people were in when they prayed for a Savior to save them from their darkness.
The season of Advent recalls those dark times…that darkness that reminds us of our captivity to sin. John the Baptist reminds us that the first thing to do when you want God to save you from the darkness is to repent. Advent is a season of repentance. This is one way that we “prepare the way of the Lord”, by turning our hearts to God. Or, in some cases, turning our hearts *back* to God.
But this Sunday is the day - about halfway through the Advent season, where we pause from that repentance and put our focus on the light. We look to the end where we see that God has a plan, and God has made promises. And since we know that God keeps His promises, that God is ALWAYS faithful, we have confidence that Our Savior *did* come to bring us salvation, and He *will* come again in the end. We know that our salvation is near. We know that God’s Son will come again, and all that is wrong will be made right. That is where our joy is found, and that is what today is about. Thanks be to God!
I want to share with you the words of an anonymous man from the 3rd Century AD:
As a third-century man was anticipating death, he penned these last words to a friend: "It's a bad world, an incredibly bad world. But I have discovered in the midst of it a quiet and holy people who have learned a great secret. They have found a joy which is a thousand times better than any pleasure of our sinful life. They are despised and persecuted, but they care not. They are masters of their souls. They have overcome the world. These people are the Christians--and I am one of them." [Today In The Word, June, 1988, p. 18. from http://www.sermonillustrations.com/a-z/j/joy.htm]
In the name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.