Advent 1 Sermon

First Sunday in Advent

KJV Romans 13:11 And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. 12 The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light. 13 Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. 14 But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.

KJV Matthew 21:1 And when they drew nigh unto Jerusalem, and were come to Bethphage, unto the mount of Olives, then sent Jesus two disciples, 2 Saying unto them, Go into the village over against you, and straightway ye shall find an ass tied, and a colt with her: loose them, and bring them unto me. 3 And if any man say ought unto you, ye shall say, The Lord hath need of them; and straightway he will send them. 4 All this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, 5 Tell ye the daughter of Sion, Behold, thy King cometh unto thee, meek, and sitting upon an ass, and a colt the foal of an ass. 6 And the disciples went, and did as Jesus commanded them, 7 And brought the ass, and the colt, and put on them their clothes, and they set him thereon. 8 And a very great multitude spread their garments in the way; others cut down branches from the trees, and strawed them in the way. 9 And the multitudes that went before, and that followed, cried, saying, Hosanna to the Son of David: Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest.

479 Zion Rise
61 Comfort comfort ye my people
364 How sweet the name of Jesus sounds
54 Guide me O thou great Jehovah

Zion Rise
The Epistle for today begins with the image of dawn coming after a long night, time to wake from sleep. Paul warns and comforts his audience at the same time.
Although Romans was sent to the Christians in Rome, this letter was clearly intended as a doctrinal message for all the Christian congregations. Because of its doctrinal importance, Romans is first among the Pauline epistles in the New Testament.

Night and sleep have always been familiar symbols in various cultures. Night is associated with poor judgment, drunkenness, evil, and unawareness. Most of the violent crime stories in Phoenix start with these words, “Outside a bar in downtown Phoenix, at 2 AM…”

The famous Three Mile Island incident, when a nuclear reactor came close to a core meltdown, happened in wee hours of the morning. Looking back on that incident, researchers found that the equipment was working but the operators were semi-asleep and unable to make the right decisions at the time. They did everything wrong and brought nuclear energy development to a halt.

Night is associated with evil, so staying awake and watchful are essential. The New Testament Greek word for staying awake is also translated as watch. The root forms the name Gregory, which means watchman. So “Watch and pray” also means “Stay awake and pray.”

In Mark 13, Jesus ended His warnings about the end times with the Parable of the Watchman. Three times the verb “stay awake” is used. Yes, you count four in English, because another verb is used once for watch. Often Greek has several words for our single English word.

Then, when Jesus prayed, the same verb was applied to the disciples three times: Stay awake, watch.

Jesus introduced the Parable of the Watchman with this warning:

KJV Mark 13:33 Take ye heed, watch and pray: for ye know not when the time is. (Here the verb is different, blepo, look around.)

In the parable, He used the same verb for stay awake (watch) three times.

KJV Mark 13:34 For the Son of man is as a man taking a far journey, who left his house, and gave authority to his servants, and to every man his work, and commanded the porter to watch.

KJV Mark 13:35 Watch ye therefore: for ye know not when the master of the house cometh, at even, or at midnight, or at the cockcrowing, or in the morning:

KJV Mark 13:37 And what I say unto you I say unto all, Watch.

When Jesus was facing torture and death, the same verb is applied to the disciples three times:

KJV Mark 14:34 And saith unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful unto death: tarry ye here, and watch.

KJV Mark 14:34 And saith unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful unto death: tarry ye here, and watch.

KJV Mark 14:38 Watch ye and pray, lest ye enter into temptation. The spirit truly is ready, but the flesh is weak.

Romans 13:11 And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.

Many people are weary of the unceasing attacks against Christianity and the most basic concepts of right and wrong. Many of us have the misfortune of remembering when the US Supreme Court protected children instead of fish, when “don we now our gay apparel” could be sung without laughing, when everyone thought Coke was a beverage instead of a drug. We have seen the Recessional Lutherans drag their church bodies into union with Fuller Seminary and Willow Creek. No WELS pastor would be caught dead taking his staff to Concordia Seminary, Ft. Wayne, but many of them pay big bucks to study at Willow Creek and Fuller Seminary.

Jesus first gave these warnings, and Paul repeated them, so we would not grow weary and drift off to sleep, dreaming that everything was fine. I remember an LCA pastor saying, “I just want to retire in peace.” However, his conscience disturbed him and he retired with a fair amount of noise about the apostasy of LCA as it was morphing into the ELCA. Such growling was so rare among the complacent clergy that the LCMS was started to find a former bishop vocal about the new trends. And yet, those were still the good old days for ELCA, back in 1987.

Individually we can do almost nothing about national trends. We can still stay awake ourselves and help a few more stay awake. One layman posts Luther quotations on his church website. Another one warned his congregation about getting into Church Growth style stewardship, and those warnings were heeded. Several layman prodded me awake about the real meaning of Universal Justification. I was like the father who helped his son with tree identification for a merit badge. The man said, “Once I knew this tree, I suddenly saw them everywhere.” Once I knew what UOJ was, the footprints were everywhere except the Bible, the Book of Concord, and Lutheran theologians.

The value of each controversy comes from waking us up to doctrinal problems and sharpening our minds about what the Bible teaches. For many people, their doctrinal discernment is on par with my tools. I seldom use tools, except to break things while trying to repair them. My tools are lost, rusting, or covered with dust. If I find a sudden need for a tool I am in a quandary. Can I find it? Can I make it work? My temptation is to say, “Bother. This can wait.” In the same way people avoid facing doctrinal problems until their discernment is replaced with apathy, their apathy supplanted by apostasy.

Although Paul deplored divisions in the Christian Church, he also wrote:

KJV 1 Corinthians 11:18 For first of all, when ye come together in the church, I hear that there be divisions among you; and I partly believe it. 19 For there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you.

now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.

Paul is comforting all believers in the second part of the verse. Nearer can apply in the short-run, since life runs out faster than we can imagine. And it also applies to God’s own time. Each day means we are closer to the end of all history, whenever that may be.

The multiplication of evil in this century points to the end of time and to the remarkable accuracy of Biblical warnings. All these things are clearly described in Mark 13 and the Pastoral Epistles.

KJV 2 Thessalonians 2:1 Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him, 2 That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand. 3 Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; 4 Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God. 5 Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things? 6 And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time. 7 For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way. 8 And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming: 9 Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, 10 And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. 11 And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: 12 That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. 13 But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth: 14 Whereunto he called you by our gospel, to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. 15 Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle.

Whatever people complain about, Paul described through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Long before the papacy was established, Paul pointed to the Apostasy (falling away) and the Man of Sin, the Antichrist. So when someone’s conservative Lutheran pastor joins the Church of Rome or Eastern Orthodoxy, mocking justification by faith, should we be dismayed or encouraged? The roadmap is accurate, even if the timeline is purposefully vague (purpose-driven prophecy). Imagine if everyone knew the moment of the end! Chaos.

12 The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light.

The skeptics enjoy pointing out their little contradictions they find in the Bible. They are like the unbelieving members of a church who constantly pick at the minister and his family because they are too cowardly or dishonest to say they reject the Word of God. Various books of the Bible have different approaches, which we can expect from the Word of God spoken through humans across the ages. The harmony and unity of the Bible should impress us more. Paul and John both use light and darkness to symbolize good and evil. As I mentioned before, Paul also uses the Gospel warnings and example of Jesus. (The Gospels were preached before they were written.)

Paul consistently warned his readers to beware of the works of darkness, which were not only the sins of the flesh, taking us away from the Word of God, but also the temptations of false doctrine, which are subtler and harder to detect.

Luther pointed out in his Genesis commentary that God created light before the celestial bodies. Light existed before the energy sources. That means our concept of daylight is derived from light itself. What is that pre-existing light but Christ Himself!

KJV John 1:4 In him was life; and the life was the light of men. 5 And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.

Here is my free translation: In Him was eternal life, and this eternal life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, but darkness cannot extinguish it.

KJV John 1:6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe. 8 He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. 9 That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.

Christ is not just life in the ordinary sense of the term. Most people think primarily of biological life, and there is a Greek term for that – bios. The word used in the NT is zoe, meaning eternal life, while bios is reserved for the ordinary sense of human life or experience. Eternal life is far more significant than just being alive. Every believer, even dying in bed, or quadriplegic has eternal life, because faith receives Christ and His promises to the individual.

KJV John 1:12 But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:

The armor of light is the truth of God’s Word. That is the one certainty of our experience. The teachers of the Christian faith have not pointed to themselves or their organizations but to the Word of God. Light (God’s truth) is the perfect weapon against darkness (false doctrine) because the smallest amount of light dissipates darkness.

False doctrine and church politics belong to Satan. He wants people to vote on doctrine and to fight over church positions with $200,000 salaries. He does not want people to discuss God’s Word, to begin and end with God’s teaching. Nothing disturbs Satan more than a weak, ordinary human being armed with the truth of God’s Word. Satan will use all his weapons, especially against someone’s emotions, to undermine that faith. However, his defeat is already assured. Tethered by God’s will, Satan can only rage and grow more violent as his end approaches.

“Let us put on Christ Jesus.” This verse reminds us of wearing a robe for the sacrament of Holy Baptism. To wear Christ – that is an odd phrase but simple to understand. Christ is united with us in faith and in baptism. Christ is in us and we are in Him.

KJV John 14:20 At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.

For that reason, faith in Him moves us to pray, to watch and pray, for we know not the hour.

"When a theologian is asked to yield and make concessions in order that peace may at last be established in the Church, but refuses to do so even in a single point of doctrine, such an action looks to human reason like intolerable stubbornness, yea, like downright malice. That is the reason why such theologians are loved and praised by few men during their lifetime. Most men rather revile them as disturbers of the peace, yea, as destroyers of the kingdom of God. They are regarded as men worthy of contempt. But in the end it becomes manifest that this very determined, inexorable tenacity in clinging to the pure teaching of the divine Word by no means tears down the Church; on the contrary, it is just this which, in the midst of greatest dissension, builds up the Church and ultimately brings about genuine peace. Therefore, woe to the Church which has no men of this stripe, men who stand as watchmen on the walls of Zion, sound the alarm whenever a foe threatens to rush the walls, and rally to the banner of Jesus Christ for a holy war!"
C. F. W. Walther, The Proper Distinction between Law and Gospel, trans., W. H. T. Dau, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1928, p. 28.

"And no doctrine is so foolish or disgraceful but that it finds hearers and disciples, as is proven by the experience of the church with so many heresies and divisions. The heathen were reasonable and highly intelligent people, yet we read of them that they worshiped not only cats and storks, but also cabbages and onions, and even a member of the human body. All this comes from the name and delusion that such things are good works and render a service to God. The preacher of such works comes with the reputation and pretence of a shepherd who desires to counsel and direct souls on the way to God."
Sermons of Martin Luther, 8 vols., ed., John Nicholas Lenker, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1983, III, p. 59. Second Sunday after Easter. John 10:11-16.