Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

There is a particular Christmas commercial that has been around for a long time—I don’t know if it’s made an appearance yet, but it’s the one with the Hershey’s Kisses that play “We Wish You A Merry Christmas” like a handbell choir—you know the one I mean?

Bells are one of the most common associations with Christmas—sleigh bells ring, are you listening… jingle bells, jingle bells… I heard the bells on Christmas Day… jingle bell rock… and on you could go.

Nothing says “Christmas” like adding sleigh bells to a percussion track on a popular song.

We associate ringing bells with Christmas because it is a joyful holiday.

But there are other times when bells are rung to mark horrible or tragic events.

Every September 11th, a bell is rung six times throughout the morning—once at 8:46 when Flight 11 hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center, then again at 9:03 when Flight 175 hit the South Tower, then again at 9:37 when Flight 77 hit the Pentagon, then at 9:59am when the South Tower collapsed, then at 10:02am when Flight 93 crashed in Shanksville, and finally at 10:28am when the North Tower collapsed.

9/11 is a date when bells are rung—but it is a date to mourn, not celebrate.

Nobody exchanges gifts or sings happy songs about it, kids don’t go to bed the night before excited about getting up in the morning to celebrate.

It is a day of darkness and not light, of death and not life.

This is the first Sunday in the season that has been traditionally called “Advent” (meaning “arrival” or “coming”)—a time when we focus our attention on our need for a Savior, so that the joy of Christmas is rooted where it belongs—in the Good News of God sending a Savior to redeem us from our sin and rebellion against Him.

And this is why we need to begin with the passage that we just read a moment ago from Luke.

Because we need to be reminded that the coming of a holy and righteous God to a sinful, fallen world is not depicted in the Scriptures as a reason to celebrate; it is a reason to mourn!

We have lived in the Gospel-light of Christianity for so long that we don’t realize that when the prophets spoke of the coming of God, they were speaking of a catastrophic event—listen to the way the prophet Amos describes the Day of the LORD in Amos 5--

Amos 5:18–20 (ESV)

18 Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord!

Why would you have the day of the Lord?

It is darkness, and not light, 19 as if a man fled from a lion, and a bear met him, or went into the house and leaned his hand against the wall, and a serpent bit him.

20 Is not the day of the Lord darkness, and not light, and gloom with no brightness in it?

This is what we need to remember—that Christmas is only celebrated because the grace of God did not give us the Advent we deserved.

When the Second Person of the Trinity, God Himself, took on human flesh, He would have been entirely justified in coming in wrath and the terrible splendor of judgment on this world.

And so as we begin this Advent season in 2022, I want to urge you from God’s Word:

Do not neglect the GRACE of God that made Christ’s first Advent one to CELEBRATE and not MOURN

Here in Luke 21 Jesus is warning His disciples about what was going to happen in the near future when the Roman armies would sack Jerusalem:

Luke 21:20–24 (ESV)

20 “But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near.

21 Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, and let those who are inside the city depart, and let not those who are out in the country enter it, 22 for these are days of vengeance, to fulfill all that is written.

23 Alas for women who are pregnant and for those who are nursing infants in those days!

For there will be great distress upon the earth and wrath against this people.

24 They will fall by the edge of the sword and be led captive among all nations, and Jerusalem will be trampled underfoot by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.

Because they rejected the presentation of their Messiah and would instead cruelly torture Him to death on a Cross, Jesus said that that generation would suffer a horrible fate.

The Jewish historian Josephus records page after page of shocking and gruesome details about the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, just 40 years after Jesus spoke these words--which is why He said in Luke 21:32,

Luke 21:32 (ESV)

32 Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all has taken place.

So just for a moment, look at what Jesus says here about His returning to judge Jerusalem, because here we see a glimpse of

I.

The Advent we DESERVED (Luke 21:25-36)

Listen to how Jesus describes His coming to judge Jerusalem:

Luke 21:25–27 (ESV)

25 “And there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth distress of nations in perplexity because of the roaring of the sea and the waves, 26 people fainting with fear and with foreboding of what is coming on the world.

For the powers of the heavens will be shaken.

27 And then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.

Some interpreters look at these verses as taking place far in the future when Christ returns in the Second Coming (“Second Advent”); others see here a description of Christ returning in power and glory to judge the generation of Israel that murdered Him.

Either way you want to read it, though, it is a description of the terror and upheaval of the arrival of the holy and righteous Son of God on earth—it is His arrival that causes the distress and perplexity and fainting and foreboding, just as summer causes the leaves to come out on the fig trees:

Luke 21:29–30 (ESV)

29 And he told them a parable: “Look at the fig tree, and all the trees.

30 As soon as they come out in leaf, you see for yourselves and know that the summer is already near.

This is what an encounter with the righteousness and holiness of God does to a sinful and wicked people—it causes them to come undone.

Consider the prophet’s cry in Isaiah 6:

Isaiah 6:3–5 (ESV)

3 ...“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!”... 5 And I said: “Woe is me!

For I am lost...

As one writer puts it:

“Holiness is not manageable... Holiness is wild.

Holiness is three tornadoes in a row.

Holiness is a series of black thunderheads coming in off the bay.

Holiness is darkness to make a sinful man tremble.

Holiness beckons us to that darkness, where we do not meet ghouls and ghosts, but rather the righteousness of God.

Holiness is a consuming fire.

Holiness melts the world” (Doug Wilson, The Potency of Right Worship).

What Jesus describes here in Luke 21 is the same as the description of what happens every time the holiness of God draws near to this world—in verse 25 we see that the approach of God’s presence causes

TERRORS and SIGNS in heaven (v. 25, cp.

v. 11)

Luke 21:25 (ESV)

25 “And there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth distress of nations in perplexity because of the roaring of the sea and the waves,

Earlier in verse 11 we see the same imagery:

Luke 21:11 (ESV)

11 There will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and pestilences.

And there will be terrors and great signs from heaven.

Throughout the Scriptures, the image of the sun and moon failing or stars falling out of the sky—the unraveling of the order of the heavens—is used to describe the unraveling of the powers and governments of the earth.

Isaiah describes God’s judgment on Babylon:

Isaiah 13:10 (ESV)

10 For the stars of the heavens and their constellations will not give their light; the sun will be dark at its rising, and the moon will not shed its light.

Isaiah 34:4 (ESV)

4 All the host of heaven shall rot away, and the skies roll up like a scroll.

All their host shall fall, as leaves fall from the vine, like leaves falling from the fig tree.

Ezekiel uses the same imagery to describe the fall of Egypt in Ezekiel 32:7

Ezekiel 32:7 (ESV)

7 When I blot you out, I will cover the heavens and make their stars dark; I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not give its light.

And Joel describes the coming of YHWH to judge the nations in the same way:

Joel 2:30–31 (ESV)

30 “And I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke.

31 The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes.

Beloved, this is what happens when God visits His righteousness on this earth!

This is the kind of Advent we deserve—a coming of God that unravels rebellious and blasphemous governments and kingdoms, that causes your whole world to fall apart.

The advent that we deserve causes terrors and signs in the heavens, which then causes

FEAR and DISTRESS on earth (v.

25)

Luke 21:25 (ESV)

25 “And there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth distress of nations in perplexity because of the roaring of the sea and the waves,

Remember years ago the Broadway show Annie, and the signature song, “The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow”?

Hang on til tomorrow, because the sun will still come up… Except, what if it does not?

What if everything you knew in this world simply collapsed?

I’m not just talking about supply chain issues or government corruption or drag queen groomers in your elementary school—I’m talking about the Sun no longer rises in the East.

I’m talking about looking up in the sky and actually watching the Moon crumble into dust like the last scenes of Infinity War… I’m talking about tsunami waves roaring in from the seas to decimate every port and seaside city in the world... I’m talking about every single structure in every single city in the world crumbling like the World Trade Center all at the same time.

This is the terror that the Scriptures say is visited on the earth when God approaches in His holiness and righteousness.

If the Creator God, infinite in holiness and power, utterly righteous and perfect and omnipotent in power and authority were to come down from Heaven with the unfiltered and direct exposure of His glory, this planet and everything in it would dissolve out from under you while the last conscious experience to pass through your mind before you succumbed would be unadulterated, infinite horror and terror at His appearing.

That is the Advent that we deserve.

But thanks be to God that is not

II.

The Advent we RECEIVED (Luke 2:8-14)