The Fourth Sunday in Advent (Memento Nostri)

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Dear friends in Christ, the Apostle teaches in the book of Romans that saving faith is intimately connected to the confession one makes: “If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9). The Holy Scriptures constantly teach this truth. King David says in Psalm 116: “I believed, therefore I spoke” (Psalm 116:10), which means that since he has faith, he must speak of it. The prophet Jeremiah says something similar—that refraining from speaking the word of the Lord would be impossible: “His word [is] in my heart like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I was weary of holding it back, and I could not” (Jeremiah 20:9b). Both of these Old Testament examples show that true faith is a flame kindled in the heart of a man by God Himself. And this flame of faith cannot be contained—it must break forth in confession. Today, we will therefore consider: What it means to faithfully confess Christ.

Today’s Gospel text presents St. John the Baptizer as an example of a faithful witness and confessor of Christ. Now, John would have spent his youth in the Judean wilderness. He dressed in a rough garment of camel’s hair. He lived with great self-denial on nothing but locusts and wild honey. When he finally entered manhood, he began to preach repentance, to announce the nearness of the long-awaited messianic kingdom, and to baptize those who believed his preaching. Through his unusual lifestyle and his bold preaching, John drew the attention of the whole nation. And it should not surprise us that some thought that John himself was the promised Messiah; or perhaps he was Elijah, whom they supposed would reappear in the days of the Messiah; or perhaps he was the great prophet, of whom Moses foretold in Deuteronomy 18.

But note the content of John’s bold confession. He confessed, and did not deny, but confessed, “I am not the Christ…I am not [Elijah]…No, [I am not the Prophet]” (John 1:20, 21). But wait a minute. Did not Christ, in His own words, say that John was the Elijah who should precede the Messiah? Didn’t Christ call him a prophet, indeed, the greatest of all prophets? In a certain sense, yes. And yet John denied both! We see from John’s answers how careful one must be in confessing the faith. The Jews thought that John was Elijah reincarnated. But John was called Elijah only because he came “in the spirit and power of Elijah” (Luke 1:17a). And so, John answered his questioners in the sense in which they asked, not dishonestly misconstruing their questions. The same was true of the question whether he was the great prophet foretold by Moses. In the sense in which they asked, John certainly was not that prophet, and so he answered with a decisive “No!” In his confession, he wished to make it impossible for them to draw any false conclusions.

John said much about who he was not. And so, the natural follow-up question was asked. “Who are you? . . . What do you say about yourself?” He said: “I am ‘The voice of one crying in the wilderness: “Make straight the way of the LORD,”’ as the prophet Isaiah said” (John 1:22-23). Nothing else mattered—not John’s identity, not his personality, not his own preferences. He was merely “the voice…crying in the wilderness”. John simply wanted to be known as a Christian—as Christ’s forerunner. In this sense, St. John the Baptizer is the model Christian—a bold confessor, who with every aspect of his life pointed unashamedly to Christ.

The church of every age needs men and women to stand in the spirit and power of St. John the Baptizer. In the apostolic age, the Church had men like the apostle Paul, who when he was in chains joyfully confessed Christ crucified even before governors and kings. The apostles Peter and John likewise stood unafraid before the Sanhedrin at Jerusalem and boldly confessed Christ.

We find the same zealous confession among Christians during the first three centuries, which were times of significant and repeated persecution. In those times, believers in Christ were constantly threatened with death at the stake, by the sword, and at the threatening jaws of lions. But even the most horrible pain of torture could not hinder faithful Christians from confessing before the cruelest ruler: “We are Christians!”

In the same way, five hundred years ago the Gospel again poured the spirit of faith upon thousands and thousands of hearts and brought forth a Reformation. Though the Roman bishop angrily excommunicated the Evangelical Christians, and though the emperor pronounced the fearful ban of the empire, still the confession “I am a Lutheran Christian” rang boldly from the lips of believers despite the dangers of body and life.

And now, in our own day, the Church is suffering its own kind of persecution. To be sure, the persecution of our day is nowhere near as costly in attacking our body and life. We are not likely to be put to death by wild predators for our faith. We are unlikely to be imprisoned and beheaded, as was John the Baptizer. But though he has changed his tactics, Satan is still surely at work in our age to insidiously undermine the Christian faith and to make her confession soft. And so, today we see a diluting of the faith all around us. The most overt instance of this is the liberalization of many church bodies, many of whom have reached the point of no longer even being Christian as they dispense with the Church’s historic Creeds and Confessions, allow openly unrepentant sinners to serve as clergy, and other such wicked things. But just as dangerous is the more subtle forms of dilution which are even at work in certain corners of our own Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod. In some places, the faithful Lutheran confession of biblical Christianity is diluted into generic Protestantism, and the comfort of the Gospel is lost as emphasis wanes on the biblical teachings of Baptismal regeneration, the real presence of Christ in the Sacrament, and the blessing of Confession and Absolution.

Dear friends in Christ, in our day, as in ages passed, we are in need of Christians who will boldly and faithfully confess Christ individually in our everyday lives and corporately as the church. But here’s the thing: Confessing Christ doesn’t happen accidentally, nor does it happen apart from consistent dedication and effort. Therefore, we must dedicate ourselves to being Christians who fight against the allures and temptations of sin and thereby we will be prepared to faithfully confess Christ. Notice how this is exactly what St. John the Baptizer did. His faithful confession of Christ cannot be separated from his life of self-discipline and denial.

The same is true for you and me. A faithful confession of Christ begins in our homes with a Christian life centered around God’s Word. For how else will we learn all that He has commanded (cf. Deuteronomy 18:18; Matthew 28:20)? Therefore, if we desire to demonstrate our faith by a faithful confession of Christ, our homes must be a place that is filled with God’s Word and with prayer. It doesn’t matter if you have a family, if you are empty-nesters, or if you live alone. If our homes are not filled with God’s Word and prayer, then we will not be prepared to face the temptations of life. Consider how Christ overcame the temptations of Satan in the wilderness—He did so by having God’s Word upon His lips (cf. Matthew 4:1-11). Therefore, we would do well to follow Luther’s instructions for Daily Prayer in the Catechism, beginning each day by remembering our baptism—“In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”—and by reciting the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, and praying for other needs and desires. Luther also instructs us to read God’s Word in daily devotions and to develop a daily ritual of prayer time, not only first thing in the morning, but also at mealtimes and at the day’s end. This is where a faithful confession of Christ begins. If you are not reading God’s Word daily and praying throughout your day, you will be hard pressed to be anything more than a lukewarm Christian; and you certainly will not be prepared to faithfully confess Christ to others.

But a faithful confession of Christ does not end in the home. It also must take place in the church. For here, Christ serves His people uniquely—namely through the public proclamation and administration of the Word and Sacraments. Therefore, the Church must be and remain a place distinct from the world. This is why Lutherans have always treasured the historic liturgy and hymns of the Church, which take us out of the world into a sacred space and a sacred way of being. And this sacred way of being facilitates our reception of God’s gifts of grace so that we can be prepared and enabled to faithfully confess Christ. This is why it is such a tragedy when Lutheran Christians willingly abandon our historic liturgy and hymns, which have stood the test of time and formed generations of Christians in the faith. We must, as Lutheran Christians, cherish and boldly practice our heritage of worship—not because it is inherently a sin to worship like Baptists or Methodists, but because when we worship like Baptists and Methodists, our confession of faith will begin to shift in that direction and the pure, biblical doctrine of the Lutheran Church will be lost. Which part of the Bible are you willing to dismiss for the sake of excitement and entertainment? God forbid that we do such a thing. For it is only when we faithfully confess Christ in our private lives and in our corporate confession of the church that we will be enabled to faithfully confess Him in all other aspects of life.

May God the Father grant us both the wisdom and the strength to live lives centered around God’s Word in our homes and church by the working of the Holy Spirit so that we may faithfully confess Christ before others.

In Jesus’ name. Amen.