Matthew 3 1-12 2004
Advent 2
Matthew 3: 1-12
December 5, 2004
Prepare the Royal Highway
After Just
Children’s Sermon
This morning I brought along something interesting, it used to contain something I like a lot. This wrapper has all kinds of information. Read name of candy bar, some of the ingredients, etc. Can you tell what the candy is like by looking at this wrapper? Now, this wrapper is nice, but there’s something missing. What is it? Wait for response. You’re right! This wrapper gives lots of information, but we’d rather have the candy. Bring out wrapped candy bar. Here’s a wrapper just like the other one, but this one has something inside. Let’s open it and see if the wrapper was right. Open wrapper and examine candy. If there’s a picture on the wrapper, compare the picture to the bar. Read the simpler ingredients on the wrapper again, and see if they’re really in the bar.
Is the candy bar on the inside like the information we found on the outside? Wait for response. Yes, the wrapper told us about the candy. It got us ready for what we would find when we took off the paper.
In the Advent season we do a lot of preparations for the coming of Christmas when we celebrate our Lord’s birth. We put up Christmas tree and Christmas wreathes. We decorate our home with lights and candles. We buy and wrap gifts, have parties and Christmas pageants. We make lots of preparations don’t we? But all these preparations are like the wrapping on this candy bar. They tell us about the season, like the wrapping on the candy bar told us about the candy. But the most important part is inside. Beneath our fanciful preparations we remember the most important part. Right now we’re in the time of the year called Advent. We remember that Advent means “Coming.” Every year before Christmas we think about Jesus coming to be our Savior. We recognize our own sinfulness and our need for our Savior. We prepare for Him by confessing our sins and receiving God’s forgiveness. His forgiveness is sweet and it is assured just as Jesus came as a baby in Bethlehem, died in Jerusalem and was raised from the dead.
Sermon
Introduction: The theme of Advent continues this Sunday with the preaching of John the Baptist, who calls Israel to repent and make way for the coming of the Messiah. Even at the beginning of the New Testament era, the judgment of God is in view as the axe is laid to the root of the trees, the winnowing fork in hand, and the separation of wheat and chaff a reality. To be prepared to celebrate Christ’s birth is to be prepared for his second coming, and there is no better way to prepare than to listen to John and repent of our sins. For we are all by nature a “brood of vipers” who, like the religious establishment of Pharisees and Sadducees, are more impressed with our own pious works than we are with the church’s call to confess our sins as poor, miserable sinners. Advent is a time of cleansing as the world dies and is reborn in Christ, the mightier one, who shines forth as the light of the world.
Our journey to Jerusalem this new church year began last week by clothing ourselves with Christ. With him as our dress, the journey that leads to Bethlehem must now take a detour through the Jordan, where we realize that our baptismal life in Christ requires us to die and rise with him every day, as Luther tells us. The way of the Lord is a rigorous one because we always journey “in Christ.” We know where we are going, and we know who we are. In this second week of Advent, we remind ourselves that…
Now and Always It Is Time to Walk in the Way of the Lord.
I. What is the the Way of the Lord it is the road made straight for the Messiah
A. The Messiah is coming on his way to the cross! We will soon celebrate his birth in Bethlehem, but already on these first Sundays in Advent, it’s clear that our destination is not an idyllic manger scene with an adorable baby. There is a cross to be suffered. And that means Jesus’ mission is serious business, not to be “tagged along” by the casual traveler or the unprepared.
B. Thus John suddenly appears on the scene to prepare his ways. He has an attention-getting appearance, to say the least! He came out of the desert, clothed with camel skin and leather with a diet of locusts and honey. He illustrates the suffering and sacrifice that are along a weary way. John comes to teach God’s people to prepare them for the messianic journey ahead—to teach that the journey is one of suffering and deprivation, like Israel’s time in the wilderness. There is all righteousness to be fulfilled, pictured by Isaiah as filling in the valley, leveling the hills, making the Messiah’s paths straight. Nothing may stand in his way—not opponents’ resistance, not our sins, not any other “way.” Anything that stands in the way will be bulldozed by the earthmover coming through. Therefore it is time to follow John the Baptist and walk in the way of the Lord.
II. We Do this by Confessing Our Sins.
A. Whole throngs were going out to John from the entire region for just that purpose. They were confessing that they did indeed need to repent. John’s baptism was washing away their sin, preparing them for the Kingdom’s coming in the person of the Messiah.
B. Others, though, came as hypocrites. The Pharisees and Sadducees were already sure of their own righteousness because of their bloodlines and circumcision. They refused baptism because they felt they had no sins to wash away.
C. John cuts through their hypocrisy in the most graphic terms. They are no better before God than stones or Gentile sinners. Unless they repent they will be chopped down and cast into the fire.
D. On our Advent journey we must join the faithful in confessing our sins too. Confessing our pride in who we are, our hypocrisy in wanting to look pious and religious. Without confessing that we too are sinners that truly need a Savior we too would be cast into eternal fire. Yet we confess our sins with hope, because we now walk in the way of the Lord.
III. Because we have recognized out need we look for Christ to come again soon.
A. John’s appearance is the signal that the Lord himself is at hand. The Kingdom of God comes in Christ himself. As He came to God’s Old Testament people through His Holy Word He is coming in the flesh. He will be present in a special way to be among His people. As He comes He will baptize His people in a special way
B. He will baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire. When did Jesus do this? He did this through His own baptism. He did it in His crucifixion. He did it at the day of Pentecost. This is the way of the Lord! For those who are unprepared, those who do not walk in his way, there is a terrifying prospect of facing the unquenchable fire. But for those who do walk in his way, the coming of Christ is our eternal hope as Christ Himself gathers His wheat into the barn.
IV. Jesus Gathers us through His Baptism.
A. In Baptism we are clothed with his holiness. We find our identity as God’s own children, loved and forgiven for the sake of Jesus Christ and His death on the cross. Jesus’ baptizing with the Holy Spirit and with fire continues in the baptizing done by his apostles and their successors. In them Jesus Himself is at work. He is the one that baptizes us. The simple water of your Baptism by your pastor was Jesus baptizing you.
B. When you were baptized, you were baptized into the very “baptism” Jesus underwent—the baptism of his cross. That means your life is now one of walking the way of the Lord—with all the wildernesses and deprivations and hard lessons and crosses that entails. But it also means that you walk the way the Lord walked in his resurrection—to everlasting joy in the Kingdom.
Conclusion: And so our pilgrimage to Jerusalem continues. With the people of Jerusalem who came to John in repentance and faith, we, too, come before Christ, who visits us now through His Word. You who are clothed in Christ, receive him again where he gives himself for you! Already now the gifts of Christmas are given here. We prepare the royal highway by confessing our sins and your faith. Through these we prepare for Christmas. It is time to walk in the way of the Lord. Amen.