Sermon Tone Analysis

ME

Announcements are important.

I still remember being in Hong Kong in a sparkling white uniform: white shirt with the school crest and grey trousers.

It was during grades 1 and 2 at Raimondi College, a Catholic elementary and high school.

Every morning, the P.A. system played the school hymn.

It sounds a little bit like this:

(play school hymn)

As you can hear it was all muffled and up to today I still don’t know what the lyrics were, because the music is overpowering the “singers.”

Does anyone pay attention to it?

Maybe if they invested in better systems and gave it the attention that it deserved, we would focus more on it.

WE

Now let’s talk about an announcement that IS important.

We begin a new series simply entitled Advent.

If you were here last week you’d know that Advent means arrival.

We’ve also mentioned that before arrival, there is first a time of waiting and anticipating.

We are similar to the Israelites at the time prior to Jesus’ birth, yet different at the same time.

For those of us who are followers of Jesus, we too are waiting.

The Jews as we will see are waiting for the one who is to come.

We wait for the one who has already come, but will come again.

The Jews’ wait for the first arrival of the Messiah is over, though some Jewish people doubt that Jesus is their Messiah, their Christ, the anointed one from God.

Now, we are waiting for Jesus Christ, Lord, Saviour and King to come again and finally bring sin, evil, and death to an end.

But whether it’s the first Advent of the past or our current Advent in the future, the hope is in Christ to make all things right.

GOD

We start off in Luke 3 because this is the closest to the point of tension in this gospel.

At this moment, Jesus breaks onto the scene and begins his ministry, starting with his own baptism at the hands of John, his cousin.

Gospel simply means good news that needs to be proclaimed or announced.

This gospel is one of four gospels in the Bible: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

The gospel of Luke tells of the announcement from the mouth of Jesus’ cousin, John, son of Zechariah.

John gives a long, drawn out explanation of the Isaiah 40 prophecy.

Now if you want some context to the gospel of Luke: Luke was a historian and physician writing an orderly account to Theophilus, a Gentile, somewhat not of Jewish dsecent.

The overall theme of the gospel is salvation to the world and the formation of a new community around mid-60 A.D. And the point of today’s message is this:

God proclaims the gospel so that all can be saved lest they be condemned.

So we begin with chapter 3 and notice that Luke begins with a list of historically verifiable foreign leaders.

It includes the top echelon, Caesar down to Pontius Pilate, regional tetrarchs which the Emperor has given land for them to govern, down to the Jewish high priests.

However, the most important names are in verse 1 at the beginning, and verse 2 at the end, highlighted in bold.

Luke 3:1–2 (ESV)

1 In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, 2 during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness.

We will come back to them next week, but notice the word of God came to John.

This, along with the reigning monarch’s year in powe,r is a classic prophetic announcement setup like Ezekiel 1, or Zechariah 1. Luke wants us to see this and instantly know a prophecy is about to be made, and that John is a prophet.

But before revealing what he actually said, Luke tells us first what was done.

Our first point:

I. Water baptism testifies to God’s forgiveness of the repentant.

First, John the prophet went around the Jordan offering God’s baptism to fellow Jews.

Often we forget John is a prophet because of his title, John the Baptist.

He left the wilderness to re-enter into civilization to share an important message.

Repentance and forgiveness.

Repentance is that word which means a change of heart, a turning around from the wrong direction to the right one, and regretting having gone the old one.

And forgiveness is original a monetary term related to being released of your debt owed.

So what is God calling for the Jews to repent of?

Sin.

This word is common in Christian vocabulary but it is also somewhat of a taboo word that we don’t use in today’s society anymore.

It literally means a failure to hit the mark.

The mark is where the center of God’s will, his goodness, his flourishing, and his purpose is.

But we hit everywhere else as an archer, and so either experience or cause badness.

We participate in evil, wrongdoing, greed, selfishness, and pride against divine law.

If you were here for our last series, you would remember that was the checkered past of the Jews.

They rebelled against their creator and provider of their nation and chased after idols.

They exploited the vulnerable and favoured the rich and powerful.

They lived as anything but the Godly nation they were meant to be.

They failed to represent what God’s rule is like here on earth.

And so they were exiled, and ruled over by Assryians, Babylonians, Persians.

Now add to the list the Greeks, and the Romans.

And lesser Kings called Tetrarchs like Phillip or Herod or Lysinias.

And still lesser local rulers like Pontius Pilate, whose anti-semitic stance brought him on a collision course with the people and relgiious leaders.

But now John is saying something new, something to be excited about is upon us!

Forgiveness, which originally required visiting the temple in Jerusalem and offering an animal sacrifice on the altar to achieve, can now be experienced through baptism.

Under Annas and Caiaphas the High Priest father and son-in-law duo, the sacrificial system itself had become a shady business of the haves and have-nots.

The place which atones for sin is used for the purpose of sin itself!

John offers a baptism, a symbol of cleansing and forgiveness, in anticipation of the one who will come and offer to forgive.

A preview now of what Jesus will ultimately fulfill, if those who come would repent.

In some ways, our Christian baptism is similar in meaning in that it is not in the water which we become forgiven, but it points to a forgiveness we have already attained through trusting in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

We are made right with God.

Previously, the stench of slaughtered animals and crimson blood dripping from the altar reminded the people of the seriousness of sin and that a life needed to be taken away each time.

Now, we are reminded of the blood dripping from a rugged wooden cross and the slaughtered lamb of God who was whipped, flogged and humiliated.

Through this horrific death we are offered forgiveness.

All we do is by faith denounce sin and evil’s control over us, and turn towards God in faith and receive Jesus’ sacrifice in our place.

So everytime we come to the meal known as the Lord’s supper as we will do later today during the service, we remember Jesus’ death until he comes again.

If you have heard this message, God wants to offer you this forgiveness today.

If you have not been baptized, God is reminding us through John that water baptism is a witness to other pople of the forgiveness you have received.

Will you accept his offer of forgiveness?

And if you have, will you proclaim your new life through the symbolic act of baptism?

Our second point:

II.

God sends his Messiah to save the world.

Luke 3:4–6 (ESV)

4 As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet,

“The voice of one crying in the wilderness:

‘Prepare the way of the Lord,

make his paths straight.

5 Every valley shall be filled,

and every mountain and hill shall be made low,

and the crooked shall become straight,

and the rough places shall become level ways,

6 and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’ ”

Now we come to the heart of his message, first from the Old Testament, drawn from Isaiah 40:3-5, though there are some subtle differences if you look at the English translation.

Isaiah 40:5 (ESV)

5 And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,

and all flesh shall see it together,

for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

John is pronouncing the relationship between God and himself.