Luke 21:25-36

The Son of David Comes, Part II

Advent 2 Populus Zion

December 4, 2016

Zion Lutheran Church T Nampa, ID

If there’s one thing about this time of year that bugs me the most is the ignorance of the world concerning Advent.  Sure, many might have heard of it, or use an Advent calendar with a bottle of booze behind each day’s window, but the whole idea of preparation and waiting for Christmas is completely lost in our culture.  For many, the Christmas celebration ends after opening gifts on Christmas day, but for we in the Church, whose holiday Christmas belongs to, this is just the beginning of our celebration. In fact, we hold that Christmas is so important, that we spend 12 days celebrating it afterward and 4 weeks beforehand getting ready.   Advent teaches us to wait, but more importantly, to wait for the right things and wait in the right way – the rescue from the sin, death, and the devil by the coming Christ.

We must remember that Advent is concerned as much with the future as with the past. Christ has already been born and all of creation was changed when Jesus was born of Mary 2000 years ago. If our waiting is only about looking forward to a celebration of Jesus’ “birthday” on December 25, then both Advent and even Christmas itself have little purpose, beyond being just another anniversary on the calendar. But, because Advent is a time of repentance and hope and expectation, and recognizing those places within us and in our world where the darkness of sin, fear, hopelessness, and grief still reign, we need these blessed days to pray and watch for the coming of the dawn when the Sun of Righteousness will shall rise with healing in its wings.

And so, Advent is the season that reminds us that we are still waiting for the fulfillment of what was begun in the Incarnation and continued in Jesus’ Death and Resurrection. Unfortunately, this sense of waiting for the “not yet fully realized end” of all God’s promises is crowded out by our by the worldly pre-Christmas decorations and festivities.  Our impatient world has forgotten this art of waiting for the good things. It runs toward Christmas before it’s even arrived, only to miss the message that for us men and for our salvation, the Son of God became flesh, and He lives and reigns to all eternity, and He will advent again.

As winter comes quickly, the days cool and night get longer, Jesus teaches us in this parable of the fig tree that we are to look forward to and take comfort in Jesus’ coming on the Last Day with as much joy as all creation looks forward to spring and summer.  The time approaches when we are to be redeemed from sin and evil. And that time is quickly approaching, it is coming near. We look into the world and we see the signs of the coming end of the age.  And we cry out to God along with the saints through the ages, How long, O Lord?  How long are you going to make us wait?

And it is hard!  It is hard to wait in Advent for Christmas. It is hard to wait not knowing how long we will wait. We live in a world of self-gratification, of wanting something and getting it right away, or throwing a fit if we’re not satisfied with it. Another pastor explained it nicely when he said that often want to harvest the crop before its fully ripened and then are disappointed when what looks like sweet fruit is sour because of our impatience and greed to have it right away.  And so we throw it away, what was full of promise left to rot, discarded by unthankful hearts and hands. Or worse, we don’t throw it out, living with the sour fruit and becoming sour ourselves.

Advent pulls us out of this and focusing our attention, our faith, our lives on the coming Christ and the great and awesome day of the Lord. Jesus says, “And then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory” (Luke 21:27).  Here power signifies the hosts of angels, saints, and all creatures that will come with Christ to judgment. He says not only that He will come but also that they shall see Him come.  At His birth He came also, but was seen by no one. He comes now daily through the Gospel, spiritually, to believing hearts; no one sees that either. But this coming will be public, so that all must see Him, as Revelation 1:7 says, “And every eye will see Him.”  And they shall see that He is none other than the bodily man Christ, in bodily form, as He was born from Mary and walked on earth.  With all power and great glory. Last Sunday, we heard the account of Palm Sunday, but now we focus upon Jesus’ future coming on the last day.  This time there will be no humility, no lowly manger, no riding in on a donkey, no suffering and dying upon the cross. There will be the return of Christ in all His glory. 

There is no one better prepared for that day than the one who desires to be without sin. If you have such a desire, what is there to fear? That day comes to set free from sin all who desire it.  Christ says His coming is for our redemption.  If the heart does not rejoice in that day, there is no true desire to be set free from sin.

This godly desires comes in the faith that Christ continues to be God with us.  Christ is present among His Church through the Word and Sacraments, teaching us to wait for the finality of His promises, of the great and awesome day of the Lord’s coming.  He visits us in this painful, broken, impatient, and self-absorbed world to declare you righteous and holy now so that there is nothing to fear at the Lord’s coming, but rejoicing over our coming salvation.  What we wait for shapes who we are, so waiting for the right things will shape us and prepare us to receive them when they come. It will mold us into those who wait and watch for Christ: the One who came, who comes, and will come again in glory.

The world may not like to wait, and may not know what to wait for as we approach our yearly celebration of Christmas.  It will focus on the wrong things, celebrating greed and envy and pride.  It will panic at the signs and wonders of the coming fruit of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection, or dismiss them out of hand, disbelieving because of their rejection of Christ.  But Jesus is faithful. He has not abandoned His people, He comes to visit us, now, with mercy in His wings, with a promise and with hope and comfort.   “Let the unbeliever doubt and despise God’s signs and say they are only natural; you hold onto the Gospel.” Luther

Some info for this sermon was adapted from http://aleteia.org/2016/11/26/preparing-for-the-light-of-christmas-in-the-darkness-of-advent/#sthash.Hs1q7B23.dpuf