First Sunday in Advent
Preaching
Preaching And Reading The Old Testament Lessons
With an Eye to the New
"In our sins we have been a long time, and shall we be saved?" (v. 5d). It's a good question for this first Sunday in Advent, isn't it? For we are looking forward to Christmas and to the joyful news that there has been born in Bethlehem of Judea a Savior, who is Christ the Lord (Luke 2:11). But will he save us? Do we deserve to be saved this Christmastime?
The season of Advent is not only a season of expectation. It is also a season of repentance, a time when we look back over our lives, with all of their weaknesses and wrongs, and confess that yes, in fact, we do need someone who can wipe out our guilty past and cleanse our sinful hearts and make us good in the eyes of our God again.
Certainly our text exempts no one from that repentant review. Did you hear what it says? "We have all become like one who is unclean ... We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away" (v. 6). And that's true, isn't it? "All our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment" (v. 6b). As church people, we do lots of good deeds, helping out in service projects, praying for others, supporting the ministry of this congregation. But in it all, is there not always some pollution of self--interest, and we secretly think that people will admire us for our saintliness, or that perhaps we will be rewarded for our goodness? And yes, our iniquities, like the wind, do take us away, because for all the miracles of modern medicine and our good nutrition and health, eventually we all end up in the grave and after a while are forgotten. As the Psalmist says, the wind passes over us, and we are gone, and our place is known no more (Psalm 103:16).
Certainly when we look at our society and the turmoil in the world around us, we have to agree with our text: "There is no one that calls upon thy name, that bestirs himself to take hold of thee" (v. 7). Our society is far from what we would call "Christian" anymore. We live in a post--Christian era, our writers tell us. And the aim of most is not to know God, but to make a buck. Buying and selling, accumulating things, beating the stock market, being wealthy or slim or beautiful or admired - those are our American goals. And a living fellowship with the Lord God is the last thing on many persons' minds.
The result is that God looses us from his hand. That's often the judgment that God brings upon us when we forget about him (cf. Romans 1:26, 28). "Okay," he says in so many words, according to the scriptures, "if that's what you want, I set you free to wallow in it and to suffer the consequences." God gives us over to our chosen sins and lets us reap our sad rewards. And our lives and the morning headlines are full of violence and bloodshed, broken hearts and broken relationships, and a world unable to heal itself. Yes, we have a lot of which to remember and repent on this first Sunday of Advent. "In our sins we have been a long time, and shall we be saved?"
Are there any forgiveness and healing, then, that can come to us at this Christmastime? Is there any plea that we can make to God to save us? Our text for the morning gives us two possibilities. First, God is the Father, in the Old Testament as well as the New. And so our text says that we can call on our Father God to remember that he is the one who created us in the first place. Like a potter working with a lump of clay, he carefully fashioned you and me, lining those distinctive fingerprints that mark out each of us as unique, clothing us each with bones and sinews, and giving us our own DNA. Surely God will not then just destroy those of us whom he has made? As Job prays, "Remember that thou hast made me of clay; and wilt thou turn me to dust again?" (Job 10:9). That is a plea that each one of us can make.
But more than that, our text reminds us that God created this church in the beginning. And so our plea to God might be, as Isaiah says, "We are all thy people" (v. 9c). We did not choose him, but God chose us (cf. John 15:16), and entered into covenant with us at our baptisms, and promised to be our God and we would be his people. God loved us before, and so we might appeal to his love in the past to rescue us once again from our sins that have cut us off from him. Israel made that appeal time and again throughout her history, and God always heeded and never deserted his covenant people.
Christmas is the time when God in his love does not desert us either. He sees our desperate plight brought about by our sinfulness, and in overwhelming love he sends his only begotten Son to be our Savior. Jesus Christ is the merciful love of God made flesh, and the answer to all our prayers for rescue.
As we approach the day that commemorates the birth of our Savior, we should note very carefully the nature of the God who loves us still in Jesus Christ, however. What does the prayer of Isaiah 64 say? "O that thou wouldst rend the heavens and come down" (v. 1), because no one can forgive and heal us except the Lord of heaven and earth. There are no man--made remedies for our maladies, and there is no god of this world who is able to deliver us. Can any other deity of any other sect or cult or man--made religion overcome our death? But the Almighty God of heaven, the Lord of Hosts, has sent us his very Son from above, "God of God, of one substance with the Father." And he alone can and has defeated the powers of evil and sin and death that have so corrupted our lives.
We're talking about a majestic Lord, the King of kings, the Ruler of all, when we talk about the God of the Bible. In his presence, proclaims our text, the nations tremble, and when he performs his awesome deeds, the very mountains quake (vv. 2--3). Therefore, it is no accident that at the death of our Lord on the cross, there is a great earthquake and tombs are opened (Matthew 27:51--52), and the earth is darkened for three hours, while the sun's light fails (Luke 23:44). We're dealing with the God who rent the heavens and came down when we're dealing with Jesus Christ. And he is a Ruler beyond all our imagining, that no one has ever seen before or of whom no one has ever heard (Isaiah 64:6; cf. 1 Corinthians 2:9). Christ embodies in his flesh the very being of his Father, and that Father is awesome, overpowering, magnificent Lord of all.
Perhaps we should remember that when we so love the story of the tiny and helpless babe, lying in a manger. How we do sentimentalize Christmas, turning Jesus into a cooing child over whom we feeble souls have power! But no. The infant in the cattle feed--trough incarnates the majesty of the Lord of heaven and earth, and angels on high must announce his birth, and wise men from the East must bow down before him. And that is our proper stance at this Christmas that is coming. God has acted! God has seen our sufferings! God has rent the sky and come down in his Son! And you and I can know forgiveness and salvation from that overwhelming love!
The season of Advent is not only a season of expectation. It is also a season of repentance, a time when we look back over our lives, with all of their weaknesses and wrongs, and confess that yes, in fact, we do need someone who can wipe out our guilty past and cleanse our sinful hearts and make us good in the eyes of our God again.
Certainly our text exempts no one from that repentant review. Did you hear what it says? "We have all become like one who is unclean ... We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away" (v. 6). And that's true, isn't it? "All our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment" (v. 6b). As church people, we do lots of good deeds, helping out in service projects, praying for others, supporting the ministry of this congregation. But in it all, is there not always some pollution of self--interest, and we secretly think that people will admire us for our saintliness, or that perhaps we will be rewarded for our goodness? And yes, our iniquities, like the wind, do take us away, because for all the miracles of modern medicine and our good nutrition and health, eventually we all end up in the grave and after a while are forgotten. As the Psalmist says, the wind passes over us, and we are gone, and our place is known no more (Psalm 103:16).
Certainly when we look at our society and the turmoil in the world around us, we have to agree with our text: "There is no one that calls upon thy name, that bestirs himself to take hold of thee" (v. 7). Our society is far from what we would call "Christian" anymore. We live in a post--Christian era, our writers tell us. And the aim of most is not to know God, but to make a buck. Buying and selling, accumulating things, beating the stock market, being wealthy or slim or beautiful or admired - those are our American goals. And a living fellowship with the Lord God is the last thing on many persons' minds.
The result is that God looses us from his hand. That's often the judgment that God brings upon us when we forget about him (cf. Romans 1:26, 28). "Okay," he says in so many words, according to the scriptures, "if that's what you want, I set you free to wallow in it and to suffer the consequences." God gives us over to our chosen sins and lets us reap our sad rewards. And our lives and the morning headlines are full of violence and bloodshed, broken hearts and broken relationships, and a world unable to heal itself. Yes, we have a lot of which to remember and repent on this first Sunday of Advent. "In our sins we have been a long time, and shall we be saved?"
Are there any forgiveness and healing, then, that can come to us at this Christmastime? Is there any plea that we can make to God to save us? Our text for the morning gives us two possibilities. First, God is the Father, in the Old Testament as well as the New. And so our text says that we can call on our Father God to remember that he is the one who created us in the first place. Like a potter working with a lump of clay, he carefully fashioned you and me, lining those distinctive fingerprints that mark out each of us as unique, clothing us each with bones and sinews, and giving us our own DNA. Surely God will not then just destroy those of us whom he has made? As Job prays, "Remember that thou hast made me of clay; and wilt thou turn me to dust again?" (Job 10:9). That is a plea that each one of us can make.
But more than that, our text reminds us that God created this church in the beginning. And so our plea to God might be, as Isaiah says, "We are all thy people" (v. 9c). We did not choose him, but God chose us (cf. John 15:16), and entered into covenant with us at our baptisms, and promised to be our God and we would be his people. God loved us before, and so we might appeal to his love in the past to rescue us once again from our sins that have cut us off from him. Israel made that appeal time and again throughout her history, and God always heeded and never deserted his covenant people.
Christmas is the time when God in his love does not desert us either. He sees our desperate plight brought about by our sinfulness, and in overwhelming love he sends his only begotten Son to be our Savior. Jesus Christ is the merciful love of God made flesh, and the answer to all our prayers for rescue.
As we approach the day that commemorates the birth of our Savior, we should note very carefully the nature of the God who loves us still in Jesus Christ, however. What does the prayer of Isaiah 64 say? "O that thou wouldst rend the heavens and come down" (v. 1), because no one can forgive and heal us except the Lord of heaven and earth. There are no man--made remedies for our maladies, and there is no god of this world who is able to deliver us. Can any other deity of any other sect or cult or man--made religion overcome our death? But the Almighty God of heaven, the Lord of Hosts, has sent us his very Son from above, "God of God, of one substance with the Father." And he alone can and has defeated the powers of evil and sin and death that have so corrupted our lives.
We're talking about a majestic Lord, the King of kings, the Ruler of all, when we talk about the God of the Bible. In his presence, proclaims our text, the nations tremble, and when he performs his awesome deeds, the very mountains quake (vv. 2--3). Therefore, it is no accident that at the death of our Lord on the cross, there is a great earthquake and tombs are opened (Matthew 27:51--52), and the earth is darkened for three hours, while the sun's light fails (Luke 23:44). We're dealing with the God who rent the heavens and came down when we're dealing with Jesus Christ. And he is a Ruler beyond all our imagining, that no one has ever seen before or of whom no one has ever heard (Isaiah 64:6; cf. 1 Corinthians 2:9). Christ embodies in his flesh the very being of his Father, and that Father is awesome, overpowering, magnificent Lord of all.
Perhaps we should remember that when we so love the story of the tiny and helpless babe, lying in a manger. How we do sentimentalize Christmas, turning Jesus into a cooing child over whom we feeble souls have power! But no. The infant in the cattle feed--trough incarnates the majesty of the Lord of heaven and earth, and angels on high must announce his birth, and wise men from the East must bow down before him. And that is our proper stance at this Christmas that is coming. God has acted! God has seen our sufferings! God has rent the sky and come down in his Son! And you and I can know forgiveness and salvation from that overwhelming love!
