Brent Kuhlman

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Third Sunday in Advent “C”                                             
13 December 2009           

St. Luke 7:18-28

Gaudete Sunday.  Rejoice Sunday!  Pink Candle Sunday.  The Introit called us to rejoice.  The bulletin cover.  So did the prophet Zechariah.  So did the apostle Paul.  Rejoice!  Sing!  Shout!  Be glad and rejoice!  Rejoice in the Lord always.  I will say it again.  Rejoice!

John the Baptist is not so sure.  He’s really not in any mood to rejoice.  And can you blame him?  He preached repentance.  He baptized for the forgiveness of sins.  Prepared the way for the LORD!  But now he’s rotting away in prison.  He suffers.  Doomed to die.  This doesn’t seem right.  Everything appears to be upside down.  “Where’s the judgment Jesus?  Where’s the power Jesus?  Where’s the kingdom of God Jesus?  Where are the Holy Spirit and the fire like I preached?  The world is going to hell in a hand basket!  Evil reigns.  Sinners and their sinning are on the increase.  Tiger Woods, Mark Sanford and Bernie Madoff are just the tip of the iceberg.  Brood of vipers they are!  You’ve got to do something Jesus!  Unleash God’s almighty power and wrath on this wicked world chuck full of naughties and nasties!  Give sinners what they deserve!  This is what we all expected with you Jesus!  You’re sure a disappointment to say the least.  Are you the one who was to come Jesus?  Are you really the Messiah Jesus?  Because if you’re not we’ll start looking for someone else.”  

How’s your life going?  Have your share of heartaches.  Problems.  Sufferings?  Not going so well.  What sin or sins have you in shackles?  Does it feel like your living in a prison?  What’s oppressing you?  Making your life miserable?  Not much room for rejoicing?  Would you like to ask Jesus the same questions?  “Are the one who was to come Jesus?  Or should we expect someone else?”  

Be careful.  We should not try to impose our will on Jesus when He doesn’t meet our expectations.  Most of the time our will is not God’s will.  Our ways are not His ways.  And so John the Baptist struggles.  So do we.  God’s ways are so strange to our ears and our eyes.  Our entire experience.  Our entire existence.

Be careful.  Watch out that you don’t fall away.  Don’t have your own matrix of how Jesus should act and how he should be.  He doesn’t fit your model of the Messiah.  Your pattern of the Christ.  If He molded Himself to your template He wouldn’t be the Messiah.  “Blessed is the person who does not fall away because of Me,” Jesus says.  Seriously.  “Blessed are you if you don’t fall away because Jesus doesn’t do or act the way you want!”       

Jesus is the Messiah.  He is the Savior.  He answers John’s question.  And yours.  To John and all of us who sometimes struggle to understand how Jesus can be the Messiah, He puts His words into our ears and gives proof for our eyes.

Jesus’ answer is this: “Look here John and all you members of Trinity.  I’m going to list in ascending order what I’ve been up to.  From least to most important.  Are you ready?  All right.  Here goes.”

“I’ve given the blind their sight back.  I’ve healed cripples and lepers.  I’ve given the deaf their hearing back.  I’ve even raised the dead.  But the biggest of all -- the most important of all -- is that I’ve preached.  Yes, I’ve been preaching the Gospel of the forgiveness of sins to the spiritually impoverished.  Folks, I’ve got news for you.  I’m here to show mercy.  To give grace.  To set consciences free!  All this is what Isaiah the prophet prophesied.  Check it out.  Isaiah 29.  Isaiah 35.  And Isaiah 61.  Big time Messianic prophecies!  I’m doing them.  I’m fulfilling them.”

“John and members of Trinity.  I’m here to seek and to save the lost.  I’m not here to wreak the vengeance of Almighty God against all the naughties and nasties.   Giving sinners what they deserve?  No thanks.  I’m not into that game.  I’m not the Wrath of God Czar.  My cup of tea is this:  I will absorb God’s wrath against all sinners and against all sin in My body!  I will take all its damning punishment.  I will suffer the hell all sinners deserve.”

Does Jesus offend you?  Bore you?  Cause you to fall away?  Do you want Jesus to give you what you deserve?  I sure hope not.  For He’s the Jesus who saves.  You, John the Baptist, his disciples, and all.  He truly is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world as John had preached.  Blessed are you if you are not scandalized and fall away by this Jesus.  He gives you salvation through the forgiveness of your sins.

And if you thought all this is upside down – there’s even more.  Jesus flips everything around some more.  Listen.  You who believe in Him – who trust Him for your salvation – you are greater than the prophet John who prepared the way for Jesus.  Who preached mighty sermons.  Who called a spade a spade.  The last of all the Old Testament prophets.  Who proclaimed the coming of the Christ.  Yes, that’s right.  It’s what Jesus Himself says.  “I tell you, among those born of women there is none greater than John; yet the one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than John.”

Least in the kingdom of God are the little ones.  The little ones of faith.  Who are not offended by Jesus but rather rejoice that all their sins belong to Him.  That Jesus answered for all their hellish punishment.    Jesus has taken away your punishment.  You don’t get what you deserve.  God is most pleased with you.  Delighted with you.  For the King – the Lord Jesus Christ – is with you.  Mighty to save!  Put His Name on you in Baptism.  Gives His Good Friday Body and Blood in the Supper.  Given and shed for you.  For the forgiveness of all your sin.  What joy! 

Have a blessed Gaudete (Rejoice) Sunday.

In the Name of Jesus.    
 

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Wednesday of Advent 2                                             
9 December 2009           

St. Matthew 1:18-25  “Immanuel”

So, Joseph will take Mary to be his wife.  He will not divorce her.  The baby she carries was conceived by the Holy Spirit.  Remember?  The angel Gabriel announced and preached God’s Word to her.  God’s Word and the Holy Spirit go together.  When the Word of God was preached into her ears, the Holy Spirit conceived the baby in Mary’s belly. 

And so Old Testament prophecy is fulfilled.  Isaiah 7:14.  The promise by God Himself to rescue His helpless, hopeless, and defeated people.  The prophecy of old from Isaiah is this:  “The virgin will be with child and will give to a son and they will call him Immanuel – which means ‘God with us.’”  

God with us.  Where?  Way up in the sky?  No.  Way down here.  On the earth.  In the womb of the virgin.  Baby Jesus.  Growing in His mother’s belly.  God with us.  Immanuel. 

God with us.  To save us.  To save you.  The name Jesus.  “He will save His people from their sins.”  Of all the things Immanuel God In The Flesh Jesus does!  He doesn’t think about Himself.  He doesn’t care about Himself.  He doesn’t live for Himself.  Immanuel God With Us Jesus is conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. 

Try to climb up to heaven.  Go ahead.  Bore up to the heavens.  Poke your head through the clouds and look around.  See if you can find God sitting on some cushy red velvet throne.  I’ve got news for you.  You won’t find God there way up there!  Why?  Because He’s way down here on the earth!  Who for us men and for our salvation He comes down from heaven.  He gets involved in our messy world.  Our broken lives.  Our suffering.  Our sin-infested days.  In the flesh of the baby Jesus, His only begotten Son from eternity.  He lies in the crib.  He sits in the lap of the Virgin.  He nurses at her breast.  God is with us in the baby Jesus.  See the Baby – see God.  Hear the Baby – hear God.

And He’s all about saving sinners.  From their sins.  You, me, and the world.  No Jesus – no salvation.  But He has come.  The promised Savior of old. “The virgin will be with child and will give to a son and they will call him Immanuel – which means ‘God with us.’”   

What are your sins?  The God-man, Immanuel, has come to answer for them.  To suffer and die for them.  To shed His Blood on the cross for them.  To make satisfaction for them.  Jesus doesn’t leave any of your sin out of His dying.  He takes them all.  The ones you know.  The ones you don’t know.  The ones you know are bad.  The ones you don’t even care or worry about.  Immanuel God With Us Jesus -- conceived by the Holy Spirit -- born of the Virgin Mary so that you are forgiven.  To give you the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of your sins.  To give you heaven. 

Salvation has come to you.  For Jesus has come.  He brings pleasure eternal.  He has saved you from your sin that would destroy you.  He was born to die for you.  He has buried you into His death through baptism.  And He is still Immanuel – God with you.  He’s given you His Spirit and called you to faith by the Gospel.  He sits at table with you in the Lord’s Supper.  Feeds you with His Body and Blood with this promise:  your sin is forgiven.  Salvation is yours.  Through Jesus.  Always Immanuel.  God with us. 

In the Name of Jesus.