Sermon for the Wednesday of Advent III: December 15, 2021 jj
Rev’d Mark B. Stirdivant, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Yucaipa, California
✝ sdg ✝
The hymn (LSB 561) says that the tree of life, with every good fruit, that once stood in Eden’s holy orchard, is now found within the cross of wood, the tree of Jesus’ shame. We are used to seeing lowliness and humility employed for the Lord’s highest good. Just think of our Infant Savior Himself, as the upcoming Christmas Gospel will recall, He was wrapped up in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. The angels announced the good news to poor shepherds who were watching their flocks by night.
However, the cross is in a category that takes us far beyond the humility of our great Savior. Yes, He stooped down low in order to serve us and submit to the worst of the evils of men. He could have called upon twelve armies of angels to protect Himself, but He allowed the Temple soldiers to arrest Him without a fight. What humiliation that was! At least Samson had Delilah who tricked him into giving up his Divine strength. Jesus was conquered with no cunning needed.
As a Baby, He was not exactly shamed or put through great agony just to be laid in a manger. On the other hand, both shame and horrible pain are true when it comes to the cross. The manger certainly prepared us for the cross, but only one is for us the instrument for our salvation. When Jesus was laid in the manger (whether He was crying or not crying, the jury’s out on that question) the time was not yet for Him to die for us. He had to flee to Egypt from King Herod, just so 30 years later, Pontius Pilate could wash his hands and send our Lord to His execution.
It is also significant that our Lord commanded His disciples to take up their cross as they follow Him. Notice that He did not say, lay down and sleep in a manger and follow Me. Take up your cross takes more out of you and me than just, “Take a deep breath and be a more humble human being.” Our sinful nature doesn’t like crosses. Christmas morning is a much happier thought in our minds than Good Friday at twilight.
Take up your cross means, get ready to suffer, to be rejected for My sake, to bear a burden that you think at the moment is going to be too much for you. You want to save your life for yourself? Then you won’t be able to take up the cross, the way Jesus requires of us. Do you want to substitute some other way to show off your Christian faith? It may impress many people, but you aren’t going to fool God. You could gain the whole world, win the lottery, have everybody like you, fulfill your dream- bucket list, but if you forfeit the cross of Christ, you forfeit your soul, your very life for eternity.
Last week we found that you make the tree good by means of a good confession of the truth. Now we realize that the fruit of that tree not only includes the fruit of good works and God’s blessings, but also along with those must necessarily come the suffering of the cross.
Why me? you may ask. What is gained by my suffering if it is true that nothing I do will gain salvation for myself or anybody else? I thought only Christ and what He did for the world was all that mattered. What is there still left to do if Jesus accomplished it all on His cross? What was His reason for placing the burden of a cross on those who follow after Him?
I’m sure Jesus could have seen that question brewing in the minds of His disciples right away, so He set their minds at ease. “If the world hates you,” (Uh, Jesus? You might as well say, “When the world hates you…”) “Then remember that it has hated Me first…. I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.” The sons of darkness saw the light, yet hated it, and loved and preferred the darkness instead.
Mankind in opposition to God knows what it’s getting when people are told, do better, give more, sacrifice yourself. You’re talking the world’s language. But when Jesus says, Take up your cross, you become passive. You receive suffering. You don’t go out and make a difference and get your reward. You instead do what common sense tells you is the total opposite of what will help you.
It’s the same thing with the cross that Jesus bore. His sacrifice and death did not look like a simple feat of humility and love for fellow men, and all of that sentimental, do-a-good-turn stuff that too often gets the top billing at Christmas time these days. If you remember to be nice to people and think of them with a proper gift, then you’ve fulfilled your duty.
Jesus’ cross, however, is something that we cannot copy. We cannot be perfect like Jesus, or give up our life that will make a sufficient satisfaction for another. Our Lord is far and above us in the category of love.
But remember that it is not a contest. We run the race with Him, but it’s not like we are not trying to match our Savior’s record. Take up your cross is not merely to act more like Jesus, and do the same things that He did. It means instead that we entrust our entire lives to Him, placing our bodies and souls entirely into His hands. We pray to our heavenly Father in His name because He willingly entered His holy presence with His own blood for our sake.
Confess your sins before Him, agree with the condemning Law that you don’t measure up, that you have failed your Lord and His will for you. But as you take up your own cross to follow Him, look to His cross as your lifeline, your tree of life, with twelve kinds of fruit yielding constantly in your life.
The Tree of Life will be found in the cross of wood for a little while longer. For as long as our Advent still looks forward to the glorious coming of our Savior from out of the clouds, we will still struggle and suffer. We will sin, and we’re not going to like it, but our pain will turn our attention ever closer to Jesus.
Then, when He does come, we will wash in the pure water of His forgiveness that streams out from the pierced side of the Lamb who was slain. We will obtain the every good that God had wanted us to find in the tree of life. With Christ as the good fruit that came to us from the tree of the cross, our Advent expectation will be met not only with Christmas joy, but with end of the world glory.
In the Name of the Father and of the ✝ Son and of the Holy Spirit.
