Sermon for the Week of the Epiphany of Our Lord: January 3, 2021 jj
Rev’d Mark B. Stirdivant, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Yucaipa, California
✝ sdg ✝

When this week we celebrate our Lord’s Epiphany, it’s almost too easy for us to fix our attention on either the Magi themselves or the gifts they bring, rather than the One who received their gifts. How many of these wise men were there? Were they really kings from Africa, Iran, or China? What was the going rate for the values of gold, frankincense and myrrh on the commodities market? We are curious not only because the Magi and their gifts were unique, exotic and mysterious, but also because that’s where we sinners in our fallen state naturally focus in. What I mean is that when we pay attention to the Magi, the gifts, the sacrifices they make to bring them, or simply, the manner in which they worship the little boy Savior, then that provides us an opportunity to elevate our offering, our stewardship, our sacrifice, and the way we worship Jesus.

But the gold, frankincense and myrrh aren’t really at the heart and center of the Magi’s visit, because our offering, our self-sacrifice and the way we worship, even the way we pray, should never be the heart and center of the Gospel message. What is most important is what Our Lord does and who He is. That God chooses to assume human flesh, bear our sin and be the whole world’s Savior, those things alone ought to elicit from us an offering and sacrifice – a glorious heartfelt worship which matches and exceeds anything the wise men may have brought to Jesus. And it’s not just how we respond to Jesus’ gift of Himself, because ultimately our response, offering and worship mean nothing and get us nowhere. To be sure, these things are good, simply because they are nothing other than the life and love of Jesus lived out through us in a way that simply receives what He chooses to give.

That’s the lesson of the Magi – that the focus must be taken off of them and directed toward Jesus alone. They would agree with John the Baptist: He must increase, we must decrease. The Magi and their gifts remind us that our offering and worship are not an equal this-for-that response to anything, but simply a reflection of what God is doing in and for us. The account of the Magi calls us away from our paltry contributions and our frenzied way of worship, and turns our heads around instead to the Gift of the Christ Child who is at work in us – not in what we do, but in who He is and what He gives and bestows by His Gospel in preaching and the God-given Sacraments. Consider how Herod wanted to worship Jesus – not by receiving from Him, not by exalting the gift He brings, not in the Liturgy of the Gospel, but in a way which he only thinks is good and right. Herod’s selfish worship began when he heard the confession of the Magi. However, instead of drawing him to Christ to receive His gifts, Herod’s heart was hardened so that his false “faith” rested not in the promise of the Gospel, but in what he determined was a threat to his own position and power. And that led not only to Herod’s destruction but also to the needless, heartless massacre of many innocent children.

In contrast, the wise men weren’t concerned at all with their worship or their gifts, but only with God’s grace and kindness. And that grace and kindness of God appeared to them not as an idea, a sensational feeling, or a grand hope of good things to come for the present world. Rather, God’s Love arrived in human flesh, in the Person of the vulnerable poverty-wrapped Child as He lay in the arms of the Virgin Mary. The grace and kindness of God, you see, isn’t an attitude, but a Person. And it’s not just any Person, but the very Son of God come down from heaven to become the sin that you and I are – and to be the Savior you and I could never hope to be for ourselves.

So, the worship of the Magi wasn’t only that they heard that Scriptural Word, but that they took it to heart and received it as the living, Word in the flesh that it truly is. The Magi believed that the promise of God is both resident in the infant Christ, and also given through His human flesh. And so they set out to find Him, not because they were curious, not because they needed to be fully convinced, and not even because they were willing to give up all they had for the sake of this Child. No, the Magi set out to make the long journey to Bethlehem – following the star in the East – so that they might worship God’s epiphany, which is the same as saying His appearance and arrival – His manifestation and incarnation in the Baby, Jesus, God and man in one Person.

And now it’s time to ask, what was their worship? It may have appeared as though their worship was to give gifts – but really, their worship was to receive. The Magi desired nothing more than to take in everything the Baby Jesus offers – everything the Baby Jesus is. Their faith is what led them to follow the star and not to be dissuaded. Their faith led them to receive this Child as He came for them – and for us all – in the flesh and blood of man. May our faith always lead us always in that same direction! It would be much better for us that we would not be dazzled and drawn away by so many other intriguing, but quickly fading forms of worship! Oh, that we could also have the kind of faith that’s satisfied and gratified not with what pleases us, but simply with what Our Lord is pleased to give and plant within us without measure!

By the preaching of this same Gospel which the wise men heard, and by the leading of the same star and light of the Holy Spirit, you and I have been given this true, right-worshipping faith – a faith which pays attention to the shepherding of Our Lord in the Ten Commandments and leads us away from our own sinful lusts and desires, our own self-pleasuring, and our own self-gratifying ways of worship. This is a faith which calls us to the Christ Child, that gathers us with the Magi, with saints and angels around wherever He chooses to be, that enlightens us so that we trust the Gospel promise more than the Law threat, that cradles us within His body, the Church, and unites us with Him in such a tight, close union that with His flesh and blood He makes a home, lives and dwells within us.

And with that faith comes the Life of Christ in you, a life that gifts you not with money, valuables or deeds, but with your whole life and being as a holy, lively and reasonable sacrifice to God. The sacrifice of God in Christ is now being reflected and lived through you as your God-pleasing worship – as the only proper response to the knowledge that in Christ everything in your life is a yes and an amen to the gifts God desires to give you every day. That’s the lesson of the Magi and the proper focus of the Epiphany Feast. May it be so all through the year and for all the days of our lives, until we meet Jesus face-to-face.

In the Name of the Father and of the ✝ Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Readings:
Isaiah 60:1-6 Arise, shine; For your light has come!
Psalm 24 Who may ascend into the hill of the LORD?
Eph. 3:1–12 that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs
Matt. 2:1–15 wise men from the East came to Jerusalem

Notes

The Lord be with you!
Merry Christmas! O Lord, our Lord! How majestic is Your name in all the earth! We have embarked on a twelve-day season that is rich with the joy of God, our Maker and Redeemer, as He came among us in our lowly human flesh. And yet the season is also tinged with the sacrifice of those who loved our Lord to the utmost. Sunday’s readings continue the Christmas mystery, the hidden gift of Jesus with a focused emphasis on His very name, which means the Lord Saves. Jesus is not only who our God is, but He’s also all that our God has done, is doing, and will continue to do unto eternity.

Let us pray the collect for the first Sunday after Christmas:
O God, our Maker and Redeemer, You wonderfully created us and in the incarnation of Your Son yet more wondrously restored our human nature. Grant that we may ever be alive in Him who made Himself to be like us; through Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
Amen.

2 Samuel 7:1–16
God’s identity and His activity are fused together into one: that’s His name, His reputation, His promise to the people in whom He is pleased. King David desired to honor God’s name with a house built by hands as a token of praise and thanks. The prophet Nathan would have gone along with it, if he were guided only by his own human wisdom; sure, it’s a noble thing to show honor to God, because by faith we’re confident of His mercy and love toward us. But then God revealed to Nathan, who passed along to David, yet a further blessing that took things to an even greater level. David would not build a house, that is, a structure, for God, as his son Solomon would eventually do. Instead, God would build a House, that is, a whole kingdom, for David. This house, this Zion on a hill, would be the Christian Church, dedicated and founded by David’s greater Son, Jesus. Unlike the earthly house that was eventually destroyed (several times in fact), God’s house in Christ would endure forever.

Galatians 4:1–7
The circumcision and naming of Jesus indicate, among many other things, the profound truth that God placed Himself under His own law. He needed to do this in order to procure our adoption into His grace. We have officially and legitimately joined God’s family, and the benefits of that status for us means we have the right and the privilege to call upon God as our own Father in prayer.

Luke 2:21–40
The Christmas Eve Gospel from Luke 2 ended with the shepherds spreading the word about the birth of Jesus. The very next verse continues the Christmas story with the circumcision and naming of Jesus, in accord with God the Father’s plan as it was announced by the Angel Gabriel. The name of Jesus is significant, and it is profound that His circumcision, His first blood sacrifice, accompanies it. How does the Lord save? How does He “Jesus” us? God must shed blood- His own true God and true Man blood. Only now do we fully comprehend what God was up to when He commanded the ritual of circumcision to Abraham so long before. This Gospel is all of one whole verse long on the actual eighth day of the Christmas season: New Year’s Day. Today, we follow it up with another major event in the infant life of our Savior, His presentation in the temple, the ritual purification of Mary, His mother, and the joyful Nunc Dimittis song of Simeon and the praise of the elderly widowed prophetess Anna.

Here’s hymn 358, stanza 13- from Martin Luther’s own Christmas hymn:
    Ah, dearest Jesus, holy Child,
    Prepare a bed, soft, undefiled,
    A quiet chamber set apart
    For You to dwell within my heart.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Pr. Stirdivant

Sermon for the Sunday after Christmas: December 27, 2020 jj
Rev’d Mark B. Stirdivant, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Yucaipa, California
✝ sdg ✝

When Jesus received His name, blood was shed. It was the eighth day that His true God and true baby boy lungs breathed our world’s sinful, polluted air. He was circumcised when He was given His name, and I’ll guarantee you, the Little Lord Jesus—lots of crying He makes! But for Him to receive the name Jesus, the name that the Angel Gabriel announced to Mary nine months prior, that name means God’s Love for us, but for Him, it meant pain and death. The name of Jesus is no mere identifier. It wasn’t used to distinguish Mary’s firstborn from all His other earthly family members, His legal father Joseph, His brothers and sisters. The name Jesus means everything Jesus is and all that He came to do. All the basics of the Christian Faith that we reflect on from the Catechism, namely the Creed, the Ten Commandments, the Lord’s Prayer—those are all summarized for us in one word, the name of Jesus.

Jesus is our Savior and our Salvation. He is our Forgiver as well as the Forgiveness we have received. He is the Host of the Lord’s Supper, and He is our Food that we eat at this Altar. This is Jesus: He’s Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, All Saints’ Day, the Last Judgment, all of it wrapped up for us as yet another gift from our True Love on this the third day of Christmas. When our Lord received the name of Jesus, He abandoned His legal right to firstborn sonship, placed Himself under His own Divine Law, and gave the full rights of adoption to us instead. The phrase, “we might receive the adoption as sons” sounds too iffy in the English translation. The original states it as a certain, unchangeable outcome for us—because Jesus received His name, your name is now child of God forever! The trade-off was made with no trade backs.

The world and its evil master once had slave ownership of you. The darkness that dominated you was deeper than the darkness of the womb where you began your life. The world’s elementary principles, as we read about in our Epistle, were your fundamental truths of life. Truths like: The moment you’re born, you begin dying. There’s never a free lunch. Never trust a stranger. Try to make the most out of life because what you see in this world is all there is. That was your previous taskmaster. That’s what ruled you with disappointment, despair, and the hammer-blow of destruction from the Law of God that demanded your punishment.

Then you said, Save me, O Lord, by Your name! Save me, with Your Jesus. Take my sin, my hurt, my pain, my misgivings about myself, my anxieties about the future, and carry that bloody burden on Your shoulders to the cross for me! I have nowhere else to turn. I have no other name by which I will be saved. I must turn only to Jesus. All His blood, from the circumcision knife in Bethlehem to the soldier’s spear on Calvary, that’s the name of Jesus for me. That’s how I now have the privilege to call out, “Abba Father” to the God who made me and all creatures, who has given me my body and soul, eyes, ears and all my members and still takes care of them. Jesus is my key to all those blessings and more. When I call out the name of Jesus, I possess right at this moment my forgiveness of sins, my resurrection of the body and my life everlasting—everything I was promised and had handed to me when I was baptized.

No wonder Simeon praised God and proclaimed he was ready to die at the moment he took the baby Jesus up in his arms at the Jerusalem temple courtyard. That location was the place God set aside for His name, as He promised long ago to King David in our Old Testament reading. And no wonder the elderly prophetess Anna flitted with exuberant joy from this person to that person, announcing the end of her fasting and the answer to her constant prayer. Her earthly husband had been long gone, but now she bore witness to the greater marriage of Jesus Christ to His Church, a union that will never be separated, this time not even by death. This is the name of Jesus to these saints and also to you. Israel received its Consolation. Jerusalem was redeemed from slavery. The same has happened for you in the name of Jesus.

There are just a few days left on the calendar for the year that, on average, most people I know would like to forget. As you talk about next year with just about anyone, you’ll encounter a whole lot of hope that’s riding on how 2021 will turn out. Where will the power of that hope come from, do you think? Will we just enter the new year with the same sins, diseases, failures and fears of the old year? How will we get the fresh start that we fervently desire? None other than by the name of Jesus. In the name of Jesus, resting confident in His assured pardon, we confess our sins. We admit our wrong doings of thought, word and deed. We abandon our selfish habits with more diligence than when we wash our hands. We silence our hurtful words more often than we put on our masks. If there was anything you knew without a doubt that would protect you from Covid, you would do it. Well, for your spiritual health, which is even more important, call on the name of Jesus, believe that you are saved by His name, for there is your single, absolute guarantee that Satan and this world will not separate you from the love of God.

Thanks to the bloody, salvation-rich name of Jesus, you are not placed under the harsh guardianship of the law anymore. You are now adopted into sonship, with full rights of inheritance that come with the name you’ve been given. You have been made a precious sheep, a lamb of the Good Shepherd’s pasture. The deep darkness, the valley of the shadow of death has forever been brightened for you with Christ the true light of the world. As you emerged from this womb of new birth, you are now governed by new elementary principles, new truths such as, the moment you were drowned and buried in Baptism is the moment when you truly begin living in the life that Jesus came to bring to this world.

The precious gifts of God cannot be bought with money, and they are handed out in His Church for free week after week. In this new life under Jesus’ name, you’ll find the friends who will remain friends even when they don’t have a way to benefit from you in any form. You’ll also find it easy to be that kind of selfless friend to your neighbors whom God has placed in your life. The agonizing, painful, mournful 2020s that we’ll ever come across in this life aren’t worth comparing with the certainties, joy, the confident assurances that God has prepared for you, better than even the best hope for 2021 could ever attain.

Now that the name of Jesus no longer means for Him a painful, bloody execution on the cross, He is glorified with the name at which every knee shall bow and every tongue confess Him as the Lord. As that Day draws ever nearer, He gives His name to you, He places His name on you so that you will receive an undying confident trust in the salvation that He gives to you along with that name. The name of Jesus distinguishes you from the world in which you currently live, a world that wants nothing to do with a Savior from sin, indeed a world that looks with eager expectation and hope toward anyone else but the true Jesus. You’re different, you stand out. You aren’t swayed by the appalling events that tell us the present world is passing away. You have the name of Jesus that far outshines anything this world could regard as good. You have what will last forever.

Today is the commemoration day of John the Evangelist, the one who unveiled himself at the very end of his book as “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” And near the end of his book John summarized his ultimate purpose in writing down what the Holy Spirit gave him to write. He said: “Jesus did many other signs… which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name.” Now you know a little more about what it means to “have life in His name.” That it means everything Jesus is, and everything He did, and still does, all out of Love for the world, and that name is yours for your life now, next year, for the rest of your life, and for eternity in the life of the world to come. The name of Jesus is how you know without any doubt that you have that life as your very own.

In the Name of the Father and of the ✝ Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Readings:
Isaiah 11:1–5 A rod from the stem of Jesse
or
2 Sam. 7:1–16 He shall build a house for My name
Psalm 89:1–8 For who in the heavens can be compared to the LORD?
Gal. 4:1–7 when the fullness of time had come
Luke 2:22–40 Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace

Sermon for Christmas Day: December 25, 2020 jj
Rev’d Mark B. Stirdivant, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Yucaipa, California
✝ sdg ✝

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14)

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. (1 John 4:1-3a)

Christmas marks a dividing line between truth and error. There’s something behind all the controversy that erupts each year! God became Man- that in itself is so shocking, so utterly unreasonable and offensive, that it drives people to deny the truth and promote error in its place. Over 2,000 years, do you know what people just can’t take? They cannot handle the truth of Christmas. They cannot stand the idea that the Word, the Logos, the eternal Son of God, had to become flesh, with all that implies with it.

Now we know, Christmas is not merely “cute.” Rather, it is raw reality that deals with the root problem of humanity. It touches on flesh-and-blood sin that brought our God to us up close and personal. That fleshly truth of Christmas may be controversial, but it is also crucial. Your very salvation depends on it! “And the Word became flesh.” No more unfathomable mystery was ever captured in such a simple statement. The apostle John was delving into a true mystery.

He started the Gospel account with: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.” It’s just like the opening of Genesis: “In the beginning. . . .” He’s saying that there is one called “the Word,” the Logos, who was eternally face-to-face with God and yet who was also God in substance, in who He actually is. This one called the Word was there “in the beginning,” that is, at Creation, which means he himself was not created. He is the Son of God, without beginning or end. “And God said, ‘Let there be. . . .’ And there was. . . .” That was the Word, the Logos, acting in Creation. So John says of him: “All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.” The Word is true God, from eternity, above all created things.

One event changed the world, and that was: “The Word became flesh.” The one who was true God, from eternity, at a certain point in human history, became also true man. The Word became flesh, became one of us, a flesh-and-blood human being, our brother. How can this be? It simply is. Our mind, our reason, cannot comprehend just how this is possible. But God declares that it is so, and faith receives this truth in quiet humility.

“The Word became flesh.” Why is this absolutely crucial to our salvation? Here’s why. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” Salvation depends on it, the one and only way to heaven, and there you have the controversy.

In the Old Testament the Lord God made his dwelling in the middle of the Exodus camp, a tent in the very center, surrounded by the tents of all the twelve tribes. This was the “tent of meeting,” or the Tabernacle. He came there to meet and interact with Moses and the people. That was His tabernacle, His dwelling. He gave His Word from there, protected them, fed them, forgave their sins using the appointed sacrifices. The cloud and pillar of fire led them while they traveled, then God rested at, or inside, the Tabernacle, His dwelling place.

As grand and miraculous as that was in the days of Exodus, John is writing that the appearance of Jesus in the flesh was even greater! His tabernacle of skin and bones, clothing and sandals was where He pitched His tent among us, to save fallen humanity. God’s Son was on a saving mission to pay for mankind’s sin and reclaim us, and he did it by becoming man himself. That’s what the little baby in the manger is all about. That’s what Christmas is all about: The Word became flesh in order to save us.

Why did God have to become man? Because our situation called for it. This is God’s plan, and it’s the only one that works. All of humanity, every one of us, had fallen into the death-trap of sin, ever since our first parents. We have spiritually fallen, and we can’t get up. We cannot save ourselves. Only God is able to do that. But at the same time God’s justice clearly demands: Man had sinned, and man must die. The sins can’t just be ignored. They must be paid for.

And so Christ Jesus—the Word made flesh–Jesus came, as a man, to do the job and fulfill the demands of God’s Law. Jesus, as a man, kept the commandments, to love God and to love neighbor, He kept them perfectly, and he’s the only one who has done that. Jesus is the one righteous man, totally innocent. He alone could take our place. Every person’s place, your place and mine.

As true God, his suffering and death have infinite worth, enough to cover the sins of all humanity. Jesus died as the sacrifice, our substitute, to pay the price our sins deserve. His perfect righteousness is counted as ours. And when Jesus rose from the dead, he showed that his righteousness and his sacrifice have indeed done the job and conquered sin and death. And so we are acquitted, declared not guilty, in God’s court of justice. A righteous man has been found to keep the Law. A man has stepped forward to bear the penalty of the Law against sinners, and that man is Jesus, the God-man, the Son of God come in the flesh to save us. That’s how it had to be. That ought to be enough to make Christmas so beloved.

That is why, though, the genuine Christmas is so hated. There are people who cannot accept the fact that God became man, that the Word became flesh, in order to suffer and die to save us. Why? Well, if I believe that, then it would necessarily say several things about me. It says that I have to admit I need saving, that I am a lost sinner, unable to save myself, and I don’t like to hear that. My natural man, the old Adam, hates that and hides from it, tries to hide from God. To say that it takes the death of the Son of God to pay for my sins…? You mean, I’m not good enough on my own? You mean there’s nothing I can do to merit or earn my salvation? No, I can’t have that. I can’t accept it. You see, the Word became flesh means I have to believe things that I don’t want to believe, or I don’t see the reason to believe.

Human beings want to change the message, to make Jesus one option among many possible faiths that will get you to the same place. Maybe they want themselves to be the gods they follow. You and I in our sinful natures want that. Anything but the Word becoming flesh to save us. Anything but that kind of Christmas.

It was the same even in the first century. The apostle John, by now an old man, the last surviving disciple, unbelievably had to deal with a heresy that rejected Jesus was the Son of God. His epistle, 1 John, repeatedly emphasizes for his hearers the absolute necessity that the Son of God did come in the flesh, and that his blood, shed on the cross as the sacrifice for our sins, is the only thing that will save us. It’s not by our attaining to some superior “knowledge,” so it was called.

A few centuries later, some other heretics called Arians denied that Jesus was truly God’s Son. Following Scripture’s words very closely, the church came up with a way to confess its answer to that challenge, to both affirm the truth and reject that error. Maybe you recognize these words they approved at their meeting concerning Christ: “the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of His Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made. . . .” Yes, the Nicene Creed, at least this part of it, was written to combat the false teaching of Arianism and to affirm the true doctrine of the person of Christ. Who Christ is then goes hand in hand with the work He came to earth to do: “who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the virgin Mary and was made man.”

Still in our day the church needs to test the spirits- to be vigilant to guard this precious truth of Christmas. The official teachings of Latter-Day Saints, Community of Christ and the Jehovah’s Witnesses try to change the person of Christ to fit into their own religious inventions. Even more troublesome than that is any Christian pastor or author who either avoids talking about Jesus or only uses His words as life-coach advice on principles of success, or the Bible is a key to making lots of money. A different gospel is no gospel at all, no matter how popular it may seem.

Can you see why Christmas remains controversial? People don’t want a flesh-and-blood Savior who has to die for them in order to make them acceptable before God. So they’ll change Christmas into a collection of cute little harmless feel-good traditions about Santa and reindeer and hot cocoa and warm family memories. And not that there’s anything wrong with Christmas fun. It’s just that the fun part can’t do what your flesh-and-blood Savior can do.

What can he do? This Jesus, born in a manger–he can save you! He does save you! Even to this day. He grew up and died on the cross for you, to do the job. Now you are forgiven, now you are God’s child too. Celebrate this truth! Rejoice in it! God is with us, to save us, in the person of Christ:
    Veiled in flesh the Godhead see,
    Hail th’ incarnate Deity!
    Pleased as Man with man to dwell;
    Jesus, our Emmanuel!

“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

In the Name of the Father and of the ✝ Son and of the Holy Spirit.

 

Sermon for Christmas Eve: December 24, 2020 jj
Rev’d Mark B. Stirdivant, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Yucaipa, California
✝ sdg ✝

As the sun set in Eden’s garden on the day that changed the world, Adam and Eve were afraid. God first came to earth perhaps amidst the angels’ heavenly singing and the joyful response of nature praising her Creator. (Job 38:7) But our first parents still had much to fear that day, for they had just rebelled against their Lord. They had eaten from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, counter to the Creator’s explicit warning that on the day they eat that fruit, they would die. God had meant to create so that He would bless the creation; now, due to sin, which has no place whatsoever in His presence, God had to force Himself to curse as He had threatened. Three curses were uttered: the first one was against the evil serpent who deceived Adam and Eve, declaring to Satan that the woman’s Seed would crush his head; the second curse was upon the blessing of childbirth—not to take the blessing away, but to increase its pain and to introduce a desire for the woman to be at odds with the sacrificial-giving authority of her husband. The final curse was upon the ground, reminding Adam, indeed, telling all of humankind that we were responsible for plunging the world into the night of sin.

And so, night did fall on God’s green garden paradise of earth. It was a spiritual night that showed little promise of coming to an end. You thought a pandemic seems endless? Sin afflicting a perfect world is worse! The sunrise and warmth of the heavenly Father’s shining face was veiled in the fresh blackness of evil. Mankind has since that fateful day devised new and even more hideous ways to propagate the curse of sin, making society darker and more devoid of Divine Light than ever before. You could almost see the tear in the eye of the Biblical author of Judges when he wrote those last words of the book, “In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” (Judges 21:25) God’s people were alone, in the dark, the promise forgotten, the curse remaining. Ever since the sun set in Eden, it has been a spiritual nightfall on the earth, with people even to this very day walking about in their spiritual lives with arms out, crashing, stumbling without regard to the light of God’s Word, destroying one another, as well as themselves.

You may be painfully aware of this curse of darkness yourself. You may have been alienated from the rest of your family. Especially in a year like we all have had, you could have lost your job or your means of supporting yourself has otherwise been cut off or cut too short. You could have ended the school term with a load of guilt over not doing the assignments and all the studying that you should have. Parents turned against children, workers turned against bosses, inner-cities turned against suburbs, and sadly, there’s even church turned against church at times. No amount of worldly “Christmas spirit” can shine enough light into this darkness. No return to so-called normal, no parties, decorated trees, stuffed stockings, holiday cheer, no sanitized donations to the bell-ringers’ buckets, or even night-time visits with three ghosts can reverse the curse.

Our sinful world owns up to no king, everyone does that which is right in his own eyes. Your sinful nature and mine are quite at home in the darkness, yet we’re never content with the sins we have, as we’re always craving after more. And so darkness continues for you, inspiring fear in a heart that was instead created to love. It’s something you can feel deep within, and the curse seems to get stronger, and the only thing you think you can do is ignore it, go about your life, look out for number one, keep yourself safe and healthy (bodily speaking) and deal with all this spiritual stuff later.

That’s what the shepherds were hoping to do. The sun had already long set, and they were settling in for guarding their flocks during the several night watches in which their familiar fields were always getting plunged into disorienting darkness. But it would not be business as usual for these animal-watchmen on this night. Even though it was the middle of the night, they would witness the dawning of another day, a day that would change the whole world’s history yet again. The shocking appearance of the angel shining with the Glory of the Lord not only gave light to their immediate surroundings, brighter than it would be at noon, but that heavenly appearance also shone God’s holy Light into the darkness of this world’s spiritual nightfall.

Just like their ancestors Adam and Eve, the shepherds were afraid on that day that changed the world. The appearance of the angel struck a massive fear into their hearts that the King James Version describes for us as “sore afraid”–you could say they were afflicted with a fear so great that it hurt deep down. But to counter such great fear, the angel messenger greets them with the all-important and often-recurring opening words, Do not be afraid! When the words of God’s messenger say, do not be afraid, then He causes that very thing to happen. Only the powerful Word of God Himself could turn their hearts to hear the Good News. And the Good news is this: Today, on this day above all days, a Savior is born, a Light to shine in your darkness, a Light that will not be overcome by the darkness you and I suffer from this world, and the darkness you and I inflict on this world. Angels sing on earth once again, for God has come to walk among His people in the midst of His creation, this time not merely strolling one evening through the Garden of Eden, but rather walking about in real human flesh. In fact, Jesus has now lived in human flesh as our Lord and Savior for over 2020 years. The incarnation, that is, the coming-in-flesh of Jesus is the good news of great joy that is announced and celebrated by the singing angels. With all of the bad news that assaults us in abundance, He is the Light that our dark world needs.

And so it is also for you, the Good News of great joy is precisely the news of your forgiveness, the news of new life in the midst of death. In a magnificent turn of events, the first curse that was threatened against Satan, the prophecy that Jesus would come to crush his serpent-head, will be fulfilled in the cross. The Baby Boy born at Christmas would on the next great day in history, that being Good Friday, be put to death, with darkness enshrouding the earth, only to arise with the sun on the first Easter morning.

What is amazing about all this is that once the first curse is carried out to completion, the others are set in reverse as well! The second curse upon childbearing brought forth a Savior, born without taint of sin from the Virgin Mary. The curse that was cast on the ground, as far as that curse is found in this world, will be replaced with God’s flowing blessings instead. Joy to the World, indeed!

If you mourn, if you are sore afraid, if you are stricken with any of sin’s painful fallout, you often find it is most difficult to deal with it at the holidays. Yet, even in the midst of deepest darkness, when even the days themselves lack light the most, the true Light of Christ shines the greatest in the Good News of great joy to dispel what afflicts you in your life with pain and fear.

The sign for the shepherds was that they would find a wrapped-up baby in a manger. Notice that the angels did not need to command the shepherds explicitly: “Stop what you’re doing; go to Bethlehem, do not pass ‘Go.'” All they needed to do was reveal to them the sign. For it is the sign alone that gives them the permission, the invitation, and even the inner compulsion, to go find that Christ Child. How could they possibly stay out there in the fields after all this has been told to them? Here is the very simple sign by which you will behold the world’s Savior—wouldn’t you go to the utmost limits to search for that sign? Wouldn’t you make arrangements, even at great cost, virus or not, to visit with Jesus if you had the opportunity? The shepherds came with haste, the Scripture says, teaching us well by their example.

Simple ordinary signs of Jesus the Christ Child will point you to Him tonight. The Holy Body and Blood sitting front-and-center on the altar take the place of the baby lying in the manger. The flesh that was for a while limited by time and space is now placed into the manger of your own hands and fed into your own mouths. May the appearance of this ordinary sign be your encouragement, invitation and inner compulsion to receive the grace of His forgiveness and life. Do not forgo this great joy that is for all people. If you have a friend or family member that is not yet a communicant united with our confession of the true faith as laid out for us in Scripture, I urge you to help that person learn the faith and confess it as their own, so that soon he or she would no longer remain deprived of this wondrous Christmas gift of all gifts.

Refuse the darkness that makes you sore afraid, the darkness that creeps inside your heart, trying to kill your joy and instead be warmly welcomed by our Savior and His Bride, the Church into His marvelous light! Rejoice in His coming again for you to see fully the new day that is about to dawn upon this dark world. Be confident, knowing that the curse that darkens your life and our world has been lifted by our Savior, Christ the Lord. There is no curse now, only blessing. Let your King turn away the sadness, fear and lack of contentment that prey on you. Bask in the warmth of your Heavenly Father’s love, for His face is shining upon you, the face that was revealed to the world first during the night in the smile of a baby boy looking up at His virgin mother.

In the Name of the Father and of the ✝ Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Readings:
Is. 9:2–7 For unto us a Child is born
Psalm 96 Oh, worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness!
1 John 4:7–16 Beloved, let us love one another
Luke 2:1–19 a decree went out from Caesar Augustus

Notes

The Lord be with you!
Shower, O heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain down righteousness! This is the Fourth Sunday in Advent, and all four candles on the Advent wreath are lit. Christmas is within days, and we conclude the Advent season with one more message of repentance from John the Baptist. As fall gives way to winter in our area, we see impressive clouds and cold winds, but the rain showers do not seem to follow. God’s rich blessing of righteousness, however, rains down generously exactly as He has promised- Jesus came in our flesh and our sins were washed away in a magnificent cleansing torrent.

Let us pray:
Stir up Your power, O Lord, and come and help us by Your might, that the sins which weigh us down may be quickly lifted by Your grace and mercy; for You live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

Deuteronomy 18:15–19
Who could have imagined a greater prophet than Moses? He went up the mighty Mount Sinai and talked to God, first through a burning bush, then later through a pillar of cloud, lightning, fire and thunderous voice. The face of Moses glowed so that he needed to wear a veil over his face to dim the brilliance of reflected Divine glory. But as great as Moses was, a greater prophet was promised back when Israel camped for the last time on the Jordan river’s bank. Moses could only see the land from a mountain above and afar, but Jesus, the greater Moses and greater Joshua leads us in through His death on the mountain of Golgotha.

Philippians 4:4–7
When the Lord is at hand, we who are found in Him can do nothing else but rejoice, and if it meets with any doubt in your heart, then it bears repeating: rejoice! With the Lord at hand, that is, God with us (Emmanuel), we have a new attitude toward God and our neighbor. St. Paul’s word for this attitude is translated as “reasonableness”, “moderation”, “gentleness”. It’s the same idea that Peter is getting at when he advises us that “love covers a multitude of sins.” (1 Peter 4:8) It’s an attitude governed by a new perspective we have, knowing that our gracious giver of eternal gifts is here- why are we going to major in the minors when our fellow Christians occasionally irritate us with their unintended shortcomings? Rather than insist on what we think we deserve, rather than dwelling with an anxious heart on what we lack, we let our requests be known to God in prayer, for He has already known and answered us in Christ.

John 1:19–28
John the Baptist caused quite a stir in Jerusalem. A streaming crowd went out to him in the wilderness to hear his preaching of repentance and receive God’s forgiveness through John’s baptism. Many heard about the coming Messiah whom John constantly proclaimed, but there was still confusion, thanks to the hardness of men’s hearts. This ignorance got so severe that Jewish leaders sent some of John’s own closest relatives—the priests and Levites—to ask him directly who he was! If the priests and Levites couldn’t figure out who John was, even though he was the son of Zechariah the priest and Elizabeth, also of the tribe of Levi, then they’re not going to get it when John points out the actual Messiah when His ministry and road to the cross begins.

Here’s hymn 353, stanza 4:
Jesus comes in joy and sorrow,
Shares alike our hopes and fears;
Jesus comes, whate’er befalls us,
Cheers our hearts and dries our tears;
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Comforts us in failing years.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Pr. Stirdivant

Sermon for the Fourth Sunday in Advent: December 20, 2020 jj
Rev’d Mark B. Stirdivant, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Yucaipa, California
✝ sdg ✝

What’s the best-kept secret that you can think of? Usually you think of a restaurant, a vacation spot, or someplace else where you don’t want a crowd to get in the way of your enjoyment of it. When a good thing gets too popular, then it becomes yet another hassle, and we certainly don’t want any more of those in our life. I ask you, should the Church ever be “our little secret”? Would we ever be right to keep the Gospel of forgiveness to ourselves? Of course not, and yet we do it. We know it’s just as necessary to speak God’s Word to our family and friends, and spread the Gospel, as it is essential to keep that Word pure and in line with the Bible. It remains true that Christ died for all people, and yet we can think of people we know who are not hearing that Good News.

You may have heard about the importance of witnessing, and I would say it’s absolutely important. Faith comes by hearing, so people need to hear the word of salvation in Christ. A so-called silent witness may do some good for your neighbor, and you would be an instrument of God’s blessing in their physical life, but not to the extent that using words would ever be considered as something optional. You can do a whole load of good for someone, and Christmas brings out a wealth of charitable activity both in and out of the church, but don’t fool yourself into thinking that you can get someone into heaven without the Gospel message. In fact, a silent witness, when he has a message to tell, has made himself a false witness when he’s chosen to remain silent. Lord, have mercy on us all, right?

Here comes some help! The greatest witness ever born wasn’t afraid of being labeled as a “Jesus freak!” Christ himself said that John the Baptist was unequaled among all the prophets who came before him. He knew the One whom he served. He leaped with joy at the Lord’s presence, even when he was still in the womb. He was privileged to point to Jesus and declare, “Behold the Lamb of God!” He knew why Jesus had come. Because of this, he could invest his entire existence into preparing for Christ’s coming. Wouldn’t that be nice to throw all the distractions away and put everything into the hands of the Lord? Think of the mundane trivialities that John just shoved aside- what with the Camel’s hair clothes, a leather belt, locusts and wild honey to eat. He had more important things to take up his time and attention.

You have been distracted, you have let the responsibilities of your vocation, as important as they are, get in the way of speaking God’s Word to your neighbor. You have too often been consumed with frivolous and passing things—but you are not without help. In John the Baptist, you have someone who, thankfully, paid close attention to the Savior whom you have sometimes treated like a best-kept secret. John is not the Savior, as his hearers mistakenly thought, because a Savior is not going to whip you into shape and set you straight. John instead was going to prepare you for the Savior, and when He comes, John would point you in His direction! He won’t believe in Jesus for you, but he will connect you with Him through Baptism and the preaching of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. He will also model for you great courage and conviction, because to John, nothing else in this life matters next to Jesus. He must increase, I must decrease. And that’s the way our Advent preparation should be.

We as a struggling, weak-hearted bunch of forgiven sinners, have much to learn from John. He will teach us that there’s more to the kingdom of heaven than meeting a bottom line, of serving the idle whims of men, meeting their so-called “felt needs”, or even to have the perfect, snappy answer to all of their questions. John wasn’t afraid to upset the religious “status quo,” to ruffle a few feathers that needed ruffling, and even make people uncomfortable if they were secure in their sins. And when some really religious people were offended at being washed in the same Jordan River water with filthy Gentiles, prostitutes and tax collectors, then John the Baptist called them what they were—a hypocritical brood of vipers. How’s that for winning friends and influencing people?

How many times have you kept silence out of fear? Was it anxiety that you might upset a delicate family balance? Does your silence testify against you, that you might have missed your chance to bring peace to a lost soul, only because you didn’t want to feel uncomfortable for a short time? I am in the same boat with you—the warning sounds very harsh in my ears, too.

Thanks be to God that we have John, to set our minds on Jesus Christ and His comforting Word of forgiveness. Because if we just heard more encouragement, more rules, more requirements, and more funny stories, we would be lost. You can’t get a sinner whipped into shape. You have to drown the sinner in Baptism. You can’t make a sinner become a good witness. You have to kill the sinner with the Law and let the Lord raise up to life a good witness by the Gospel. John was a good preacher because he knew what he was and who he wasn’t. He wasn’t the Christ, or Elijah, or the great Prophet promised through Moses in Deuteronomy. He refused all high and lofty titles that could have been bestowed upon himself. He was the voice in the wilderness. He may have been a trumpet, but God was the Trumpeter. The note that sounded from John’s mouth was the Lord’s own voice speaking through him. He prepared his baptized and forgiven followers for a Baptism into Christ, that would fill us all with the Holy Spirit. And in joyful acclamation John pointed to Jesus and proclaimed, Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.

This tune that John played wasn’t elaborate or focus-group-tested. Nothing was there to satisfy the desires of fellow Jews; indeed, his own relatives the priests and Levites couldn’t figure him out. John sounded a single note that continues to ring out loud and clear even now: “Repent. Be completely and permanently changed in your mind, and be turned from yourself to Christ.” That’s all John had to say, and he wouldn’t have cared what you or I or anyone thought about it. Given his perspective as we have it in these Biblical accounts, I’m willing to bet he wouldn’t have doubted that Covid was a bad disease, he just would have said, no matter what thing there is on this earth you fear that could kill you, eternal damnation is infinitely worse than that! He had nothing to lose when he preached, because he wasn’t holding on to anything earthly anyway. But to John, Jesus was everything. And that’s what makes him a great preacher of the Word for you. He calms your guilty heart with real forgiveness, even though he would refuse to sweep your sin under the rug. He gives you joy in Christ, yet it will involve the suffering and death of the cross—but although John did not live to see it, he knew that the precious blood of God’s true Lamb would take away his sin and yours.

Without a mission-minded guilt trip being laid on your heart, and instead with a forgiven, renewed heart freely granted you by the Holy Spirit through your Baptism, your mouths, like John’s will likewise open up with joy on the day when you are freed from anxiety over what other people will think, when you cease to look at yourself, and put your trust instead fully in Jesus. Like John reminds us, you and I are nothing, while Jesus is everything. The One whose sandals John wasn’t worthy to bend down and untie, is the very same One who willingly bent down from His lofty throne in heaven to wash away your sin and lift the burden of your guilt off of your shoulders, including the guilt of your sin of silence. It is gone, and the sinner you are is dead in Baptism. You often ponder the blessings you have been given in Christ, but think also about what Jesus took away from you. Even in a year like 2020 has been, you have nothing to lose that you haven’t already lost in Him. The best vaccine in the world can’t do what Jesus has done already! The worst that could possibly happen to you has already happened to your Savior, who stood in for you. And if others reject what you have to say to them about Christ, then they have really rejected Him, anyway.

Your Christian witness to others doesn’t have to be a burden. It doesn’t have to be a slick advertising program. It is your new life of joy in which you bask in the sunlight of the forgiveness of your sins, and the confidence of life everlasting. The Holy Spirit has moved you to think of and pray for others who are still captive in their sins, still walking about in the darkness, who are yet to see the great light. His Word in your mouth in your daily life and calling will proclaim release for every prisoner of death. You have healing and wholeness in abundance for the brokenhearted—and the holidays are a perfect time to start handing that spiritual wealth out. As John pointed the crowds to Christ the Lamb of God, so you have been anointed in baptism to declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. Yes, it will involve moving you and them out of a certain comfort zone of leaving well-enough alone, but that’s all part of making sure that true Christmas joy does not become the Church’s best-kept secret.

In the Name of the Father and of the ✝ Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Readings:
Deut. 18:15–19 a Prophet like me from your midst … Him you shall hear
Psalm 111 The works of the LORD are great, studied by all who have pleasure in them
Phil. 4:4–7 Let your gentleness be known to all men
John 1:19–28 this is the testimony of John
or
Luke 1:39–56 Blessed are you among women

Notes

The Lord be with you!
On this Third Sunday in Advent, the theme of waiting gives way to rejoicing. The pink candle is now lit on our Advent wreaths and the mood of repentance and solemn expectation is lightened with a joyful, uplifting theme that exults in what God, our Savior has in store for us. God’s visitation, that is, His gracious entering into our lives, is the only way to lighten the darkness of our hearts.

Let us pray:
Lord Jesus Christ, we implore You to hear our prayers and to lighten the darkness of our hearts by Your gracious visitation; for You live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
Amen.

Isaiah 40:1–8
Last week we heard the prophecy of the arrival of John the Baptist as it was given to Malachi. That was originally uttered four hundred years ahead of its fulfillment. Isaiah also spoke of John as the “voice that cries out in the wilderness” and that was over 700 years before John’s arrival! For all his rough appearance and strange social distance practices, John has not only been given a message of rebuke and repentance, but also he proclaims a Word of God’s comfort for His people. With tenderness in his voice, John’s happy privilege is to announce that double blessing is ours following the full pardon of our sins. The glory of the Lord that all mankind shall see together will bring with Him His Kingdom to which we belong forever.

1 Corinthians 4:1–5
Wouldn’t you like it if evil people who commit their injustices in secret under cover of darkness would finally be exposed and held accountable for their crooked deeds? Paul promises that day will come! The Lord Himself, when He comes in glory to judge the living and the dead, will reveal all the secret purposes of every heart. What is our respite? For we too will be discovered as the sinners that we truly are—but we have received God’s hidden gifts, mysteries, that is, His forgiveness, life and salvation, from those stewards that He has called to hand out those mysteries. You will be commended instead of judged, because thanks to the ministry you have received from Jesus and His servant the pastor, you are forever reconciled to God.

Matthew 11:2–10
John the Baptist ended his life and ministry in prison. He may have been already aware of his inevitable end, but he was more interested in Jesus. He wanted to know if he had successfully prepared for the promised Messiah. Are you the one who is to come? Or are we to wait for another? He rejoiced, even in the dreariness of prison, that Jesus was doing the miraculous things about which he was hearing reports from his former disciples. John himself needed to hear from Jesus that His miracles and teaching do give testimony to the fact that He is the Christ. It’s not always going to be a majestic experience to believe and cling to Jesus as a Christian, but there’s simply nothing better than to have your faith. It will never be disappointed!

Here’s hymn 357, stanza 6:

  &sbsp; O come, Thou Dayspring from on high,

  &sbsp; And cheer us by Thy drawing nigh;

  &sbsp; Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,

  &sbsp; And death’s dark shadows put to flight.

  &sbsp; Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel Shall come to thee, O Israel!

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Pr. Stirdivant

Sermon for the Third Sunday in Advent: December 13, 2020 jj
Rev’d Mark B. Stirdivant, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Yucaipa, California
✝ sdg ✝

O People of God, fellow-citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem! You need an Advent preacher! In this wilderness of rampant disease and destruction, the morass of there’s no real truth anymore, just people’s personal opinions, you must listen for a clear, pure voice speaking out. You need a preacher who is not afraid to tell you how it really is, no matter how much it might hurt. And considering that we’re all born in sin and every day we battle the desire to serve the self, most often the truth is going to be painful to hear. But someone who stands as a spokesman for God, then decides to change what he says based on some opinion poll, such a preacher is doing you no favors.

What you need is an Advent preacher, a “voice crying out in the wilderness.” You need to listen for the pure words of Law and Gospel for the forgiveness of your sins. The church cannot afford to have a reed that is shaken by the wind, or a man dressed in the soft clothing of worldliness. Instead, you are much better served by a man called by God who preaches the same, unchanging Word, whether he fits your ideal “mold” or not. You must hear from this preacher’s voice the clarion call to “Repent! For the ax is laid at the root of the tree. You haven’t got all the time in the world.” So the preacher you really need this Advent is John the Baptist.

Through this bold man of God, the Lord fed His people with His wholesome Word, even though his own body was sustained by a meager diet of locusts and honey. John’s preaching was really the voice of God Himself, and God’s people of all times and places hear His voice and follow Him, even into the forbidding wilderness. Which is one reason why John is the designated preacher for the season of Advent. His message is the perfect preparation for the coming of Christ in the flesh, whether as the baby of Bethlehem, the mighty Judge at the end of time, or in hidden form under bread and wine at the altar. All sorts of people came to listen to John in his lifetime, and he didn’t care what public opinion was of him. He stayed focused on the Word of God that he was called to preach, and on His Lord Jesus Christ in whom he delighted.

This faithful shepherd in the wilderness preaches “a baptism of repentance,” meaning that he didn’t give a mere religious pep-talk. This preaching does something. It leads people to turn away from their sins and receive God’s forgiveness that is freely given in the waters of Holy Baptism. All who listen to this preaching are pointed to the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. In this way, John preaches to you, too. Repent, be ready to receive Jesus. This is why the season of Advent prepares you for Christmas. The world around you is nothing but wilderness, and your own sinful nature within you is a spiritual wasteland, full of unbelief and despair. The word of God coming from the mouth of John is the food and drink that you need to live. Repent, confess your sins and receive Jesus who comes to you today, and who will come again at the Last Day.

“Comfort, comfort,” God says through His preacher to you, His people. Be comforted, you who mourn. Be comforted, you who are anxious and in need of our Lord’s loving hand. For you cannot deceive yourself into thinking that things will get better all on their own. You cannot imagine that you can pull yourself up, dust yourself off and start all over again. You are attacked daily by the devil’s sharp arrows accusing you of your sins and trying to convince you that God does not care. By yourself you could not withstand such a barrage. But be comforted, God does care for you, and not because you now finally do what God wants you to do, but because He has reached out in mercy to you, poor miserable sinner that you are.

God will comfort you, this you can know for certain. However, be aware that you will not feel comfortable. Remember, it is the Lord’s comfort, not the comfort you expect from this world. You can work and struggle to achieve a comfortable way of life for you and your family. You could plan ahead on everything so that you could get through this year’s stressful and radically different holiday season or you could look for comfort in all sorts of things that you think will make your life and celebrations more fulfilling, but in the end it’s all an illusion. You won’t reach lasting comfort in these things—only God out of His undeserved mercy and love—only He gives you true comfort in His Word.

But consider the comfort that He proclaims to you—it sounds strange falling on human ears. In Isaiah 40, this sermon from the perfect Advent preacher talks about iniquity, the guilt that is left over from sin. It is the sense of God’s judgement hanging over you because He is righteous and holy and you are sinful and unclean. Talking about your sin surely doesn’t give you any comfort. Who wants to be reminded of the wrongs they have done in the past? God’s call to repentance sounds harsh, too. Turn away from your sins, you haven’t lived with the constant attitude that God is first in your life. Too often, other things have taken His place, but your complete trust needs to be in Him alone. At first hearing, the comfort of God doesn’t sound comforting at all.

However, by talking of sin and iniquity and the need to repent, God is constructing a straight, level road in the rocky, forbidding wilderness where you are. The reason why you need to hear and admit that you are by nature sinful and unclean is so that you would be truly comforted with these words: Your sins are forgiven. Your iniquity is pardoned. You are the spiritual inhabitants of the New Jerusalem, our Lord’s heavenly kingdom of peace and you have received from the Lord’s hand double for all your sins. But double what? Double the punishment? No, certainly not. The punishment is already gone—that has been laid upon Jesus and paid in full for you on the cross. Instead, it is double the grace: first, that your sins are taken away and the slate is clean, and second, that Christ joins Himself to you and in God’s sight you are just as holy and righteous as He is. That is what it’s all about: receiving from the Lord’s hand double blessing in exchange for all of your sins.

And so you have found food in the comforting words of God’s forgiveness given to you through Jesus Christ. The Lord is your shepherd; He is feeding you in the wilderness through John the Baptist, just as He fed His people of old. The same baptism of repentance that John preached, the baptism that forgives your sins, this gift of the Holy Spirit is what you can claim for your very own inheritance. This baptism is none other than the Lord’s comfort to them and to you that sins are forgiven and God’s people are rescued from the devil’s wilderness, saved from the deadly snare of unbelief.

Your Lord Jesus gives you real food and drink every time you kneel at this altar and eat His Body and drink His true blood. This is not spiritual “comfort food” or merely a fine reminder that everything will be all right; we’ll somehow get through this. This food brings true comfort, the comfort that comes from sins that are forgiven and a heart that is turned so that you love and trust in God above all things. This is the food that sustains you in the wilderness of life, and prepares you for the coming of your savior. Though you may find yourself at times in a spiritually barren wasteland, attacked by the constant temptations of the devil and plagued with worry and despair, you will not starve, you will not be harmed. The Lord is your shepherd and you shall not want—you shall lack no good thing. You are His sheep, and you are precious to Him because He has washed you in the saving waters of Baptism and made you His own. God is constantly concerned over the health and safety of your soul and body. He will not let go of you. And He will guide you with His Word and promises in the paths of righteousness, through the wilderness of this life, that you may dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

So you see, you are blessed to have John the Baptist as your preacher this Advent. For in him you have a humble servant of God who loves you enough to proclaim to you the truth, even when it hurts. Confess your sins, renounce the devil and all his works and all his ways, for there can be no Christmas joy without Advent repentance. But soon the highway through the wilderness of this sin-stricken world will be complete. And when the glory of the Lord is revealed, and all flesh finally sees it together, you will then fully know the riches of God’s heavenly grace that are your hidden possession right now.

In the Name of the Father and of the ✝ Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Readings:
Is. 40:1–11 Comfort, yes, comfort My people! …
Psalm 85 Surely His salvation is near to those who fear Him.
1 Cor. 4:1–5 judge nothing before the time, until the Lord comes
Matt. 11:2–11 Are you the Coming One, or do we look for another?

Notes

Notes

The Lord be with you!
Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God shines forth. Our God comes; he does not keep silence! This is the Second Sunday in Advent. Christ is coming soon, but first we must wait. And yet waiting is not an idle task, because with the building expectation of our Lord’s return, there is also an obligation for us to make ready. Since we cannot fulfill that obligation due to our lethargic sinful nature, we rely on God’s gracious work that stirs up our hearts, and gives us the patient endurance and encouragement that we need while we wait.

Let us pray:
Stir up our hearts, O Lord, to make ready the way of Your only-begotten Son, that by His coming we may be enabled to serve You with pure minds; through the same Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
Amen.

Malachi 4:1–6
The Prophet Malachi was the last prophet’s voice to be heard in the Old Testament before the long wait leading to the New. There would be four hundred years of waiting as God set the stage for the perfect moment for Jesus to be born. Advent means waiting, as we have been reminded, and yet as we wait, we prepare. We are so diligent about our preparations for Christmas, simply because without our efforts to get ready, our celebrations will not just happen on their own. It’s different with our preparations for Jesus to come again on the Last Day. Malachi has for us three ways to prepare: set aside our self-centered arrogance, remember God’s teaching, and listen to the message of John the Baptist, who came in the power of Elijah in fulfillment of Malachi’s and the Old Testament’s final prophecy.

Romans 15:4–13
What do we need from the Lord while we wait? From God we receive endurance and encouragement, and that is a timely topic for us, not just in Advent or in the crazy year 2020, but as Christians who eagerly await our Savior’s return. He gave us this endurance and encouragement through the teaching of the Scriptures, both Old and New Testaments, which Paul describes here as a key purpose of the Bible, a major reason why it is important to read God’s Word every day. All that the Holy Spirit caused men to write in His Holy Book was written for our use, to receive endurance and encouragement as we await the return of Jesus. Not only to teach us how to do what is right and pleasing to God, but even more to turn our heart to Jesus our Savior, who through His mercy has brought us, Jews and Gentiles alike, into His everlasting kingdom.

Luke 21:25–36
The signs of the end look bleak, think about distress, foreboding, fainting with fear, perplexity and the roaring of the waves of the sea! Yet just as we can tell the signs of the changing seasons, even in a temperate place like Southern California, we can also tell the signs of the end, and that they do not mean for us a bad end. In fact, Jesus says we can finally straighten our bent backs and look upwards with joyful anticipation when everyone else is caught up in the spiritual pandemic of self-centered fears, dissipation, and the cares of this life. The fearful signs, He teaches, are clues to us and all the baptized that our redemption draws near. We don’t have to worry about how we’ll get through the tough parts of these signs, we simply pray and we will receive Divine encouragement and endurance that will carry us through before the glorious day when we appear before the throne of the Son of Man.

Here’s hymn 345, stanza 4:
    So, when next He comes in glory
    And the world is wrapped in fear,
    He will shield us with His mercy
    And with words of love draw near.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Pr. Stirdivant

Sermon for the Second Sunday in Advent: December 6, 2020 jj
Rev’d Mark B. Stirdivant, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Yucaipa, California
✝ sdg ✝

It’s been a long wait. No, I’m not talking about entering month number nine of a two-week shutdown, I’m talking about Advent. It’s a long wait for Christmas. It’s a long wait for the glorious return of our Lord and King Jesus Christ. When a wait becomes a long wait, naturally the question arises, What should we do while we wait? Yes, we have a Christmas-Corona baby boom nearly underway—that’s one answer. How about our voters’ meeting today– What should we do as a church as we consider what is ahead of us next year and past that? How do we prepare for conditions in a landscape that seems to be unpredictable from now on? We know that we need to do something, but where are the directions we need to follow?

There was a time of waiting during Bible times that we often overlook. It was a long wait. It’s only a flip of a page from the book of Malachi to the Gospel of Matthew, but the time-span is a leap of four hundred years! Four centuries zip by from this morning’s cliffhanger reading in the last chapter of Malachi to the dream of Joseph that identifies a developing fetus in Mary’s womb with the title God With Us. Between those two Biblical events, there was a whole lot that happened—much more than dozens of generations merely sitting on their hands.

God Himself had His hand in the developments of that time between the Old and New Testaments. He orchestrated a massive exile, a forced exodus away from the Promised Land, using the bloodthirsty Assyrians crashing like a wave on the beach, followed by a bigger wave, the Babylonian Empire. The Almighty Creator then used an even bigger conqueror, the Persians, to allow a few to return and rebuild Jerusalem’s temple. This four-hundred-year period actually is known to history scholars as the Second Temple period.

It was a time that God intended and used as a restart, a renewal and restatement of the original promises He originally made to Abraham, but it was still going to look different. The first temple, the one Solomon dedicated and Nebuchadnezzar burned to the ground, was far and away more spectacular than the smaller, humble structure that was erected in its place. Alexander the Great soon swept in and claimed all of the Mediterranean region as well as Persia for the Greeks. Then the Romans took over what they called Palestine, with their roads and governors and crucifixions signifying their absolute dominance. Then the Roman Republic became an Empire, which brings us to Caesar Augustus sending out an executive order to count everybody under his ruling thumb, forcing the entire known world’s population to report to their ancestral hometowns, ready to pay whatever taxes he could dream up.

This was a long time to wait, but there was lots that God got done while the world waited for Jesus to arrive at the first Christmas. By the time the New Testament era began, there were remarkable developments, like the first translation of the Bible into the widest-known language at the time. Or the habit of gathering into Synagogues to hear regular readings of God’s Word and to pray when you’re not visiting the actual temple, which by the way, King Herod started rebuilding into a bigger structure. We have these new groups of people of whom the Old Testament gives little to no background, people like Samaritans, Pharisees and Sadducees; thankfully there’s some help for us to find out about them in the Apocrypha, which is a collection of non-Biblical books whose stories stem from the Second Temple period.

The reason I am pointing all these historical developments out is to highlight how God was very busy at work while the time of waiting was going by. The arrival of Jesus was growing ever closer, but all the separate parts needed to be brought together into the perfect combination so that His arrival truly would bring the salvation of all mankind into world history. The moment was absolutely right when Christ our Lord was born of the virgin Mary. Good Friday was the perfect day when He died to reverse the curse that had ruined this world. Even though we don’t know when it will be, we are nevertheless certain that the moment will be absolutely right also when Jesus comes again in glory to judge both the living and the dead. Our merciful God remains busy at work; even today on a day of rest, He is busy blessing you with His forgiveness, His gifts of salvation, making His baptism promises come true for you as you continue to live in this broken and sin-filled world.

It’s been a long wait for us. And if God is busy doing all of this blessing while we wait, the question remains, what should we do while we wait? For that, we can get some helpful directions from the Old Testament’s final prophet, Malachi. Through his mouth God warns us first to abandon arrogance on one hand, thinking we have our own lives under our control, but on the other hand to stop our anxiety that imagines during difficult episodes in our lives that God has in some way abandoned us. Neither of those are true. We do not stop being a church if our money runs out. Nor are we a better church if we have overflowing resources. We have God’s precious treasure of His Word, the Word that provides us endurance and encouragement. I don’t have to remind you especially this year that endurance and encouragement are essential to have, not only for getting through pandemics, times of fear, distress or dissipation, but we need God’s strong, saving name to be busy at work forgiving and strengthening us until the day Jesus returns.

Secondly, Malachi said to those who waited in his day and to us today, keep diligent in the Lord’s instructions. Read and reflect on the Bible that you read, bearing in mind that the Commandments He wants you to do, He has also done them perfectly for your good, so that now you use what He has commanded to help your neighbor, your family, your church.

Finally, in these very last verses of the Old Testament that look forward to the dawning of the New, we should listen to the message of John the Baptist. He was the one Malachi prophesied would come in the power of Elijah. John gave us the call to repent, stop sitting on our hands, and just like Elijah told those who heard him to abandon their false gods and idols, we must hear today that we need not fall prey to the spiritual pandemic of worldliness, greed and hatred of our neighbor because of one sort of temporary privilege or another. We know better than that, we repent of that temptation, and we take comfort in the forgiveness of sins and the promise of a perfect life everlasting.

Who knows? Maybe just like the long four-hundred-year Second Temple period was a time that God used to restart and renew His Old Testament church, perhaps God is using this time of trial and struggle in our lives and in our congregation as a way to restart and renew us right where we are. When we value what really matters in life, when fathers turn their hearts to their children and children to their fathers, then we realize that God has been very busy giving us all these blessings while we wait. Yes, it’s been a long wait. Yes, we’ve been given something to do as Christians and as a church in this very place, and we’re not left all to ourselves to decide what to do. Most of all, we have been given Divine endurance and encouragement, because God has not planned for us to falter or give up. He has given us Jesus, and everything else with Him that truly lasts. Trust Him, what we’re waiting for, that’s truly going to be worth the wait!

In the Name of the Father and of the ✝ Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Readings:
Mal. 4:1–6 the Sun of Righteousness shall arise
Psalm 50:1–15 Every beast of the forest is mine
Rom. 15:4–13 written for our learning, that we … might have hope.
Luke 21:25–36 lift up your heads, because your redemption draws near

Notes

The Lord be with you!
To you, O LORD, I lift up my soul. O my God, in you I trust; let me not be put to shame. This is the first Sunday in our new Church year, the first Sunday in Advent. Our lectionary, or readings schedule, sometimes includes special names for certain Sundays. These names often come from the Introit’s opening words. There are parts of the liturgy that remain the same from week to week: Lord, Have Mercy; the Creed; Holy, Holy, Holy are consistent. The Introit and Scripture readings, of course, change each Sunday and give us a theme of the day for us as we hear the sermon to focus on the gifts of our Lord for us. This Sunday’s name is Ad Te Levavi, or To You I lift up, which is the Introit, the opening words unique to this day. As we enter into His presence, we lift up our souls in prayer to Jesus Christ our King who has desired to come in lowliness while at the same time He stirs up His almighty power.

Let us pray:
Stir up Your power, O Lord, and come, that by Your protection we may be rescued from the threatening perils of our sins and saved by Your mighty deliverance; for You live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

Jeremiah 23:5–8
Jesus was prophesied as the righteous Branch from the kingly tree of David, the true wise ruler greater than Solomon. These several names tell us that He alone can preserve and protect His kingdom, the holy Christian Church. His name is important to remember, because in the Bible, the name is more than a reputation or a label. Jesus’ name is more than any human name. Since He is God in human flesh, Jesus has other Biblical names by which He is called, as here Jeremiah says He shall be called “The Lord is our righteousness.” God’s name is the means by which He works, by which He saves us. Jesus saves us by becoming for us the righteousness by which we are forgiven and accepted into our Lord’s everlasting kingdom.

Romans 13:8–14
Pay your debts. When you promise to pay someone, pay them, and they will respect you. The world may attempt to function on principles like these, but it will all crumble to dust one day. The Christian has a different outlook from the world,
even though Christians still live in the world and fulfill their obligations in what Martin Luther taught as the kingdom of the left hand. Since we also belong to God’s kingdom of the right hand, that is, His spiritual rule of grace and forgiveness that blesses us in the Church, we have a new debt that should be honored far above the ordinary worldly debts we may incur. We are commanded to owe nothing to one another than to love our neighbor, do them no wrong, work with Christ’s love for them now filling our hearts with that same love and serving their needs above our own. And the reason we have that new outlook is clear: our salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. Jesus’ coming is ever closer to us each day, thanks be to God!

Matthew 21:1–9
Hosanna! Hoshia-na! Either way you say it, we’re calling out to our parading King Jesus for salvation. Typically we think of the Hosanna of Palm Sunday as our pleading to Jesus to save us right now, as He has promised to do for us. Most pointedly do we sing Hosanna every week in the Sanctus, the Holy Holy Holy sung in the liturgy just before the Sacrament of the Altar is handed out. But think of this also, we know that Jesus would dismount that lowly donkey and within a few days’ time, would ascend the cross. That would be His painful, tortuous throne and His crown would be made of thorns as He received the punishment for sins in our place. Then, with that in mind, we could also pray, Hosanna! Save Jesus, Lord! Vindicate Him for the innocent death that He would die for me! And so Jesus would be raised on the third day, on Easter. He was saved because of His perfect sacrifice, which means He has now given that salvation, that righteous vindication, to us.

Here’s hymn 332, stanza 2:
    Your Zion strews before You Green boughs and fairest palms;
    And I too will adore You With joyous songs and psalms.
    My heart shall bloom forever For You with praises new
    And from Your name shall never Withhold the honor due.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Pr. Stirdivant

Sermon for the First Sunday in Advent: November 29, 2020 jj
Rev’d Mark B. Stirdivant, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Yucaipa, California
✝ sdg ✝

“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord!” Picture ourselves there with the crowd welcoming Jesus on that first Palm Sunday in Jerusalem. Let us make our way in a pilgrimage of faith to Zion, one of the Bible’s many names for the Church who firmly believes and trusts in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Advent has begun and you and I both know that with Thanksgiving now behind us, Christmas is in the air and this Christmas this year can’t seem to come soon enough! But first, while we still have an opportunity to give it our attention, we need to remind ourselves of this important fact: “Salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed.”

Believe it, O Daughter of Zion! Awake from your sleep, O children of God! This is big news for you! What does it mean that salvation is nearer to you now? It’s not to say that you have to work to make yourself closer to being saved. It’s not that Jesus deceived you into thinking that you were saved, because His perfect and unbreakable promise remains: Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved. No, salvation is nearer to you now, means that the time is getting ever closer and closer to the Day when you will see the salvation that you already have. Faith will be replaced by sight. Trusting only in His Word will soon make room for you to experience that Word of God in utter fullness. Advent is just as much a reminder of Christ’s glorious return as it is a preparation for the celebration of His birth in long-ago Bethlehem.

This is why Advent begins with Palm Sunday. I’ll admit, it doesn’t sound like a very Christmas-y story, but I count as many as eight hymns in our hymnal’s Advent section that refer in some way to Palm Sunday. On the first Palm Sunday in the city of Jerusalem, the crowds gathered to greet the arriving Messiah. The golden setting sun was shining on the face of Jesus as He was riding on that donkey that had never been ridden before, meandering down into the shady valley as He got closer to the base of the high city wall. Then, as the road turns back up the steep hill toward the city gate the cheering crowd lined both sides of the dusty street, threw off their expensive outer garments, leaving on their plain- looking robes that they were wearing underneath. The people held palm branches in their hands, symbols of victory a little bit like the wreath of olive branches that the Greeks used to place with honor on the heads of Olympians and valiant soldiers.

The words of praise from their lips bounced off that imposing Jerusalem city wall: “Hosanna! Blessed be the Son of David! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest! Hosanna, blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.” The Prince of Peace entered the reputed City of Peace, fully aware of the Price of Peace, that for your forgiveness and mine to be a reality, His holy Blood must be shed and handed over. The exultant crowd of pilgrims and disciples will disperse and soon another crowd will assemble to shout in a mad rage, “Crucify Him!” As unlikely as it sounds, these events are exactly the way the Lord has chosen to raise up, in the words of Isaiah, the Mountain of the House of the Lord, namely, the Church, so that it will be the highest of all the mountains. How does Jesus execute justice as King of the Jews and thus acquire the name of “The Lord is our Righteousness,” foretold by Jeremiah? He must be lifted high on the cross. As our brand-new church year will unfold for us yet again, we will relive all those moments that make for our own story of Hosanna, of salvation.

But the Palm Sunday that you and I participate in today is not merely a reliving of a past event. It is so much more. “Come let us go up to the mountain of the Lord!” Our spiritual pilgrimage to Zion that we are walking in our hearts this morning is not meant for us to see Jesus die yet again, because that was done once and for all. Instead, we are called together today to receive the gifts earned for us in Christ’s death and resurrection, most especially the forgiveness of sins.

The night of your blindness to the wrongs you have done and the “rights” you have left undone—that night is far gone; the day is at hand. Your lack of love for your neighbor, your quarreling and jealousy, whether spoken or left in the darkness of your thoughts, must now be abandoned! Those who were there that first Palm Sunday took off their fancy overcoats. You instead on this First Sunday in Advent, take off all from this world that covers you, all that you use to make yourself impressive in the eyes of this world, and leave what remains underneath, a simple garment of repentance, a spiritual garment that Jesus has washed white with the forgiveness you received in your baptism.

Let the light of a new day, a fresh start, shine on your face with the blessing that comes with God’s face, His countenance that shines with favor upon you and gives you peace. Though there will be days when you must pass through a time of shadow, the road will be steep, and the walls will be imposing that seem to keep you outside of the borders of God’s love, you will keep the simple prayer “Hosanna” on your lips, for your King will truly save you when you call on Him. You will one Day hold the palm branch of victory, as John’s vision recorded in Revelation 7 shows—see, that’s you, you’re there somewhere in that massive crowd that he saw! That’s the Palm Sunday to end all Palm Sundays!

For now, as St. Paul instructs us, walk properly as in the daytime through this new church year and for the rest of the pilgrimage of your life in Christ. Put on the Lord Jesus Christ, feed your soul with pure spiritual food of all those fruits of love that are pleasing to God, and withdraw all provisions, starve out the sinful flesh that pesters you for self-gratification. You’ll find that it would be better to owe no one anything, other than to love them sincerely, since focusing just on earthly obligations will only distract you from what is truly most important in this spiritual pilgrimage that you are walking in faith this day until the final Day when you see Jesus with your own, resurrected eyes.

Prepare our hearts for Christmas? Yes, we will do that this Advent. Marvel in the prophets’ words over centuries coming true in the womb of the Virgin Mary? Most certainly we shall. But for now, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord!” Salvation is nearer now than when we first believed, so today let us take hold of that Salvation. Eat and drink that Body and Blood that has already paid the Price of your Peace. Rejoice and praise your true King who comes in the name of the Lord, for blessed is He, indeed!

Let us pray our Hosanna to the Son of David once again: Stir up your power, O Lord, and come to rescue us from the threatening perils of our sins, and save us by Your promised deliverance; for You now live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

In the Name of the Father and of the ✝ Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Readings:
Jer. 23:5–8 The LORD our righteousness
Psalm 24 Who may ascend into the hill of the LORD?
Rom. 13:8–14 Owe no one anything except to love one another
Matt. 21:1–9 you will find a donkey tied

Notes

The Lord be with you!
We are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness.
This is the last Sunday in our current Church Year; next Sunday will begin a new Church Year with the season of Advent, the four Sundays leading up to Christmas. The Church’s Biblical teaching about the end of the world would certainly not be complete without a strong emphasis on the entire goal of our salvation, and that is, in the words of the Creed, the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.

Let us pray:
Eternal God, merciful Father, You have appointed Your Son as judge of the living and the dead. Enable us to wait for the day of His return with our eyes fixed on the kingdom prepared for Your own from the foundation of the world; through Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
Amen.

Ezekiel 34:11–24
The prophet Ezekiel was inspired by the Holy Spirit to describe not just the first, humble coming of Jesus Christ, but also His final, fully-glorious coming as well. As the meek and lowly Savior, Jesus came as God Himself who would shepherd His sheep, those believers who would hear His voice and receive His saving forgiveness of sins for life everlasting. As the mighty Judge who is to come at the end of the world, Jesus will distinguish between believing sheep and unbelieving, hypocrite sheep. Ezekiel presents both these offices and their actions as the righteous activity of God Himself, who is both Savior and Judge. Christ the Shepherd has saved you and the same Christ the Judge will welcome you into His fold for eternity.

1 Corinthians 15:20–28
For more details on the two concluding phrases in the Creed, the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting, there’s no one better place to go in the Bible than this chapter in First Corinthians. When the dead are raised, they follow the lead of Jesus Christ, who Paul was inspired to name as the Firstfruits, guaranteeing that we are to be raised after Him. Adam’s curse brought everlasting death, Jesus’ blessing brought everlasting life. Then, there’s a striking bonus transaction that we are told will happen in the heavenly courtroom of Judgment Day. The risen and glorious Jesus will hand over to the Father the kingdom that He purchased with blood, and in turn the Father will place the Son over all things in subjection to Him. This, like the doctrine of the Trinity itself, is a vast mystery, but the reason for this to be believed is this: “that God may be all in all.” Salvation most emphatically affirms who God is, and can never be set in opposition to what He has revealed to us even now, before the End comes. We always need this comfort, that God has never changed and never will change. No blessing that we have by faith will ever be at risk.

Matthew 25:31–46
Our works appear before God, even when we the believers, signified in this Gospel reading by the sheep, don’t even realize that we have done the good works. That should tell us that our efforts to measure and evaluate our good works will fail. Instead, we should acknowledge that it is Jesus Christ Himself who does the good that we do, since His good is counted in our favor, and cling in faith to Him who saved us by grace. He will take care of the rest.

Here’s hymn 509, stanza 2:
    See the holy city! / There they enter in,
    All by Christ made holy, / Washed from ev’ry sin:
    Thirsty ones, desiring / All He loves to give,
    Come for living water, / Freely drink, and live!

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Pr. Stirdivant

Sermon for the Last Sunday in the Church Year: November 22, 2020 jj
Rev’d Mark B. Stirdivant, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Yucaipa, California
✝ sdg ✝

“The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want. …” By the time of the prophet Ezekiel, those words of King David had already been on the lips of the people of God for at least four hundred years. They would have most likely sung those familiar verses many times in the liturgy of both the temple and the synagogue. The metaphor of shepherd and sheep was certainly not new or foreign to the people of Israel. Even in their faraway land of Babylonian exile many could still recall their former lives of following the flocks and raising the animals that they relied upon for food and religious sacrifice. Today, on the other hand, and especially with our fast-paced, technological lives, you can run into someone who has no idea how a shepherd might lead his sheep to pasture, protect them from danger, or search them out when they run astray. But with a little help, and some of the most familiar words that are found in Scripture—namely, the Twenty-third Psalm—the image can quite easily become greatly comforting—and prophetic of the future at the same time.

However, before Ezekiel can posit the comforting shepherd image for their good, he needs to correct first what had been going wrong among the people of God, the people whom He called the sheep of His pasture. What was going wrong? The Lord had him start with the shepherds, the leaders whom He had placed among them to teach them God’s Word and lead them in the path of His Commandments. They had been given a pastoral task, that is, reveal to them the will of the one, true Shepherd, and keep them diligent in faith as they awaited His prophesied coming in the fullness of time. But instead of preparing the people for Jesus’ arrival, they were taking advantage of these so-called “sheep” for their own benefit. Instead of teaching and preaching God’s Word, they exploited their positions of authority. Rather than humbly leading the people to trust in the promises of the coming Christ, they turned them aside to the favorite gods and idols of their day.

This is not to exempt the sheep from their own guilt, however. The people themselves should have known better, since they have heard God’s Word for themselves. Parents were commanded then, as they are even now, to teach the Commandments, impress them like a seal on their children, to ensure that they would not turn from them to the right nor to the left. But what did these sheep do? They trampled through the pure drinking water with their feet, making it muddy and impossible to drink without getting sick.

What does that mean? It means mixing in falsehoods with the pure truth that gives life straight from God. They made the promise of free forgiveness that is sweet to the believer’s taste, and turned it into a bitter swill of required works that Christians are told to do for themselves, and that leaves a horrible residue of doubt on the conscience. Instead of showing love toward one another and caring for each other’s needs, these sheep preferred to bite and devour at their fellow members of the flock, pushing them away with a selfish shoulder thrust, misusing the horns of their God-given authority and talents that were originally intended to serve and protect instead. Both pastors and people, shepherds and sheep disobeyed the Lord, and they faced a severe judgment, to be rendered from the mouth of the Chief Shepherd Himself at His appearing.

This is the judgment that God’s Law hangs over your head, too. You have resisted the gentle lead of Jesus as you live your day-to-day life. Even if it was only an impure thought in your mind or a little word from your mouth, it still poisons the well for those around you. If you refuse to forgive and assume the worst will always come from your neighbor, then you have become no better yourself. You didn’t have to murder somebody or worship another god—you still stand before the throne guilty in sin. Your heavenly Father means for you to hear about the coming Judgment Day, the magnificent appearance of Christ our King and our Judge, not merely to “scare you into submission,” but to reveal to you how serious He really is about your sin. You must repent, and turn back to the meek voice of Jesus, while He is still available to you as your merciful Savior who sacrificed Himself for you. It’s not that He’s going to change, but the free standing Gospel offer of salvation and the accompanying renewal of forgiveness will one day come to an end. You and I are seldom aware of the great damage that sin causes in our lives, our church, and our families. And when we try our human, imperfect solutions and excuses, our pitiful coping and compensating mechanisms, we make our own lives even worse than they were before.

Look up with great encouragement, however, at Christ your King! Behold the Shepherd who sacrificed Himself on the cross for the sake of you, His sheep. “Behold, I, I myself, will search for my sheep and seek them out.” Before you could even realize for yourself that you were lost, your Lord came to rescue you. “I will bring back the strayed, bind up the injured, strengthen the weak.”

This is quite the dramatic twist, even for Ezekiel, and he was inspired to reveal something more, something beyond all the doom and judgment. “I, (emphasize I) myself, will feed My sheep.” Really? God is going to come and do those shepherd jobs that His appointed representatives refused to do? Yes—He will bring to perfect fulfillment Psalm 23’s little “prophecy:” when God Himself comes into human flesh among us to be our Good Shepherd. This arrival of the Messiah, whom the Lord names here, “My servant David,” will inaugurate a new covenant of peace and a new, secure existence for the human sheep who by faith know the Voice of Jesus and follow Him.

When the time comes for judgment, the Lord reveals to us how that will look. He will take His flock and make distinctions between fat and lean sheep, between those of His people who truly believe, and those who inhibit the faith of the rest. They trample the grass and muddy the drinking water with their feet, but the true shepherds, that is, worthy servants of the Lord, the preachers who have “beautiful feet,” will preach the Gospel of peace.

Yes, judgment will happen, and the fat sheep who are bloated on their own self-righteousness, those who assert their own rules for morality and reject what Jesus says will bring peace on earth, goodwill to men, those imposters will be destroyed. You, however, have no fear for the appearance of Christ the King on Judgment Day—not because you have managed to escape your just judgment, but rather because the Lord, your Shepherd has restored your soul, and led you on the paths of His righteousness.

“For His name’s sake” in the Psalm means that you have received a perfect standing before the throne of God simply and solely because Jesus died and rose to achieve that gift for you. The promised servant David, whom Ezekiel preached to the exiles in Babylon 500 years ahead of time, was actually Jesus, the Son of David, born in David’s hometown Bethlehem, whom we will welcome again in grand procession next week, and one day we will shout Hosanna to our King when He trades in that lowly Palm Sunday donkey for His glorious, fiery chariot. He will usher in the kingdom that He purchased with His blood and rose to triumph in ascension when all became complete.

The entire church year has been laid out for us in a big circle. Today, at the end of the church year, we now see to where Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter and Pentecost have been leading us all along. The Lord who was always true God and in the fullness of time became true and perfect Man will return again to give that same perfection to you. The excitement and expectation that Advent brings to Christmas is part and parcel of the Christian’s eager anticipation of the glory that has been promised at the end of the world. When wise men from all nations worship the Christ Child with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, they foreshadow a gathering of believers from all nations before the throne of Christ the King. He who once was transfigured on the mountaintop in the sight of His disciples will once again appear bright as the sunlight to bring us to His eternal dwelling place. His suffering, death and resurrection that are revisited every church year at Easter are the precise evidence that acquits us of all wrongdoing before the presence of our mighty Judge. And Pentecost also comes to fulfillment at Christ’s return because the Holy Spirit’s work to spread the faith and make the Church grow will finally reach its completion on the Last Day.

Till that time, listen for your Savior’s voice, the Good Shepherd. He will feed you with His Word, forgive your sins and strengthen you in body and soul to life everlasting. Your King does not rule by forcing you to do things that show honor to Him. He prefers to serve others instead, using your loving service as His means to bring blessing to everyone around you. And when your neighbors hear the Word of your Shepherd, they too shall enjoy together with you the Kingdom of glory that will never end.

In the Name of the Father and of the ✝ Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Readings:
Ezek. 34:11–16, 20–24 My servant David. He shall feed them and be their shepherd.
Psalm 95:1–7a Let us shout joyfully to the Rock of our salvation.
I Cor. 15:20–28 The last enemy that will be destroyed is death
Matt. 25:31–46 as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats