Christmas is coming – get ready!
Series: Advent 2019 | Bible text: Isaiah 40:1–6,9–11
John the Baptist makes it clear that apart from the usual Christmas preparations, there are a few other things that are important in view of the coming Lord:
- As a forerunner of Jesus, he calls for repentance and conversion.
- He proclaims the Saviour and shows that the way to the glory of God leads through him, Christ crucified.
- As an evangelist, he does not cuddle, but speaks plainly and radically resists any form of pious hypocrisy.
Advent, this time before Christmas, is a particularly hectic time for many people. There is so much to do. Besides the daily chores, there are all kinds of things to prepare. Well, as long as we are still in «Juice of life» and have enough strength, these additional tasks are not too big a problem. Some people even really come alive during this time and believe that they can do without their elaborate Christmas preparations after all. «biblical course» to lie. In the weekly verse for the third week of Advent, we are called upon to do this: «Prepare the way of the Lord«it says. It says in black and white that in this time before Christmas we should not sit and twiddle our thumbs, but work. We are to prepare ourselves for the great feast when Jesus comes. «Prepare ye the way of the Lord: for, behold, the Lord cometh mightily.» So says the prophet in Isaiah 40:3 and 10. Yes, Advent is a time of preparation! The only question is whether the preparatory work we are dealing with these days coincides with what the prophet means. Isaiah 40:1–6,9–11, today’s Bible text, is a great passage in this prophet’s book, a passage meant to comfort God’s people shaken by suffering, by judgment and punishment. «Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.» This is how the passage begins. This is pure gospel. There are three things that are promised to the people here: 1. your bondage is over, your slavery is over. 2. your debt is forgiven. 3. you have taken enough, you have received enough punishment for what you have done wrong.
And then the prophet speaks of this voice calling to prepare the way for the Lord to come: «There is a voice calling: In the desert prepare the way for the Lord, in the steppe make a level path for our God! All valleys shall be exalted, and all mountains and hills shall be made low; and that which is uneven shall be made straight, and that which is hilly shall be made level.» (Isaiah 40:3–4) This sounds to me almost a bit like the preparation of a landing site: a runway is to be built, a landing strip on which the space glider with the high guest, with the Lord of lords, the King of kings can land safely: Away from villages and towns, away from roads and industrial plants, in the desert, in the steppe, the landing site is to be. Everything there has to be levelled, leveled, so that nothing goes wrong, so that there is no crash landing.
The living God wants to land with you with all his majesty and power. So says the prophet. Sure, he phrases it a little differently: «The glory of the Lord shall be revealed…» Thus he says «The glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh together shall see it…» (Isaiah 40:5) And in the 10th verse of this chapter it says: «Behold, there is the Lord God! He comes mightily, and his arm shall rule.» It is a great event that is announced here, a unique event for which the people of God are to be prepared. And perhaps we already suspect from these descriptions of the prophet that the Christmas preparations, as we are making them these days, probably do not quite coincide with what the prophet means. «There is a voice calling: In the wilderness prepare the way for the Lord, in the steppe make a level path for our God!» This is what Isaiah, the prophet, preaches several hundred years before Christmas happens.
And now we want to switch to the New Testament – to John the Baptist. He is considered the forerunner of Jesus. That is how he sees himself. And as a forerunner of Jesus, John identifies completely with this voice of which Isaiah speaks. «I am that voice«he tells those who come and ask for his identity. «I am a voice of a preacher in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord! as the prophet Isaiah said.» (John 1:23) John the Baptist is the one who is to pave the way for this Lord whom Isaiah announced. And how does he do that? Does he build a huge runway somewhere in the desert where the space glider with the heavenly guest can land safely? We find the answer in Luke 3:1–8a.
1. he does not build an airstrip, but preaches buses
«He came to the whole region around the Jordan».it says here «and preached the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.» (Luke 3:3) And there are other passages in the New Testament texts that confirm this. Matthew 3:1–2, for example. It says: «At that time John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judah, saying, «Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.» » No, John is not building a runway for the visitor from heaven. He preaches repentance. He calls people to repentance. Why? Quite simply, John is not simply preparing the way for the Lord into this world. He prepares the way for him into the hearts of the people. This Lord, of whom Isaiah and other prophets of the Old Testament have spoken for centuries, does not only want to come to us people. He wants to enter our hearts and make his home there.
Where this does not happen, where Jesus only comes to us, but does not find a home in our hearts, Christmas remains without effect, Christmas degenerates into a very ordinary birthday party, which may well bring a few happy hours, create an atmospheric mood, provide great encounters and allow sumptuous food, but remains without lasting effect. And that is how many people experience Christmas year after year. Afterwards, they return to their everyday lives and continue to live their lives as they always have: without this Lord whose coming they celebrated, without Jesus, without his glory, without his power, without the gift of his grace, without the knowledge of forgiveness. Christmas remains without effect because Jesus may well have come to them, but finds no place in their lives. Angelus Silesius, a German theologian and doctor is said to have once said: «And if Christ were born a thousand times in Bethlehem and not in you, you would still be lost for all eternity.» He is saying: You can celebrate Christmas ten or twenty, forty, sixty, eighty or even a hundred times and still miss the blessing of His coming. The Lord Jesus does not just want to land on this earth. He could have done that without John, the forerunner. He wants to come into your life. That is why John preaches repentance. That is why he calls for repentance. Because repentance is the way we humans open our hearts to the Lord Jesus. Have you heard this call to repentance? Have you followed it? Have you opened your heart to the Lord Jesus? Or do you still keep it closed? «Prepare the way of the Lord!» is the appeal that stands over the third week of Advent. Advent people are people who do this. They pave the way for the Lord Jesus into their own hearts and then – like John – also the way into the hearts of their fellow human beings. As a pathfinder, John does not build a runway, but preaches buses!
2. he does not speak of glory, but proclaims the Saviour
If we compare the quotation from Isaiah in Luke 3 with the original text in Isaiah 40:4–5, we find that in Luke the Isaiah passage is actually quoted «wrongly». Isaiah speaks of glory to be revealed. Luke, however, speaks of the Saviour whom all people will see. Is this a mistake? Did the evangelist copy incorrectly? No! With this change of text he only makes clear what glory of God means, as it is revealed to us humans. Now, I don’t know what you associate with the term glory of God. When we google this term, we come across images of indescribable beauty, of luminous splendour, of marvellous light, of penetrating clarity, of incomparable riches, etc. This is glory for us: light, light, light. That is glory for us: light, radiance, beauty, fullness… And we all long for this glory, don’t we? Who among us would not like to see it once, this indescribable beauty of God’s glory? Who wouldn’t like to experience it, this shining radiance that emanates from God? Well, if we scroll down in the picture gallery on Glory of God, we suddenly come across this picture: a crown of thorns that reminds us of the terrible suffering of Jesus. And now you may ask: isn’t it exactly the opposite of glory: a picture of suffering, of pain, of contempt and death. In this the glory of God was shown among us human beings, that he sent his Son as Saviour of the world, that he gave him to the cross to save us from our lostness and to win us for his eternal world. In sending his Son as Saviour of the world, God revealed his wonderful glory to us. The glory of God is not merely a term used to describe the quality of God’s greatness, power, beauty and fullness. The glory of God is a person. It is called Jesus Christ. The Evangelist John testifies in his Gospel: «The Word became flesh» – he means that God became man through his Son Jesus – «the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, a glory as of the only begotten Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.» (John 1:14) By making his Son the Saviour of the world, God has revealed his glory to us. John the Baptist does his job as a forerunner by making it clear to us humans that the path to God’s glory leads through Jesus, through Christ crucified. That is what he wants to burn into our hearts this morning: Whoever wants to see the glory of God cannot avoid Christ crucified. Or to put it the other way round: Whoever goes past Christ crucified will never see the glory of God. As a forerunner of the Lord, John does not build a runway, but preaches buses. He does not speak of glory, but proclaims the Saviour. And there is something else he does:
3. he does not cuddle, but speaks plainly
John obviously has a lot of success with his sermon on repentance. People come to him in droves and want to be baptised. Our passage in Luke 3 speaks of a crowd that went out to be baptised by him (verse 7). And the accounts in the other gospels confirm this: «Then went out unto him the city of Jerusalem, and all Judea, and all the countries of Jordan, and were baptised of him.» (Matthew 3:5; cf. Mark 1:5). People hear his message. They follow his call. They come in droves and are baptised. If our sermon had such an effect today, would we speak of revival? John should be rejoicing at this point. He should be thanking God for giving so much fruit. He should receive all these people with enthusiasm. But John’s reaction is quite different. I read it earlier in the 7th verse of Luke 3: «Then John said to the crowd that went out to be baptised by him, «You brood of vipers…» » Others translate here: «You viper-breeders…» (old Luther Bible), «you devil pack…» (Hope for all). These are the very first words we hear from the mouth of the Baptist in the Gospel of Luke. «You brood of vipers, who has made you certain that you will escape the wrath to come?» (Luke 3:7) John, are you out of your mind? This is no way to deal with people who respond to the sermon and come forward for baptism. You can only be happy about these people. Why does he do that? Well, it is a very special group of people whom he receives or rejects with these harsh words. According to Matthew’s account, it is the Pharisees and Sadducees (Matthew 3:7), the people who are so terribly proud of their piety, who are firmly convinced that there are no better people than them. They look down with the deepest contempt on the tax collectors and sinners whose lives are so far removed from what God wants. They are the people who do everything right and really do not need repentance – indeed, they do not even know what repentance is. They are the model people that everyone can take as an example. But why do they join those who want to follow the call of the Baptist and receive his baptism? Probably simply because they respect John’s ministry. They recognise him as a fully empowered messenger of God and yet they do not want to stand on the sidelines. Of course they want to be there when the kingdom comes that John proclaims. They are the very first ones who are entitled to participate in the coming kingdom of God… That is why they are willing to undergo this ritual of baptism, although they do not really need it. But John sees through these people. He recognises their lack of faith and makes it clear to them: «What I am celebrating here is much more than just a pious ritual. My baptism is an act that marks a profound inner change: The change of heart. Whoever does not carry out this change of heart, whoever does not need it, is out of place with me. No, John does not cuddle. He speaks plainly – even if he deeply upsets people with it. We don’t read anything about how these people shagged off. But they were probably pretty upset about this Baptist guy who was so cheeky with them. Yes, that too is part of the ministry of the pioneer, that he exposes falsehood, exposes hypocrisy and separates the wheat from the chaff.
Dear brothers and sisters, dear friends, some of us are busy these days with all kinds of Christmas preparations. In all the festive preparations, let us not forget that a few other things are important in view of the coming of our Lord:
- That we open our hearts and give the Lord Jesus space in our lives. Then Christmas can have a lasting effect!
– That we seek the glory of God not somewhere, not in our fancy festive decorations, but in Jesus crucified. In him and in him alone will we encounter the wonderful radiance of God’s love.
– And that we no longer tolerate pious falsehood and hypocrisy in our lives, but finally become honest – before God, before our neighbours and also before ourselves. The Lord of glory does not come to hypocrites. He moves in with sinners who know that they need him and who open their hearts to him.
From the bottom of my heart, I wish you all happy holidays that are not simply over on 26 December, but bring personal gain and rich blessings that will continue to have an effect far into the New Year.
