The First Sunday of Advent
December 1, 2013 - Pastor Adam Moline
Grace, mercy and
peace to you from God our Father through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Our text today comes from the Gospel lesson just read, especially these
words, “Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord
is coming.” Thus far our text for
today.
Dear friends in Christ. Today begins advent, and already many of us
have already begun our preparations for Christmas. Many of us have already set up our Christmas
trees, hung up our lights. We’ve
probably begun our Christmas shopping for the years, and even in many of our
homes we have set out our Nativity sets, anxiously awaiting Christmas day, when
the baby Jesus will be born, and laid in swaddling cloths in a manger.
And yet even as we
look forward to that day which is coming in a few short weeks, today’s text
mentions nothing about mangers, stars, wisemen, or even babies. Instead we hear about the terrible
destruction that happened without warning at the flood of Noah. Instead we hear about the final day, when one
will be taken to heaven, and one will be left to the fires of hell. And our text ends with these words, “Be ready,
for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.”
And these words
should be worrisome to us! Jesus is
coming! And the next time that Christ
comes, he will not be a cute little baby, but instead he will come in all the
glory and power and majesty of the eternal God.
He will come, and He will raise the dead and he will judge them justly
and eternally. Sin will be destroyed
forever. Those without the guilt of sin
will be kept safe in heaven. And those
with the guilt of sin will be left to fire, and weeping, and gnashing of teeth
forevermore in the punishment of hell.
St. Paul warns us
on what the judgment will be based in our epistle lesson. Love, he says, is the fulfillment of the law. Love for neighbor more than for self. Love for God, more than self. Love that does not steal, love that does not
covet. Love that does not hate or
murder. Love that does not lie or
gossip, love that is perfect is all things.
Those who love perfectly, absolutely perfectly, according to God’s law,
and God’s law only, will be the ones who inherit heaven. And those who fail, deserve Hell.
And the scary
Christmas and Advent truth is this. We’ve
failed. We aren’t holy. We aren’t perfect. We don’t love the way God wants. We have not kept the smallest part of God’s
law, let alone the whole thing perfectly.
So when Christ returns, we deserve punishment. When Christ comes back, it’s us that He ought
to judge. We deserve the same punishment
as those who were killed in Noah’s flood.
We deserve the same punishment as Sodom and Gomorrah.
And yet, the great
judge who will come on the last day has come before. Not in power and might and majesty, but in flawless
humbleness and unspoiled weakness, born of a human, and laid in a manger in a
stable in Bethlehem. He comes in perfect
lowliness, so low in fact, that he will be despised by the people he comes
to. He fulfills God’s law completely and
perfectly. And because of it, He will be
killed by our sinful hands. He will be
nailed to a cross, and die because of our un-holiness. Murdered because of his great love for
us.
And that’s the
catch! Jesus loves us perfectly, and in
his death declares that his perfect love becomes ours. It counts for us. In baptism, you and Jesus switched places,
and his holiness became yours, and your sinfulness became his. He became your substitute in the final
judgment. When He returns on the last
day, he no longer judges you based on your works, but only on his works which
He gave to you. You dear friends, are
Holy in Christ, and in Christ alone, and so will be taken to heaven forever
more.
Jesus is coming,
to judge both the living and the dead.
He’s coming to bring the world to its end. He’s coming, and because he has already come,
on that day you will inherit the promise of life, salvation, and paradise
forever more. That’s the message of
Christmas, and as we prepare for it, we do so in repentance and in faith,
trusting in the great mercy of our God, who fulfilled the law for us, so that
we might become heirs of everlasting life.
In the name of the Coming Jesus.
Amen.
