Luke 3:1-6
[Advent 2]
Pastor Ron Koehler
Grace—Tucson, AZ
December 5, 2021
When the Lord Comes Near, He Humbles His People Dear Friends in Christ—you who are waiting for the coming Savior, If you’ve had to wait for exciting things to happen, you know how God’s people felt as they waited for the Savior. If you’ve had that anticipation grow and grow as your wedding day drew near…or the due date was appearing closer and closer on the calendar…or as you waited for the acceptance letter to come…or the phone call about the job, then you know how God’s people felt about the Savior coming. Ok, no. You and I can’t possibly know how they felt! First of all, they didn’t know the date that the prophecies would all come true and Bethlehem would see a baby born to a virgin. They didn’t know when, but they kept watching. Also, do you think a wedding or a baby or college acceptance or a job compares with the Savior of the world coming to save sinners?! I don’t think so. You might agree that the Lord’s coming into the world, coming near to sinners, was the most significant act of God since the creation of all things—and God has done more than a few incredibly significant things! Luke tells us today about this significant moment in time. Jesus was coming near; the time had arrived for the Savior to appear on the public scene, to be seen and heard, to have his miraculous, healing hand be felt, to do the specific, saving work of dying for sinners and conquering death. Jesus was coming near. But God had planned for a very special person to come before him, one with a position description penned by the hands of prophets beginning 700 years prior to his arrival. A person designated by God for a specific task. One filled with the Holy Spirit before he was even born. A man with a singular purpose in life—to prepare people to meet the Savior. A man called John, the son of Zechariah the priest, was that person. At just the right time, God told John to go…and he began preaching. This is how the people would be prepared—they would listen to John the Baptist as he worked the banks of the Jordan River and the areas near it. The prophet Isaiah had written this about John’s work and message: A voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way of the Lord! Make his paths straight. Every valley will be filled, and every mountain and hill will be made low. The crooked will become straight, and the rough ways smooth. And everyone will see the salvation of God.”
You might say, “Ok, I get that John is the voice calling out in the wilderness, but how is this a preaching of repentance?” That’s a fair question, because the pictures used here aren’t easily understood now the way that they were back then. The people who heard Isaiah’s prophesy and the preaching of John the Baptist had this picture in their minds: A messenger running miles ahead of a king, running ahead into the towns telling the people to prepare the path that the king would travel on. The people of the town would then go out to repair the road so that the place where the honorable ruler would travel was just right—fit for a king. Maybe the closest expression we have to that is to “roll out the red carpet.” John the Baptist, this messenger of God, was to call for people to “roll out the red carpet” for the Savior-King to enter on. But that still doesn’t quite explain how this is repentance, does it? Well, this picture ends with “And everyone will see the salvation of God.” That makes this road business a spiritual thing, doesn’t it? The three processes of road preparation are levelling things, straightening them out, and smoothing them over. Picture that activity as the work on a person’s heart, as repentance that brings the Savior near and leads to salvation. Some have explained it something like this: that the valleys are the depths of sin, the mountains and hills the height of arrogance before God, the crooked ways are deceit and dishonesty, and the roughness is sin in a person’s life. It’s probably not important to try to assign each thing with a specific meaning like that. It is necessary though, to see all of this as any sinful things that are an impediment to Christ coming to a person. Those sins are in the way, if they are not repented of. John called out for the people to humble themselves and repent of their sins, because the Lord was coming—and they would find forgiveness in him. You may remember that repentance is more than saying you are sorry to God. If that is something you aren’t as familiar with, listen carefully, because this is incredibly important! This is repentance: 1) to acknowledge that what I have done is considered sinful to God, 2) that I am sorry that I have offended God, 3) that I ask God to forgive me in Jesus and trust that he does, 4) and that I intend not to sin like this again because I want to please my Savior. You can see why this requires a humble heart before the Lord. As the Lord’s coming was near, he humbled his people through John the Baptist’s preaching of repentance. Humble repentance was the key. That is what prepared the people to meet their Savior when he came to them. John would baptize those who repented, and they found forgiveness in Jesus, the Lamb of God, whom John prepared people for and pointed them to.
John was kind of a rough man. He wore camel’s hair clothes, ate locusts and wild honey, and lived in the wilderness. Jesus once questioned a crowd of people about their expectations for John, saying, “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind? No. Then what did you go out to see? A man dressed in soft clothing? Yet those who are dressed in splendid clothing and live in luxury are in royal palaces. But what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and much more than a prophet. This is the one about whom it is written: ‘Look, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you (Luke 7:24-27).’” So, yes, John was maybe a little rough, appropriate for the rough preaching of the law that he was called to speak. But his message wasn’t all tough stuff. He pointed people to Jesus. He prepared them to see and hear the Savior when he came. As he prepared the people, and the people prepared their hearts, what Isaiah said would come true: And everyone will see the salvation of God. The Savior was coming near to them to forgive their sins and to give them heaven. This is glorious gospel—just like when he pointed to Jesus and said, “Look! The Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29)!” John was both a law and gospel preacher. We’ll have the chance to hear some of his law/gospel preaching next Sunday. Even though it’s taken me this long to mention it, it’s pretty hard not to notice the way Luke begins these verses. In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar— while Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod was tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip was tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias was tetrarch of Abilene—during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John… Perhaps you remember that, in addition to being a doctor, Luke was a missionary and a great historian and researcher as he wrote this gospel. You get a sense of that with these words. He locks the arrival of John down to a specific time in history, naming the political and religious rulers. This was exactly the time God had determined to activate John and reveal Jesus as the world’s Savior. Certainly, you realize that John’s message wasn’t only for that specific, significant time. The preaching of repentance is needed today too! And the message is really as urgent for you and me as it was for the people then. Through his Word, God is sending John to us today, so that we are also prepared for Jesus to come near. After all, every one of us is sinful. We all need to repent—to level the path, to straighten it, to smooth the way as the Lord comes near to us. Perhaps a sin common to us all in some measure is that we don’t take seriously enough that the Lord is coming near.
Advent is the season of anticipation for our celebration of Christmas, Jesus’ first coming, but what about what is going on right now? Is Jesus not near us now? Does Jesus not come nearer to us as we receive his body and blood in the sacrament, and as he speaks directly to us in his Word? This is not just ritual we do up here at the Lord’s Table. Listening to the Bible being read and its truths preached may be a regular thing, but it is not simply routine! Are we guilty of not recognizing or appreciating the very presence of Christ and his voice even as someone else is reading the Scriptures? Maybe we need the wake-up call of John the Baptist! Maybe we need to find humility—the kind that repents before Christ, that realizes how precious his Word and Sacrament are, that looks to him for forgiveness and trusts him totally for eternal life. I know I need that. I suspect you do too. Like the people that awaited both Jesus and his forerunner, John, we don’t know the exact moment that the Lord will come to us on the Last Day. But we ought to look forward to it with anticipation because he will be coming to take us with him into heaven! If we have been more excited about Christmas celebrations and weddings and babies and such than we have about Christ coming to us to take us to be with him, that’s not right either. God does give us those gifts to enjoy, but life here and the things of this world are not more important than Jesus and living with him in heaven. Perhaps a bit of humble repentance is needed for this too. Remember that repentance is not just being sorry, it is a change of mind, a change of heart. It means that I don’t want to sin like that anymore. So, I intend to recognize and appreciate Jesus when he comes near to me—in his Word and in the sacraments. I intend to be thankful and excited about the people and the gifts God gives me in this world, but more excited and filled with anticipation for my release from this sinful world and entering eternal life with God. This is the way humble repentance looks as Jesus comes near to us now, even while we are preparing for him to come to us on the Last Day. May we listen to John the Baptist and humbly repent of our sins daily, in preparation for the Lord to come near, when we will see the salvation of our God. Amen. Now the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen. In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar—while Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod was tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip was tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias was tetrarch of Abilene—2during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John, the son of Zechariah, in the wilderness. 3He went into the whole region around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 4Just as it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet: A voice of one calling in the wilderness, “Prepare the way of the Lord! Make his paths straight. 5Every valley will be filled, and every mountain and hill will be made low. The crooked will become straight, and the rough ways smooth. 6And everyone will see the salvation of God.”