Gal. 4:4 But when the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.
The true gift of Christmas for each one of us is an inheritance. The Son of God was born of woman under the Law so that we might become heirs together with Christ of His kingdom.
It happened in the fulness of time. At just the right moment in human history. It was a perfect storm of variables that all came together at one time. Roman rule established peace for the first time in centuries. Roman technology and government brought roads and plumbing. Greek culture brought a common language and a love for learning. Israel, God’s nation of the Old Testament, was in a kind of protective custody, held as a territory under Roman rule. It wasn’t the splendor of Solomon by any stretch, but it wasn’t bad either. Protected from her ancient enemies, Israel was free to pretty much carry out its business as usual, providing it rendered to Caesar the appropriate taxes. Nothing new there. The synagogues were thriving under the rabbinic teaching of the Pharisees. The temple was clicking along under the Sadducees, while King Herod was busy rennovating the temple to secure the favor of the Jews.
It’s beginning to look at least a little bit like Christmas around here. Some Christmasy decorations trickling in on this fourth and last Sunday of Advent. And our Gospel reading shifts from John the Baptist in the Judean wilderness to a young woman named Mary in the north country of Nazareth. Before there is going to be a birth to celebrate, there must be a conception nine months earlier. This is Jesus’ conception story, and it is filled with wonderful things.
“In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary.” Luke packs it all into the opening sentence - six wonderful things in two sentences.
The notion of an “end times” and “last days” is the cause of much anxiety, even among believers. Remember Harold Camping a couple of years ago, predicting the end of the world several times? It made the network news, and admit it, it probably caused you to wonder too, didn’t it? Hal Lindsey has made a cottage industry out of being wrong as his “Late, Great Planet Earth” goes into revision after revision. Only in the religion business can you make money by being wrong. People are alternately terrified and mesmerized by the eschatological and the apocalyptic. There are video games built around end times themes.
Who are you? That’s the question posed to John by the delegation from Jerusalem, the religious priests and Levites who were sent to investigate this strange wilderness man. Who are you? Or perhaps the question is more aptly put, “Who do you think you are? Calling people to repentance. Baptizing all sorts of filthy sinners - prostitutes and tax agents and riff raff - as if they could take a bath and all would be forgiven. Who are you? Dressed in camel’s hair, eating locusts and wild honey. Calling us a ‘brood of vipers’ and daring to call good, respectable religious people to repentance. Who do you think you are, John?”
Advent Vespers 2
12/10/2014
2 Peter 3:13-14
2Pet. 3:13 But according to his promise we wait for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.
2Pet. 3:14 Therefore, beloved, since you wait for these, be zealous to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace.
We are time-bound creatures. Time enslaved at times. We are creatures of the clock, chasing the clock through the day and into the night, always asking “What time is it?” anxiously wondering if we have enough time. Our lives are governed by time. We wake up at a certain time of day and go to sleep at a certain time. There are fixed times for meals, for a bath or shower, for most of the things we do in life. It seems we never have enough time.
You know it’s Advent when John the Baptist appears on the scene. “Prepare the way of the Lord, make His paths straight.” John is our Advent preacher, calling to us from the wilderness, calling us to the water of Baptism, pointing with that long, bony finger to Christ saying, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” That’s all John is good for. That’s all he is there for. Preparing a royal highway of repentance. He is God’s bulldozer, leveling the high places and filling in the low ones, making the uneven ground level and the rough places plain.
1Cor. 1:3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
1Cor. 1:4 I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus, 5 that in every way you were enriched in him in all speech and all knowledge— 6 even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you— 7 so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, 8 who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
It’s beginning to look a lot like Advent. Wow! Thanksgiving dinner is barely digested and it’s Advent this year. What happened? A late Thanksgiving conspired with a mid-week Christmas to bring an early start to the season of Advent, smack on November 30th, the feast of St. Andrew. Not quite on a day and…
We like looking back, but looking backward is no way to run a race. When I was in high school, I looked back over my shoulder for a pass playing touch football and crashed headlong into a concrete light pole. That backward glance earned me twenty stitches and four days in the hospital with a very big headache. When you run a race, you look forward. You press forward toward the mark, the prize, the finish line.
Sin is leprosy of the soul, a spiritual leprosy. It is a deep contamination, a systemic corruption of our humanity that affects everything we think, do, or say. It renders us unclean before God. It isolates and divides us from our fellow man. It flares and spreads like wildfire, a latent and lurking disease, a spiritual retrovirus that can lie dormant and then flare up in an instant when brought in contact with the Law. The Law amplifies Sin. It doesn’t cure it. It amplifies it, causing Sin to be utterly sinful beyond measure.