Wake Up! It's Advent!

Jesu Juva

Romans 13:11-14                                      

November 30, 2025

Advent 1A                      

 Dear Saints of Our Savior~

        It’s beginning to look a lot like Advent: The blue paraments and the big wreath with candles.  This is also the Sunday we come really close to running out of number threes on our hymn boards.  Thanksgiving dinner is barely digested and it’s already Advent.  Happy new church year! 

        The traditional Gospel reading for this Sunday is our Lord’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem.  You heard it earlier:  the donkey, the palm branches, the shouts of “hosanna.”  The King of kings is drawing near; The Savior of the world is here.  That sets the table for this holy season.  That’s the overarching theme of Advent.  Our Lord comes.

        But it’s today’s epistle from Romans 13 that drills down deep into the nitty-gritty of daily life.  Today’s Gospel tells us what Advent is about.  Today’s epistle tells us what it means for daily living.  It’s an Advent wake-up call.  The hour has come for you to wake up from sleep.  Advent is the season to rise and shine.  Live in the light of Christ and have nothing to do with the deeds of darkness.

        December is an especially good time to hear these words about waking up and living in the light because there’s no darker month than December.  It’s tough to wake up in December.  It’s always dark and the house is cold.  Even for early birds like me, it can be a challenge to separate yourself from that Serta perfect sleeper at this time of year.

        But don’t worry if you like to sleep late; Paul’s words aren’t aimed at you sleepyheads.  His concern is over a different kind of snoozing—that even while our bodies may be awake and functioning, yet our hearts are asleep to the things of God—or even worse, that we’ve sleep-walked our way into dark and sinful places where gratification is the name of the game—places where our very salvation is in jeopardy.

        That’s not what we were designed for.  We baptized Christians are designed for the daytime.  We are people of the light.  Paul expressed it this way: The night is far gone; the day is at hand.  So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.  Night is gone; the day is at hand.  This is the urgency of the Advent season.  It’s not the urgency of getting your shopping done, or getting your baking done, or getting your decorating done, or the urgency of a calendar so crammed with activities that you’re either depressed or stressed to the max.  The urgency of Advent is taking a detour from the darkness, and living in the light of Christ.

        Advent, historically, is not supposed to be a happy season of celebration.  It’s a penitential season—a sober season of repentance in preparation for Christmas (which IS joyful and celebratory).  But the thrilling voice of Advent always sounds out a warning—a warning to put off the works of darkness—to cast off the bathrobe and other duds of the darkness—and put on what befits the day—what Paul calls the “armor of light.”

        Another way of saying it would be to put off the Old Adam with all his lusts and wicked desires, his sexual immorality and drunkenness, his quarreling and jealousy.  Those are the works of darkness and death.  And sadly, there seems to be more of those kinds of things going on at this time of year.  How many Christmas parties will feature people getting drunk, behaving badly, sinning boldly, and even getting hurt.  Don’t you follow that crowd this Advent.  For heaven’s sake!  Those deeds of darkness don’t fit you.  You don’t look good wearing them.  They are foreign to who you are as a baptized child of God.  And they totally discredit your Christian witness to those around you.

        What should you wear?  Put on the armor of light.  Adorn your life with good works that leave no doubt as to who you are—and whose you are.  What clothing will show you at your best as the child of God you are?  Nothing other than the perfect righteousness of Jesus Himself.  For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ (Gal. 3:27).  To be baptized is to “wear Jesus” as a robe—to be covered with His righteousness, innocence, and blessedness.

        When our first parents fell into sin they tried to cover up their naked rebellion by clothing themselves with fig leaves.  Not only did that look kind of silly, but those hand-stitched fig leaves couldn’t cover up the real problem, which is sin.  That’s our problem, too.  And the wages of that problem—the final, unavoidable result—is death. 

        That’s why we can’t forget that, before the Lord kicked Adam and Eve out of the garden, the Lord Himself provided them with new clothing.  Not with fig leaves, but with animal skins.  That’s significant because an animal had to die for that clothing to be made.  I like to think it was a lamb—the very first sacrificial lamb—the first blood ever shed—the first vicarious victim to die for the sin of the world.  No big deal EXCEPT that this all points ahead to Jesus, THE Lamb of God.  Only He—only by the blood He shed and by the death HE died—can sinners like us receive what we need through faith:  the forgiveness of our sins; and a robe of His righteousness, the armor of light.

        And so we know what time it is.  The hour has come for us to wake up.  No more punching the snooze button.  You snooze; you lose.  No more lounging around groggy and hungover and ashamed.  In Jesus you are a new creation.  In Jesus you have salvation.  And that final salvation is nearer to you now than when you first believed. 

        The Last Day—the Day of Resurrection—will be here before you know it.  It sometimes sounds terrifying, but by Jesus’ own promise, you can hope for it and long for it—just as we do whenever we pray, “Thy kingdom come,” or “Come, Lord Jesus."  On that day, what we believe by faith will finally be seen and visible.  What we long for, we will finally have.  What God has promised us in Christ, will be given to us in full—forgiveness and life and salvation.

          How will the promise of that day affect your Monday, your Tuesday, your Wednesday and all the days to come?  Well, we did just celebrate Thanksgiving, right?  Would you thank the fireman who saved you from a burning building by running right back into the flames?  Would you thank the lifeguard who pulled you from the waves by diving back into the rip current?  Would you thank your Savior, who called you out of darkness and into His marvelous light by running back into the darkness?  Of course not!  You can’t do that, dressed up the way you are in the righteousness of Christ.  Would I wear what I have on right now to mow my lawn on a hot July afternoon?  Unthinkable!  No way!

        And so it is for you on this the first Sunday in Advent in the year of our Lord 2025.  Wake up!  Rise and shine!  It’s Advent!  The King of kings is drawing near; the Savior of the world is here!

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

 

Pray, Praise, & Give Thanks, pt.2

Jesu Juva

St. Luke 17:11-19                                    

 November 27, 2025

Thanksgiving Day

 Dear saints of our Savior~

        Those pesky lepers are back again.  And that’s no surprise, really.  They turn up almost every Thanksgiving, like some long-lost cousins from Kansas who just suddenly show up in the driveway.  Turkey, stuffing, pumpkin pie . . . lepers.  Sounds about right!

        These ten men with leprosy showed up really early this year—all the way back on October 12^th—a feature of the three-year lectionary.  Back on that Sunday we focused on the leper’s prayer.  We leaned into the leper’s litany which they loudly called out as Jesus passed by:  Jesus, master, have mercy on us.  That refrain for mercy teaches us a lot about prayer—about the necessity of prayer, and even how to pray.  Pray like a leper.

        But who are we kidding?  This text pops up today because of the single, solitary, newly healed leper who gives thanks (and he was a Samaritan).  Giving thanks is always the focus of this fourth Thursday in November.  All ten lepers prayed.  All ten lepers were healed.  All ten were shown mercy.  But only one praised God in a loud voice.  Only one threw himself at Jesus’ feet.  Only one gave thanks to Jesus for the healing he had received.

        Back in October we reflected on how the lepers should lead each of us into a regular and robust life of prayer.  If you aren’t praying like the lepers did, then you are failing at one of the fundamental duties of every Christian.  Today, we might add:  If you’re not giving thanks like the one leper who returned to Jesus, then you are likewise failing.

        This goes all the way back to the Ten Commandments, by the way.  The Second Commandment is given to us so that we don’t misuse God’s name by cursing and swearing, but so that we call upon it in every trouble:  pray, praise, and give thanks.  Hence, the title of this sermon.  Pray, Praise, and Give Thanks.  (It sounds almost as good as Luther’s original German:  Beten, Loben, und Danken.)

        Why did nine out of ten fail?  They got what they prayed for.  Mercy received.  Miraculous healing.  Life restored.  Lockdown lifted.  Family reunited.  Why did all ten pray, but just one lonely leper praised and gave thanks to Jesus?  Failing to give thanks to God isn’t just impolite.  And it’s much more serious than a case of bad manners.  At the bare minimum, it is a sin of omission.

        When all ten lepers lifted their voices and prayed, there was something in it for them.  They had a need—a desperate need for mercy and healing and cleansing.  And their prayer carried the possibility that they would receive all that they prayed for in faith.  Ask, and it will be given.  Seek, and you will find.  Knock, and it will be opened to you.  There’s great incentive to pray—to ask, seek, and knock.  You never know!  You just might get what you pray for.  You might end up like those lucky lepers, who probably felt like they’d hit the prayer jackpot.

        But thanksgiving is a distinct and different sort of prayer.  Supplication carries at least the possibility (or probability) of healing, relief, resolution, rescue, reconciliation.  It’s amazing that we don’t spend more time in prayer with incentives like those.  But what incentive do we have for giving thanks? To put it bluntly, what’s in it for me?  What do you stand to get out of giving thanks and praise to God?  It’s such a crass question to ask.  But our sinful natures never shy away from the crass approach, and the entitled approach, and the “what’s in it for me” approach.  It’s an approach we all know too well.  It would certainly explain why the nine failed to return and give thanks.  They already had what they most wanted!  They had their reward in full.  Why waste time giving thanks?

        Now, maybe you’re not like the nine.  Perhaps, for you, every day is Thanksgiving Day.  Perhaps your life is always punctuated with praise and thanks and gratitude to God.  If so, keep it up.  It’s no accident that as the catechism teaches us to pray, both in the morning and in the evening, that prayer begins with this phrase:  I thank You.  I thank you, my heavenly Father, through Jesus Christ, Your dear Son.  Not a bad way to start the day—or end the day and drift to sleep—with daily thanksgiving.

        Jesus Christ is the key that unlocks all our praise and thanksgiving.  Nine out of ten lepers got what they prayed for and then turned their attention elsewhere.  Maybe they went off witnessing and telling the good news about Jesus.  But the fact remains; Jesus was in their rear view mirror.  Mercy requested; mercy received. Bye-bye!

But only one leper ordered his life around the Man who gave the mercy.  With nothing more to be gained—with no crass calculations or quid pro quos—that former leper, now cleansed and free—he went right back to Jesus, threw himself at Jesus’ feet, and thanked Him.  Only one returned to give thanks—but that one gave thanks with the volume and devotion of ten men.  Ten tremendous thanksgivings funneled into one voice and two bending knees.

        This man didn’t just count his blessings and then pop the cork and carve the bird.  He knew that the Giver of the blessing was more important than the blessing itself.  The Giver of the cleansing was more important than the cleansing.  Leper number ten no doubt had people to see and places to go—perhaps even over the river and through the woods to grandmother’s house.  But none of that mattered as much as Jesus—the Giver—the Source of healing and restoration.  Jesus gave that leper what he wasn’t entitled to—what he didn’t deserve.  Your faith has saved you.  We call that grace; and it changes everything.

        It changes everything for you and me on this Thanksgiving Day in the year of our Lord 2025.  Jesus has had mercy on us.  Jesus has cleansed us of our sin.  Jesus has rescued us from the death and hell our sin deserves.  When Jesus willingly walked the path to Calvary’s cross, He did not ask: What’s in it for me?  He did not calculate or equivocate or waver.  In love He took your place.  In love He suffered for you.  In love He bore your sin.  In love He died, so that you might live.  By His holy cross Jesus has earned for you a wealth of grace and mercy and the forgiveness of your sins. 

        And like leper number ten, you have come here today—you have sought out the Savior where He has promised to be found.  And you have done it with a thankful heart.  Come, ye thankful people, come.  Come, not with cold, crass calculation, but come knowing only your need and your Savior’s love.  Give thanks to God in word and song, with prayer and praise, with bended knees and hearts lifted high.  You have come to where Jesus is—to where His promises are preached and to a feast of forgiveness in His body and blood.  Jesus gives; we receive.  Rise and go; your faith has saved you.

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