Prepare the Way

Jesu Juva

St. Luke 3:1-14                                            

December 8, 2024

Advent 2C                                                   

 Dear saints of our Savior~

        It’s always kind of predictable around here on the second Sunday of Advent:  Two candles aglow on the Advent wreath.  John the Baptist appears in the wilderness to preach a baptism of repentance.  And we get to sing with gusto On Jordan’s Bank the Baptist’s Cry.

        This Sunday may be predictable; but St. Luke tosses out some surprises for us in today’s account of John’s ministry. For instance, John is well known as this mangy-looking man down by the river, decked out in leather and camel’s hair, chowing down on honey-coated grasshoppers.  But surprise!  In Luke’s version of John the Baptist, not a word is said about his diet or his wardrobe.

        What Luke gives us instead is a big dose of history—names, places, and dates:   In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Iturea and Traconitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene—during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the Word of God came to John son of Zechariah.  St. Luke couldn’t get any more specific than that.  We would simply say that John began his public ministry in the year 28AD, but that universal calendar hadn’t yet been invented when Luke was writing.

        Luke gives us history.  He’s making it abundantly clear that this is not some fable or legend, shrouded in a foggy mystery a long, long time ago in a land far, far away.  No.  This happened.  It happened exactly 1,996 years ago.  It’s as real as Caesar Augustus and Napoleon and George Washington.  It happened in the fullness of time, when history was ripe for the promises of God to be fulfilled.

        History is important to us Christians because God’s fingerprints are all over history.  Our God shapes and directs history.  The Jesus we worship as Lord and Savior was born and died and rose and ascended in history.  He Himself is the hinge of all human history—the Alpha and the Omega.  Our God works in, with and under history.

        That’s why history is important.  That’s why we have to take on the historical revisionists who want to re-write what really happened in the past.  If we can write God out of creation—if we can write Christ out of Christmas—then there’s no limit to the mischief we can do.  And I’m not just talking about tenured university professors and internet bloggers.  You and I are also experts at re-writing and revising our own history all the time.  We’re experts at massaging the facts about our past.  Our personal resumes have been profusely padded.  We’re quick to portray ourselves as innocent victims and everybody else as aggressively attacking with claws and fangs.  And as we survey our own history of sinning we can soft-pedal that history too:  There was no other option.  I had the best of intentions.  It was really just unavoidable, couldn’t be helped.

        But John has come preaching repentance.  He calls us not to change the facts of history (we can’t), but to have a change of heart and mind.  John tells us to turn.  John makes it clear that where the ghastly historical facts of your sins are concerned, you have a choice:  You can either let Jesus have your sins and bear them away, OR you can keep them for yourself, get chopped down by the ax of divine judgment, and be thrown into eternal hellfire.

        I suspect you’re here today because you prefer to let Jesus bear your sins away.  It’s a fact of history that He did that for you at the cross.  It’s a fact that Jesus died and shed His blood for the sins of the whole wide world—every man, woman and child who ever lived.  That’s a matter of historical fact.  It’s a matter of faith to believe that He did it all for you, for your sins, for your hellish history.  It’s a matter of faith that His death counts for you, and that His resurrection life is also yours to enjoy eternally.  Those are the facts of the faith we confess.  That’s a history worth remembering.

        But there’s still another surprise in Luke chapter three.  Luke alone also gives us specific details about what it means to repent—about what a life of repentance looks like in the lives of ordinary people. 

        John was a preacher who didn’t pull any punches.  He had nothing to lose.  He wasn’t on anyone’s payroll.  He didn’t have wife and kids to feed.  He didn’t have a mortgage to pay.  John was free and unhindered to tell the no-holds-barred truth.  He called the crowds that listened to him a “brood of vipers,” trying to slither their way into God’s favor simply because they were descendants of Abraham.  But John put a stop to all that slithering with one word:  Repent.

        Today Luke tells us that the people wanted specifics from John.  “What should we do?” they asked.  And John told them what to do:  If you have two tunics, give the extra one to someone who doesn’t have one.  If you’ve got extra food, give to the hungry.  When tax collectors asked what they were supposed to do, they probably expected John to say, “Stop collecting taxes for Rome.”  But instead John told them only to collect what they were required to, and no more.  When soldiers came, they probably expected John to tell them to put down their weapons and turn their swords into plowshares.  But John simply told them, “Don’t extort money, don’t accuse people falsely, be content with your wages.”

        John’s message is so simple—so basic.  Most of us learned these things from our parents or in kindergarten:  Share your stuff.  Be honest.  Don’t be a bully.  Do a good job and be content that you have one.  In short, do the jobs God has given you.  Carry out your vocations to the best of your ability. 

        It all sounds so simple; and yet how difficult it is.  John’s telling us that our vocations matter, whether you are a husband or wife, parent or child, citizen or soldier, neighbor or employee.  God has placed you in those roles.  Carry them out with diligence and delight.  But, oh, how hard it is.  Husbands and wives, love and honor your God-given spouse.  Children, obey your parents in everything.  Citizens, obey the laws and pay your taxes.  Christians, care for one another and build up the body of Christ.

        This is all so basic; yet even when it comes to the basics, we fail.  We sin.  We need to confess.  We need repentance.  It’s not enough simply to put in an appearance at church.  Anybody can sit in a pew.  It’s not enough simply to say, “Well, I’m a rock-ribbed, old school Lutheran.”  I tell you, God is able from these pews to raise up Lutherans.  We need to repent—to turn—to delight in His will and walk in His ways, forsaking all others.

        Only One man in all of human history lived out His callings and vocations with perfect faithfulness and obedience—only One who died and rose from the dead never to die again.  Only One man in all of human history had the audacity to claim to be the Son of God, and also had the proof to back it up.  There is only One who is the eternal Word made flesh, who baptizes you into His death, who gives you His body and blood to eat and drink, who takes away all of your sins and gives you eternal life as a gift without your so much as lifting a finger.  There is only One who redeems human history, and your own personal history, by His own bloody death.  This One is Jesus Christ.  He is coming.  Prepare the way. 

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