Populus Zion – December 7, 2025Psalm 80; Malachi 4:1-6; Romans 15:4-13St. Luke 21:25-36
In the Name of the Father, and of the +
Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The word “advent” means “coming.” Now
the world treats this time as the “Christmas season,” by shopping for Christmas
presents, holding Christmas parties, decorating houses, and making travel plans
for the Christmas break from school and work. There is nothing wrong with
participating in these things. We do live in the world even if we are not of
the world. Yet the temptation is to become wrapped up in these activities of
the world and to forget the purpose of the season of Advent.
Like the world, Christians use the time
of Advent for preparation, but the way in which Christians prepare and the
occasion Christians are preparing for are quite distinct from that of the
world. During Advent, we reflect, contemplate, and prepare for the three ways
in which Christ comes. First, He came in the flesh, born of the Virgin Mary.
The eternal Son of God descended into the flesh of man, sharing in our humanity
that we might receive His eternity. Second, He comes to us today, through the
reading, preaching, and meditating on His Word. He also comes to us bodily in
His Holy Sacrament. He comes in the mutual consolation of our Christian
brothers and sisters, as they share with us His Holy Word. Finally, we look
forward to His final coming, when Christ will reveal Himself to the nations,
make His final judgment, and receive all who believe and are baptized into His
loving arms for all eternity.
It is this final coming of Christ that
Christ speaks of this morning in the Gospel and for which He bids us to
prepare. While the world is preparing to celebrate family time at Christmas by
buying presents, preparing meals, and making travel plans, the Church prepares
to receive her King in the same way she has always prepared herself for God: by
repentance.
When I speak of repentance, I don’t just mean reciting the words of the general confession once a week, “I, a poor miserable sinner…” though that is a good start. I mean taking a serious reflection of your heart, actions, mind, and soul. Consider your station in life according to the Ten Commandments, whether you are a father, mother, son, daughter, husband, wife, or worker; whether you have been disobedient, unfaithful, slothful; whether you have grieved any person by word or deed; whether you have stolen, neglected, or wasted anything, or done other injury.[1] Have you placed your fear, love, and trust in God above all things or have you feared the opinions of people or the economy more than trusting that God loves you and will provide?
Our age is filled both with security in
material goods and anxiety over every aspect of life. On the one hand, we look
to our stuff to feel secure and happy while constantly worrying about the
opinions of others, how we measure up to their expectations. This security and
anxiety are both misguided because they entirely remove God from the equation.
Our security is in Him, who created and sustains all things in the universe.
Our anxiety only runs skin deep, though we feel it deep in our soul. This
anxiety forgets that the same God who created and sustains the universe also
descended into our flesh for the very purpose of taking our cares, anxieties,
and most importantly our sins, upon Himself and crucifying them. He bore your
sins into death so that they would remain in the grave forever.
Both the security and anxiety of our
age is also misguided because it fails to reach into the root of the problem:
our sinful state. The problem is not that we don’t have enough to be secure or
that we feel bad about ourselves. The problem is that these are sins against
the Almighty God. They are the actions of sinners who have forgotten what the
Lord has commanded. Only by a serious contemplation of the Word of God can sin
be revealed. “I would not have known sin except through the law…The law is
holy, and the commandment holy and just and good.”[2]
And yet there is a second part of
repentance. Repentance is first contrition, that is, sorrow over our sin which
has been brought about by the contemplation of God’s holy, just, and good law.
The second part is faith; faith which clings to the promise of God that Christ has
died for your sin and rose for your justification. If it were not for faith
clinging to God’s promise of forgiveness, it would be unthinkable to consider
your sins. It would be so overwhelming because it is obvious to anyone that
they are unworthy of God. A moment of reflection over the state of your soul
would either cause you to turn immediately away from God and cling to your sin
in pride or fall into such despair that you would beg for death.
And yet knowledge of the promise of
forgiveness makes considering your sin bearable. It becomes bearable because the
Word of God has revealed that His great love caused His incarnation. His great
love caused the Father to accept the sacrifice of His only-begotten Son on your
behalf. His great love washed you in the waters of Holy Baptism, not only
cleansing you from sin but making you a child of the Heavenly Father. And just
as a child desires nothing more than to make his father proud, so too such
great love of God moves your soul to desire to make God proud. It causes you to
desire to be free from sin and conform to God’s holy Law.
This is what makes the Christian’s
Advent preparations different from that of the world’s. When the nations see
signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, they tremble with fear because they
are perplexed. A sense of foreboding dread sweeps over the nations for fear of
what is coming upon the world. Yet the Church sees these signs and knows that her
King is coming soon. We prepare (through repentance and faith) with great joy,
straightening up and lifting our heads to see the Son of Man coming in a cloud
with power and great glory. The distress of nations is for us a sign that the
end is near and we know what will happen at the end. Christ will come and
gather us to Himself.
Thus He bids us to watch ourselves so
that we are not weighed down with despair, drunkenness, and the cares of this
life. Rather, we stay vigilant and pray that we be kept in this true faith
until either we die or Christ returns, whichever should come first.
I stand before you today for the first
time, charged with bringing you the whole counsel of God. The Lord has seen fit
to call this sinner to serve Him in this place and at this time. I have taken
vows to be faithful to the Word of God and the Lutheran Confessions, which
means that it is my sacred duty to stand in the stead and by the command of my
Lord, Jesus Christ, delivering to you His Holy Word and Sacraments. When Christ
returns on that final day, I will stand before Him and be held accountable for
my ministry to your souls. If I profane the Word of God, if I cause one of you
little ones to fall away from the faith because I pervert the things of God,
then I will be judged guilty and spend eternity in hell.
It is my sacred duty to pray for you
and with you. It is my duty to love you as Christ loves this church. It is my
duty to weep over your sins, even as I call you to account for them. Know that
it is not my sacred duty to be nice. Certainly to extend Christian love and
fellowship, bearing with you in all things, but there is no obligation to be
“nice” simply to please men. This is a hard teaching, but it is true. I am
obligated to hold you accountable to the Word of God just as you must hold me
accountable to it.
Scripture calls all Christians to pray
for their leaders, including their pastors. God expects you to pray for me and
to pray for my family. It is also expected that you will bear with me in all
things, honor the office to which I’ve been called, uphold my reputation - not
hearing any accusation from others in idle gossip, and listening intently to
the Word of God. You have also promised to aid me as I care for my family and
to be diligent to “put the best construction on everything,” recognizing that “love
covers a multitude of sins.” I expect you to hold me accountable to the Word of
God and if I should sin against you, I expect you to call me to repentance.
Our Lord has promised that though heaven and earth will pass away, His Word will never pass away.[3] The time is already growing late. It has been 2,000 years since our Lord spoke these words. Though it is cold outside and the calendar shows it is winter, in the broad view of time, the trees are coming out in leaf and the end of time draws near. Together, we hope and pray that the Lord will grant a bountiful harvest in this congregation, that He will bless us with new children to baptize, adults to instruct, and families to bring into our fold. Yet it is the Lord who gives growth. It is also at the Lord’s discretion that congregations shrink. We do not measure the success of the Church in man’s terms. We measure the success of the Church in faithfulness to the Scriptures, trusting that God knows better than we do how to manage His own household.
So together, we must stay awake at all
times, praying that we may have strength to escape the temptations of the world
and to stand before the Son of Man in humility and faith. Together, we must
devote ourselves to the things of God, to His Word and Holy Sacraments.
Together, we must show ourselves to bear the Light of Christ into the world,
that not by our efforts, but by the very Word of God, the world would be
brought to Christ. You and I bear the priceless treasure of Jesus Christ. Let
us not bear it in vain, but in boldness of faith. Let us prepare for the return
of Christ in humble repentance, never forgetting that He came in our flesh to
die for our sins and still comes to us today, wrapped in water, bread, wine,
and His Holy Word.
