november 27 2022
2022 Advent 1 November 27th
Old Testament: Isaiah 2:1-5
Psalm: Psalm 122
Epistle: Romans 13: (8-10) 11-14
Gospel: Matthew 21:1-11
Sermon Text: Romans 13:8-14
Sermon Title: “Salvation is Near”
Grace to you and peace, from God the Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
“I was glad when they said to me, let us go to the house of the Lord” (Psalm 122:1) “That He may teach us His ways and we may walk in His paths”. (Isaiah 2:3b) “For salvation is nearer to us than when we first believed”. (Romans 13:11b) “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord”. (Matthew 21:9b) These are a few of the texts we will consider this morning.
Today we begin not only a new season in the church, but an entirely new church year. The new season is, of course, Advent, a word which simply means that someone or something is coming. This is reflected in the opening collect we prayed a few moments ago, “Stir up Your power O Lord, and come, that by Your protection, we may be rescued from the threatening perils of our sins and saved by Your mighty deliverance”. In light of this, Advent is also a penitential season.
In Advent, we focus specifically on the three ways in which Christ comes to us; first, His coming again in glory to judge the world, which we have already heard about the last couple of weeks; second, His coming to us through the preaching of the Word and receiving the Sacrament, where He gives us His gifts of forgiveness of sins and strengthening of faith; and third, His incarnation, God becoming man in the birth of the Christ child; who came to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins by His death on the cross. To put it another way, we look forward to Christ’s coming in the future, celebrate His coming to us in the present, and remember His coming in the past.
The Old Testament reading from Isaiah is looking forward to the coming Day of the Lord; a day, when “He shall judge between the nations and shall decide disputes between for many peoples”. (Isaiah 2:4a) In preparation for that day, the people of Israel are exhorted to “come to the house of God that He may teach us His ways and that we may walk in His paths” (Isaiah 2:3); that we would “walk in the light of the Lord”. (Isaiah 2:5b) Therefore, we say with the psalmist, “I was glad when they said to me, let us go to the house of the Lord … to give thanks to the name of the Lord”. (Psalm 122:1, 4b) We gladly come to His house, for this is where God has promised to be for us with His gifts.
In the Gospel reading, which is also the reading for Palm Sunday, we hear of Jesus’ triumphant entry into the city of Jerusalem; just days before He would die on the cross to secure the forgiveness of sins for us and for all people. Even though Jesus is a king from heaven, He arrives in humility, “mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden”. (Matthew 21:5b) Still, “the crowds that went before Him and followed Him were shouting, Hosanna to the Son of David, Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest”. (Matthew 21:9)
Knowing of all three of these “comings” of Jesus, the Apostle Paul (also) speaks this morning of how we as Christians are to live towards God and neighbor in light of this knowledge. He begins, “Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law … love does no wrong to a neighbor, therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law”. (Romans 13:8, 10) Simple right? Keep the law of God perfectly and be saved! But it doesn’t work that way, does it? No human bring can keep the law of God perfectly, as Paul states in many places. James also clearly states, “Whoever keeps the whole law, but fails in one point, has become accountable for all of it”. (James 2:10)
“We all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”. (Romans 3:23) So, it is clear according to Scripture, we are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ Jesus alone, “it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one can boast”. (Ephesians 2:8b-9) Even so, as God’s people, we are clearly called to love our neighbor as ourselves. But how is love for our neighbor expressed? In the second table of the law; commandments 4 thru 10 as Paul makes clear, “The Commandments, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet, and any other commandment are summed up in this Word; You shall love your neighbor as yourself”. (Romans 13:9)
So, the Apostle Paul is not telling us to try and keep the law in order to be saved by it, rather he is exhorting us to live like Christians in the midst of this wicked world. We readily acknowledge that the sinful nature is still in us, and that even our good works are tainted by sin; (we confess this at nearly every worship service) but we also have a new nature given to us by Christ; therefore what we do or how we live matters. We strive to keep the commandments knowing that any truly good work that we do is only by the power of the Holy Sprit working through the Word.
We are to continue in the faith, watching and waiting for the return of Jesus. As Paul wrote, “Besides this, you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. The night is far gone, the day is at hand”. (Romans 13:11-12a) The sleep Paul refers to is spiritual sleep; ignoring (or disobeying) the Word and commandments of God, thinking there will be no consequences; acting as if the Lord will not return.
We would do well to heed the words of the writer of Hebrews, “it is appointed for man to die once and after that comes judgment” (Hebrews (9:27b) and Jesus’ own words, “For the Son of Man is going to come with His angels in the glory of His Father, and He will repay each person according to what He has done”. (Matthew 16:27) “For this present world is passing away, along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God, abides forever”. (1st John 2:17)
Paul continues, “So then let us cast off the works of darkness (sin) and put on the armor of light”. (Romans 13:12b) These works of darkness are self-evident according to Paul, and he warns, “those who do such things will not inherit the Kingdom of God”. (Galatians 5:21b) Therefore, “Let us walk properly, as in the daytime, and not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy”. (Romans 13:13) Let us not embrace the example of the sinful world around us.
But again, sometimes, we Lutherans forget the repeated exhortations in Holy Scripture to right living. We think that because “our works cannot reconcile us to God or obtain grace for us, which happens only through faith … when we believe that our sins are forgiven for Christ’s sake” (A. C. XX; par. 9) that we do not have to think about them or do them. But this is not what the Bible or our Confessions teach. This is what the Book of Concord teaches on this subject, “We reject and condemn as false, the view that good works are a matter of freedom … in the sense that we have free choice in whether we want to do them or refrain from them”. (S. D. Article IV, par. 20)
Even though our salvation, from beginning to end is attributed to faith alone, “we should daily practice the law of the Lord … the reborn children of God need not only the law’s daily instruction and admonition, its warning and threatening; they also often need its punishment”. (S. D. Article VI, par. 4, 9) As the Psalmist declares “It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn Your statutes”. (Psalm 119:71)
“Walking properly” includes avoiding the things Paul just mentioned, but also striving to keep the commandments; to love God and neighbor, even as we acknowledge and confess our sins. It is only in Christ that we find the strength to do this; as the Apostle declares, “put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires”. (Romans 13:14)
This “putting on Christ” happened at our Baptism; “for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God through faith; for as many of you as were baptized into Christ, have put on Christ”. (Galatians 3:26-27) As the prophet Isaiah declared, “He has clothed me with the garments of salvation; He has covered me with the robe of His righteousness”. (Isaiah 61:10a) All of this is a gift of God; not of works.
Paul wrote of this earlier in this same letter to the Roman churches; “We were buried with Him, by baptism into death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life … We know that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that … we would no longer be enslaved to sin … so you must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus”. (Romans 6:4, 6, 11) “How can we who died to sin still live in it”? (Romans 6:2b)
As you know, this putting off the old and putting on the new is also emphasized by Luther in the Small Catechism. He asked “What does such baptizing with water now indicate? It indicates that the old Adam (sinful nature) in us should by daily contrition and repentance, be drowned and die with all sins and evil desires, and that a new man should daily emerge and arise to live before God in righteousness and purity forever”. (Baptism 4th part) “Christ died for all that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him, who for their sake died and was raised”. (2nd Corinthians 5:15)
Again, we cannot keep God’s law perfectly; because our sinful flesh will daily cause us to stumble and sin; but we are declared righteous by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone; who has fulfilled the whole law perfectly and at His first coming became the perfect sacrifice; atoning for the sins of the whole world. By the Holy Spirit, working through the Word of God, whenever we gather here; He keeps us in the one true faith, enabling us to live as His (holy) people. “The Gospel (of the free forgiveness of our sins for Jesus’ sake), calls us to rely on God’s mercy and grace; which motivates us to love as we have been loved”. (LSB note on Romans 13:8-14)
As we focus our attention this Advent season on the various “comings” of Jesus revealed in the Scriptures; we trust in all His gracious promises; knowing that, “Salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed”. Amen (Romans 13:11b)
The peace of God …