Matthew 11:2-10 - Advent 3 - December
13, 2015
Decreasing & Increasing
St.
John was more than a prophet. He was
sent by God to prepare the way for his Son, Jesus Christ. He prepared for the Lord in two very basic
ways. First he taught repentance. He
exposed the sin of those to whom the Lord was coming, that is, the people of
Israel. He exposed their love of money, their
arrogance, their drunkenness and debauchery, their disobedience to parents and
others in authority, their disdain for the poor, and their shameful ignorance
of God’s holy word, which was their heritage.
He exposed their self-righteousness – especially that of their leaders
and teachers who no longer directed God’s people to the promised Christ, but directed
them instead to their own good works of obedience. They pointed people to themselves as examples
of righteousness to imitate rather than to the mercy long promised in the
coming Savior. Decreasing & Increasing
And
this brings us to the other way in which John the Baptist prepared the way of
the Lord. After he showed people their
sin through the law with its curse, he directed them to Jesus, the Lamb of God
who takes away the sin of the world. He
said, there is your blessing; there is the one who bears your curse. Repent of your sin and look at what I am
pointing to. He is the very Lamb that
Abraham told Isaac God would prepare for a sacrifice in his place. He is the Lamb that was typified by the spotless
lamb whose blood marked their doors when the angel of death passed over in
Egypt. He is the Lamb that all
sacrifices that the priests ever offered in the temple always pointed to.
John
was a prophet. But he was not a
priest. A prophet proclaims God’s
word. A priest intercedes on behalf of
God’s people by offering sacrifices in their place. John was more than a prophet precisely
because he did what no other priest could
do. He offered no sacrifice. Instead he pointed to him who is the Sacrifice,
who gives himself as your Substitute.
In
the Old Testament, God instituted the Levitical priesthood in order that they
might offer sacrifices in the temple and thus point ahead to Christ, the true
Sacrifice who would atone for all sins on the cross. The priests, of course, served as teachers
too, explaining the meaning of the various ceremonies that God commanded. It was not by doing all these special and
peculiar things that they earned God’s approval. No.
Rather, by doing them, they instructed God’s people about the coming
Savior who would fulfill all these things for their eternal Salvation.
But
the priests would often fail at this very important task. Aaron was a priest. Remember when God rebuked him through his
brother Moses because he had built a golden calf for the people while Moses was
up on the Mountain receiving God’s word.
Ironically, the word that Aaron just could not wait for was in large part
the instructions God had prepared for the priesthood. But you can’t serve as a priest apart from
doing what God tells you to do! As it
did here, it will always end in self-appointed works and idolatry!
God
kept Aaron as a priest despite his sin and blatant failure. And so despite the same faithlessness of the
priests throughout the generations, God graciously kept the priesthood in tact
by reminding them repeatedly of the word he had spoken. They were all unworthy to be sure. But their function and purpose was very
worthy. It was to point God’s chosen
people to him who alone is worthy, as we shall all sing in heaven: “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain.”
For
the sake of his promise, God did not utterly destroy the priests even when they
were very unfaithful. Rather, in order
to call them back from error, God would frequently send prophets as his
mouthpiece. The prophets’ job was always
to correct the priests. They were to
remind them of the purpose of the priesthood and the promise of Christ, the
true Priest. They were also to rebuke
the people for forgetting this, and to comfort the people with the assurance
that God had not forgotten. The prophets
were also sent to kings to remind them of the true King, and so also to other
prophets to remind them of the true Prophet.
Christ is our Prophet, Priest, and King.
And
John was a prophet to prepare his way. But
John was not sent to any particular prophet, or to the temple, or to a
king. He was sent to all God’s people. This means that he preached against sin no
matter who was committing it. He did not
tailor his message or soften his tone so as not to drive people away. No. He
called for repentance: Turn from your
sin, for the Lord who judges it is coming.
He is like a refiners fire.
John
would not last a month today. He was too
bold. He didn’t pander to people’s
feelings. He said what God said. Of course, he didn’t last very long then
either. That’s why he preached in the
wilderness – otherwise he would have been kicked out of the temple and
synagogues and driven into the wilderness anyway. And that is how he eventually found himself
in prison. He publicly rebuked Herod’s
public sin. Herod had power. All John had was the word of God.
But
didn’t he sort of ask for it? Come on
John. What did you expect? You grew up largely removed from civilization. You didn’t follow the dietary laws of God’s
people, but ate wild honey and locust.
You didn’t take part in the activities of the temple or synagogues like
everyone else. You had very little in
common to relate to those you preached to.
How could you expect to be a relevant voice to a generation that you
were so removed from? I’ll tell
you. God sent him. God gave him his word. God commanded him to preach it. And he did.
John did not need more life-experience or to be more in touch with the
common people. No. In fact God had made him a Nazarene precisely
so he wouldn’t be. His effectiveness was
found solely in the word God gave him. He
was a voice in the wilderness who prepared the way of the Lord. He who heard John heard God. And so likewise today, he who would be
prepared for Christ to come to him, must prepare himself by listening to God’s
word, by listening to God’s servant where he preaches it. “He who hears you,” Jesus said, “hears
me.”
Obviously
faith is personal. This congregation
believes for no one. Membership is not a
golden ticket for eternal life. Getting
confirmed and having a funeral in the church do not guarantee access into
heaven. You must each personally believe
for yourself. This means that you each must
personally receive the Holy Spirit who alone works faith in sinful hearts to
trust in the gospel. This means that you
must each listen to the gospel since the gospel is the only means by which the
Holy Spirit will come to you with Christ and all his gifts.
Yes,
faith is personal. But it is not
private. It is not secret. He who believes with his heart and confesses
with his mouth is the one who is saved. For
those who are able, who have minds that work as they should, God will require
knowledge and understanding of his word.
Often all this consists of for many is the simple but sincere Amen to what God’s servant has spoken.
But
how can you say Amen to what you do
not know or believe? How can you believe
unless you hear? How can you hear
without one to preach it to you? And how
will anyone preach unless God has sent him?
Precisely. Therefore faith comes
by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
And the word of God comes to you not on your pillow at night, not where
you prepare your heart on your own or fix your life and make it ready. No, the word of God comes to you where it is
openly preached for the world to hear. And
so our Amen to God’s word also openly
echoes where the people of God gather to hear it.
For
John, they gathered in the desert where he was, where he was baptizing by the
Jordan. For us, we gather in those oases
of comfort and truth, where the word is taught in its purity and the sacraments
continue to be administered as they were first given by Jesus. Who was John to speak on behalf of God? He was a voice. “My sheep hear my voice,” Jesus
said. And so you, dear Lambs of the
Shepherd, you also know where to find the voice of Jesus. It is where Christ’s servant is preaching it
by Christ’s command.
First
you hear it. Then you confess it. First you need it. Then you own it. You hold sacred what makes you holy. First you learn that you are sinners. Then you rejoice in the forgiveness of
sins. And this you learn again and
again, because if you have any spiritual maturity at all, you will by now have
learned how good your heart is at deceiving itself into defending and
rationalizing your sin away. No, but you
need to be brought to repentance every day.
You need to continue to hear the word that comes from outside of you and
that applies to you what Jesus has earned for you.
Only
then are
Malachi
the prophet foretold it, as we heard moments ago. This is what the Christ will do: “He
will purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may
offer to the Lord an offering in righteousness.”
That is you. The offering of
righteousness that you offer to God is not an offering that atones for your
sins or anyone else’s. It is an offering
of thanks and praise that identifies with St. John the Baptist who it is who has atoned for your sins and the sins of
the whole world. Your priestly offerings
of praise point to him who is your true High Priest who intercedes for you
before the Father in heaven. And your
offering is in righteousness, because it is in faith which lays hold of the
righteousness of Christ, and says, “This
is mine, because my Jesus gave it to me – when I was baptized, when I heard his
voice absolve me, when his servant demonstrated from the Bible how true and
good this is in his sermons, when I ate and drank the body and blood of Christ.” And consider!
The blood of beasts was strictly denied the priests of old. Why?
Because the blood of Christ was reserved for you, priests of the New
Testament.
Yes,
God is jealous. And so are we. Let no one take this word away from you. It is yours.
It is your heritage. You are the
true Israel, the true Zion, the true people of God. What makes you priests is what makes you
worthy to stand before him and serve him in everlasting righteousness, innocence,
and blessedness. It is the gospel that
is so dear to all of us. So let your
light so shine before men.
In
this sense we are not jealous. We do
what Jesus told John’s disciples to do: Go tell what you have seen and
heard! And this was not for John’s
sake. John knew it. John had been pointing to Jesus his whole
ministry. “He must increase, but I must decrease,”
he said. And so as he awaited death in
prison for having rebuked Herod for his sin, he did what every faithful
preacher does. He directed his disciples
who loved him away from himself and to him who loved them.
John
was not a priest. Neither am I – at
least not in my capacity as a servant.
As a Christian I am, and so are you.
But the two are not opposed. You
are a priest because you hear the word of God and believe it, because your High
Priest Jesus gives you sight for blindness, health for the leprosy of sin, life
for death, and for the poverty of your soul he commands the gospel to be
preached to you. And blessed are you who
are not offended because of this. Blessed
are you who do not despise your pastor when he speaks God’s word, when he
rebukes a popular sin, when he speaks what God says rather than what you want
to hear. Blessed are you when you
receive his instruction not as the word of man, but as it is in truth, the word
of God.
We
do not pit the service we render to God as saints against the service we need
as sinners. We do not oppose our
priestly status as God’s people against the duties of Christ’s servants. They are stewards of the mysteries of God for
your sake. These mysteries contain the
mercy you need; they unite Christ and his bride; they give to you the certain
hope of glory with him who still serves you through his called ministers. These are all yours by right of your
Baptism. And for the sake of this, we do
not expect our pastors to be reeds in the wind who bend to social
pressure. We do not expect them to have
the power and respectability of kings or nobles. We do not presume to do for God what God has
commanded them to do for us. Rather, we
expect them to proclaim the prophetic word of God, the gospel, which is the
power of God to salvation for all who believe.
Amen.
