Advent 2

Luke 21:25-36 - Advent 2 - December 4, 2011
My Words Will Not Pass Away

“Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away. Blessed be the name of the LORD” ^{(Job 1:21)}.  Amen.  These familiar words from Job exhibit what it means to have unwavering faith in God in the face of loss.  God gives us good things.  When good things happen, we rejoice and thank Him.  But God also allows bad things to happen by permission of His fatherly care.  Everything, from war abroad to sickness at home, affects our lives in a negative way.  But when they do, we do not despair or become cast down as though God had abandoned us, because these are not signs of our destruction.  These are signs that our redemption is near.  So instead, we lift up our heads and focus our gaze on Christ whose return is imminent. That’s what He promised.   Job didn’t trust in the material things that God gave him; that’s why he didn’t despair when God took them away.  We don’t trust in the temporal blessings that God gives us either.  Instead, we hold fast to His word which will never pass away. 

The Bible was written to teach us.  St. Paul says in our Epistle lesson, “For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope” ^{(Romans 15:4)}.  The reason Scripture is able to bestow such great benefits is because it is the word of God Himself.  By holding onto what the Bible teaches us, we are able to persevere through all trials, because the word of God promises us much more in heaven than what we can possibly lose here on earth.  This is the certain hope that we have in Christ.  And by it, we are comforted. 

The Bible isn’t a dead letter that we confine to a book somewhere, or that we listen to once in a while in order to fill some religious urge.  No, it is the word of God that guides our life every day by giving us God’s own eternal wisdom.  St. Paul wrote to Timothy, “From childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.  All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness” ^{(2 Timothy 3:15-16)}.  The usefulness (or profitableness) of Scripture is found in the fact that it teaches us the Gospel.  That’s why God wrote it – to bring us to the knowledge and confidence of our Savior Jesus Christ. 

We don’t try to hide the fact that the Bible was written by men.  The author of Holy Scripture is God the Holy Spirit.  But He didn’t send down a book from heaven that plopped into the lap of the Church.  Instead, throughout history, He inspired various prophets and evangelists to write the very words that are recorded.  Of course, God used their unique personalities, skills, and individual experiences in order to choose the words they wrote.  But what they wrote is not the words of sinful men.  It is the word of almighty God.  It is as St. Peter writes in his 2^nd Epistle: “Knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit” ^{(2 Peter 1:20)}. 

We don’t look for our own meaning in the Bible.  Scripture teaches us what God wants us to know.  In the last 50 years it has become a popular method of literary interpretation to read even such classics as Shakespeare or Jane Austen through modern eyes, and then to come to a conclusion about the purpose and meaning of their words based on your own response to it.  This of course means that any book has as many genuine meanings as it has people who read it.  Well that’s ridiculous.  We didn’t write it; we can’t determine its meaning.  There can be only one intended meaning.  But of course, even Holy Scripture has not been spared this foolish method of interpretation. 

It is bad enough to impose such silliness upon good literature.  But to impose this on the Bible is to undermine and attack that fundamental concept that the Church cannot live without.  Truth.  It was to bear witness to the truth that the Son of God took on our flesh and blood.  And ever since this witness to the truth was first put on trial, the scornful scoff of Pontius Pilate has been echoing throughout the generations: “What is truth?”  We hear Jesus give an excellent answer to this question in John 17 as He prayed to His Father concerning us, “[Holy Father,] sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth” ^{(John 17:17)}. 

There you have it.  The word of God is true.  Truth is not subject to what is in style.  It isn’t subject to what we want or feel inside.  The certainty of truth lies outside of the whims of sinful man.  The truth of God’s will toward us finds its source outside of us, securely in the bosom of the Father from eternity.  But it is revealed in plain language for us to read and hear and believe in the words of Holy Scripture.  And that is why we continue to hear what God says in humility, finding our life only in the words that He speaks to us. 

The word of God remains relevant today.  And so we continue to gather here and listen to it.  It doesn’t stay relevant by changing, like other things.  No, it stays relevant by being consistent.  God does not change.  But the winds of trendy theology do.  When the relevance of what the Bible clearly teaches is called into question and tailored to a world that by nature does not know God, then the truth of God’s word is attacked.  This happens all the time.  People don’t like to hear that it is a sin to live together outside of marriage; so they pretend that what the Bible says is no longer pertinent to their needs.  People don’t like to hear that women may not preach or have authority over a man, or that God requires wives to submit to their husbands, and so these clear teachings of the Holy Spirit are disregarded as outdated.  Sexual ethics, practices regarding the Lord's Supper, issues of church fellowship seem to cause more discord than peace, and so people moderate the word of God to fit their needs.  But such people don’t know what they need. 

It is not possible to reduce the revealed will of God to some lofty principle of love that excuses sin apart from the blood of Christ.  It does not work to extract the Gospel nugget and sweep away the rest, as though we can determine what is important and what is not.  God does not work through our cooperation.  We don’t help God make His message of love more applicable to the world around us.  We simply confess and cherish what He gives us, and He promises to do the rest. 

Isaiah writes, “For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, And do not return there, But water the earth, And make it bring forth and bud, That it may give seed to the sower And bread to the eater, So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, But it shall accomplish what I please, And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it” ^{(Isaiah 55:10-11)}. 

The truth is important.  God saves us by the truth.  He preserves us from error—both fleshly sins that lead men to perdition and despair, and from spiritual doubt and misbelief that lead men into darkness.  By nature we are corrupt.  God’s word is not.  St. Peter writes concerning that word which has worked faith in our hearts, “Having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever, because ‘All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of the grass.  The grass withers and its flower falls away, but the word of the LORD endures forever.’  Now this is the word which by the gospel was preached to you” ^{(1 Peter 1, 23-24)}. 

Everything we have fades.  Our stuff is not as important as hearing the Gospel that is preached.  Our charm, success, social connections, and retirement plans are all susceptible to loss.  Even as we enjoy these things today, as Christians, we learn to put things in proper perspective.  So how do we use the things that we have?  To whose benefit and whose glory do we employ those earthly blessing that God has given us?  We know what we should do, because we know what lasts and what doesn’t.  But the flesh is weak where the spirit is willing. 

Our God who loves us sees us in our lost condition, and He knows what we need.  That is why God takes things away from us.  “For whom the LORD loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives” ^{(Hebrews 12:6)}.  When we suffer loss, God is teaching us.  He teaches us by driving us to His word that redeems our loss.  Tribulation and suffering alone do not produce the character of a Christian.  No, the Gospel does.  St. Paul tells us that “we glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope” ^{(Romans 5:3-4)}.  Our character as Christians is not produced by God making us suffer.  Our character as Christians is produced by the forgiveness of sins that works faith in our hearts to bear with perseverance everything that God sends us.  And so, when all our glory begins to fade like a flower, when our heads are bowed in sorrow over joys departed and when our mortality, brought upon by our own sin has become impossible to deny, then we flee to Him and to His words.  “Heaven and earth will pass away,” Jesus said, “but my words will not pass away” ^{(Luke 21:33)}. 

And what do His words say?  He who believes and is baptized … Take eat, take drink, this is my body … come unto me … Jesus’ words speak to us the very peace that He won on the cross as He suffered and died for all our sins – naked to clothe us with His own righteousness, and empty handed to win for us what heaven cannot contain. 

A glory Thou dost give me,
A treasure safe on high,
That will not fail or leave me
As earthly riches fly.

And earthly riches most certainly fly.  These are the signs of the times.  The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.   But that which causes distress and perplexity in those who rely on these fleeting heirlooms, that which causes the faithless to faint with fear in terrified expectation of what is coming is — for us merely a sign that our redemption is drawing near.  That’s what Jesus says.  And so we do what Jesus tells us to do.  We straighten up, we raise our heads, and we listen to what our God has been so gracious to teach us.  And we sing,

To me the preaching of the cross
Is wisdom everlasting.
Thy death alone redeems my loss;
On Thee my burden casting.
I in Thy name a refuge claim
From sin and death and from all shame. 
Blessed be Thy name, O Jesus. 

The words of Jesus do two things that nothing else in all the world can ever do.  They forgive us our sins, and they last forever.  God gives us His word because He loves us.  And so we look to where He demonstrates this love in the crucifixion of His Son, where he has won for us eternal life in heaven.  When we know this God, then we know the God who gives us all things.  And as we thank Him for all the wonderful gifts will someday slip out of our hands, we do so by faith in the promise of eternal life which will be ours forever. 

In Jesus’ name, Amen. 

Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.  Amen.