Advent 2

Good Shepherd

2004 Pass Rd, Biloxi, MS 39531

Draft Malachi 4:1–6; Rom 15:4–13; Lk 21:25–36; Ps 50:1–15; antiphon: v. 15   –     12/7/25

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father, and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

There are a great many things which I could address from the Gospel reading today, such as the dispensationalist misinterpretation American Christianity has imposed upon this whole chapter, or I could address the uncertain timing of the end, or again encourage you to equip yourself with God’s Word so that you can stand firm with head held high for Christ’s return, or warn you yet again about the burdens the devil, the world, and your sinful flesh would impose upon you, or about the judgment waiting for the unbelievers, but all of those would be of little use to you without the foundation upon which such lessons must rest, that being the reliability of God’s Word: Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

Thus our Confessions teach, “We are certainly in duty bound not to interpret and explain these words of the eternal, true, and almighty Son of God, our Lord, Creator, and Redeemer, Jesus Christ, differently, as allegorical, figurative, tropical expressions, according as it seems agreeable to our reason, but with simple faith and due obedience to receive the words as they read, in their proper and plain sense, and allow ourselves to be diverted … [from this express testament of Christ] by no objections or human contradictions spun from human reason, however charming they may appear to reason.” (FC VII, §43–45)

Now the Formula of Concord, which I just quoted, is specifically speaking about the Lord’s Supper, that we are to hear and read Christ’s Words: This is My body, and This is My blood, given for you for the forgiveness of sins, and believe that as Jesus has said so He means: when we eat the bread we do not only eat bread but also, in a way beyond our understanding, we eat Christ’s body, and likewise when we drink the cup of wine we also, in a way outside our ability to explain, drink Christ’s blood, and to the eating and drinking of these in faith God has attached the forgiveness of sin. Anyone who denies that in the Lord’s Supper we receive forgiveness, or denies that we receive bread and body, wine and blood kicks against God’s Word.

But what Martin Chemnitz and the others wrote when they read and understood Luke 21:33 does not only apply to Matthew 26:26–28, Mark 14:22–25, Luke 22:19–20, and 1 Corinthians 11:23–26, but to the whole of the Bible. Thus, for the Apostles and first few thousand Christians, when God sent Peter and Paul to the Gentiles they were instructed to believe the work true and faithful because God had beforehand said that after the day of salvation He would bring into the fold of the church the flock that had been foreign to His people (Jn 10:16). St. Paul has wonderfully quoted these promises for us in Romans today, citing 2 Samuel 22, Psalm 18 and 117, Deuteronomy 32, and Isaiah 11. So St. Paul is showing his Gentile hearers through God’s Word that they are duty bound to believe that they are legitimately adopted into God’s people apart from works of the flesh. St. Paul’s argument in Romans applies equally to you: Whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God. The promise to the Gentiles is meant to give them, give you hope, but also encourage unity among God’s people in faithfulness to the doctrine God has given to us through the Apostles and Prophets. The Jews in the Early Church who resisted the conversion of the Gentiles kicked against God’s Word.

The steadfastness of Christ’s Word extends also to those doctrines in addition to the Lord’s Supper and the universal call to repentance and faith. Just as God through His Word makes the Lord’s Supper effective always for the forgiveness of sins for those who believe, but effective in condemnation for those who do not believe; just as God kept His promise that through Abraham’s seed all the nations of the earth will be blessed, that is, through Jesus, so in all else that God has given us in the Scriptures He is faithful and unchanging. Thus Malachi records, For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed.

Therefore when God through St. Peter says, baptism, which corresponds to Noah’s ark in the flood, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but Baptism appealing to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him (1.3:21–22), we know that all who are baptized in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, as Jesus says in Matthew 28:19, are regenerated, justified (Titus 3:4ff), united with Christ and made God’s children (Gal 3:26–27). Even those who sin remain baptized and the forgiveness of God remains in effect for them if they would but repent and so receive absolution, that is, God’s forgiven. Anyone who denies that baptism saves, or denies that absolution is effective kicks against God’s unchanging Word.

God’s unchanging Word and unchanging character then also show us He does not change with the times, as the progressive, really, pagan churches teach. God has commanded that only men, and even then only very few men, may serve in the pastoral office, and only men within the pastoral office are to be the theological teachers and preachers of the Church. All of which St Paul shows repeatedly in his pastoral epistles. Anyone who tries to open the pastoral office to women, to the untrained, to the untested, or anyone who sets himself or herself up as a teacher of the church without obeying God’s rightly ordered call kicks against God’s Word.

God’s unchanging nature as provider to His unchanging Church as receiver He has mirrored in Marriage. He made marriage to be between one man and one woman alone. And as Christ is the head of the Church who loves Him and spreads His Word among the lost, so God made man to be head of his wife. Thus the wife, not a slave, but loved by her husband is fellow laborer and obeys and honors her husband. Likewise just as God through the churchly work of His pastors and laity in proclaiming the Gospel of Christ makes new Christians so He has made marriage to be fruitful in procreating little children, with the exception of the barren to whom God has given the blessed vocations of friend, helper, intercessor, and especially the patient hearer and comforter. Any who would deny the male and female binary, or who would support homosexual false marriage, who would refuse children through the use of contraception or take the power of procreation into their own hands through IVF, any who would demean marriage, singleness, or barrenness, any who would reject male headship kick against God’s Word.

Though men lie and the weather changes, God does not change, thus when we read that in six days God created the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, God meant six genuine days. When Scripture records that God made mankind only male and female, and that God set man to have dominion over the animals, God’s character means that that is exactly what happened. Anyone who denies the six day creation, the young earth, that male and female are the only sexes, or places animals in value above men kicks against God’s Word.

Those who kick against God’s Word will soon find that their aching feet are soft and bones brittle, while God’s Word remains and ever will remain the rock of offense (1 Peter 2:8) and an unmoving foundation upon Whom alone we must all build our hope for salvation.

And so we could speak of all the doctrines, that of the liturgy as that of the laborer, that of the slave as that citizen. But what of the prophecy Jesus speaks today? I urge when you go home to read the whole of the chapter so that you can see the whole of the context. You will see that Jesus is first speaking of the year 70 AD, when the Roman general Titus destroys Jerusalem and the temple. In that event God shows the Church as well as the unbelieving Jews that His Word was fulfilled at the cross and resurrection, that word being what Jesus had said to the woman at the well, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father (Jn 4:21), thus destroying the false idol of the temple which the Jews held. However, you must also read elsewhere in the Bible to understand how God uses prophecy as well as history as it happens to His people. When you do so you will see that every destruction, every defeat, every death is an image, an antitype as we call them, of the Day of Judgment, for when Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem, or when Titus destroyed Jerusalem and the temple, or when a man dies the Day of Judgment has come.

For the one who dies in such a battle, or in a storm, or in an accident, he finds himself at once standing before the throne of judgment—to the Christian, whether of the Old Testament era or our New Testament era, this is good news for you sins are already washed away in the waters of Holy Baptism and it is thus not you who are judged, but Christ Jesus your Savior who was judged beforehand in your place. But to the unbeliever, who remains in his sin, in his unbelief, the second death is all he has.

For the one who survives such a battle, or a storm, or an accident, he is reminded that his end is coming, that, as Asaph says, Our God comes; he does not keep silence; before him is a devouring fire, around him a mighty tempest. He calls to the heavens above and to the earth, that he may judge his people: “Gather to me my faithful ones, who made a covenant with me by sacrifice!” The heavens declare his righteousness, for God himself is judge! Thus this survivor must be watchful. He must trust in the sacrifice of Christ by which he is joined to the covenant with God. He must hear Christ: when these things begin to take place, straighten up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near. Yet also, because the devil is wily, the world smothering, and his sinful flesh weak, watch yourselves lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly like a trap. For it will come upon all who dwell on the face of the whole earth. But stay awake at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are going to take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.

So hearing Christ let us be prepared. Whether we live to see the final Judgment Day, or our little judgment day of death comes first, let each one of us for the other pray with St. Paul, 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. And further, let us each pray that we all remain faithful to God’s unchanging Word and all His doctrines no matter the storms, no matter the mockery. Maybe next year we’ll deal with the other themes present in today’s reading.

Now the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen