11 December 2011 at Salem Lutheran Church, Gretna, LA
Text: Matt 11:2-11 (Isa 40:1-11, 1 Cor 4:1-5)
In the name of +
Jesus. Amen.
Rejoice in the Lord
always. Again will I say, rejoice!”
The Lord invites us to rejoice,
dear friends, and He even inspires St. Paul to say it again: rejoice! The Latin translation of this verse – which
we sang at the beginning of the service – gives this Sunday its distinctive
name in the church year: Gaudete – “rejoice.”
It is also the source of the festive rose-colored candle that marks this
week’s joyful break from the law-laden texts of our season of Advent.
And so, I will also say it
again, dear friends, “rejoice!”
We need to be clear about why
we are rejoicing. What is it that fills
us with joy. Is it the fact that we
Christians have nothing to worry about?
No financial worries? No
sickness, sadness, anxiety, or death? Do
we have perfect families, an endless supply of money and time? Are we free from sinful thoughts, words, deeds,
aches and pains, struggles and things that give us sore backs and gray hair?
Indeed, when St. Paul penned
these enthusiastic and joyful words, he was languishing in a Roman prison, his
fate in the hands of officials with no love for Christianity.
So why should we
rejoice? The fact that we live in such
conditions, dominated by disease, pain, anxiety, sin, Satan, and death makes
our rejoicing the greater. The struggles
that we all face under the cross bring clarity to our lives. For the most part, we live a lie, pushing our
own sin and our own mortality to the edges of our minds, ignoring them as much
as possible. But when we can’t cover it
up, such as when our loved ones die, when we are sick, when aches and pains
multiply, when we lose our jobs, when we have shocking family tragedies, when
we are surrounded by injustice – in such times we understand that we are, like
St. Paul, prisoners – chained to our sinful flesh, incarcerated in a
deteriorating body, and held captive in an increasingly devilish culture. We are attacked by bullies without and by our
own hypocrisy within.
And, dear friends, this is
all the more reason to “rejoice.” For
help is on the way!
Like St. Paul who came after
Jesus, St. John the Baptist came before Him.
Both John and Paul were preachers of the good news, heralds of Jesus
Christ. Both called people to
repent. Both were brutalized for their
confession and proclamation. Both were
beheaded by the authorities.
In the gloom of his prison,
John the Baptist sends messengers to inquire of Jesus: “Are You the One who is
to come, or shall we look for another.”
Jesus lifted John’s spirits by sending the messengers back with a
testimony of good news: “the blind receive their sight and the lame walk,
lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor
have good news preached to them.”
In so many words, our blessed
Lord invites John to “rejoice” even in prison, even with his own execution
looming. For help is on the way!
A popular soldier’s song from
the War Between the States called “Tramp, Tramp, Tramp” speaks of POWs
languishing in their cells. But they
hear friendly troops coming to liberate them.
The subtitle of the anthem says it best: “The Prisoner’s Hope.”
Prisoners of war develop a
certain sensitivity to their conditions.
Cut off from news from home or from the battle front, they learn to read
the clues. When friendly troops get
closer, the conditions begin to improve.
They get better and healthier rations, human rights violations decrease,
and they may even be treated with respect.
They can sense when help is on the way, and even in their captivity,
they have hope. There is reason to
rejoice.
Dear friends, we, like St.
Paul and like St. John the Baptist are prisoners of the oldest war in
creation. We are imprisoned in this
fallen world awaiting the “tramp, tramp, tramp” of our Liberator’s nail-scarred
feet. Even as we suffer, we suffer in
joyful hope, as our hearts beat ever faster at the expectation of the Lord’s
coming.
Jesus is our Liberator, our
Savior, the One who has come to burst the bonds of our fetters of sin, to break
the chains of death, to break down the walls of our mortal prison. And even though we hear Him in the distance
through His preachers, by means of His Word, in the sound of His promises – we
rejoice and we rejoice again – because of our hope, because of what He has done
for us!
And so when we suffer, our
hope paradoxically increases. When we
hurt and struggle, it is then that we do not take false comfort in this broken
world’s broken promises, but we look our captor square in the face knowing that
he has been defeated at the cross and will be expelled for all eternity by our
heroic Savior when He comes to set us at liberty by virtue of His blood and His
cross, His death-conquering death, and His life-restoring resurrection. Rejoice!
This is the good news – the
“comfort” of forgiveness and freedom, of healing and life, of re-creation and
eternity – that we “servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God”
have been given to proclaim. We have
been charged to bring light to the dark dungeon, bearing keys to spring the
prisoner from his bonds – by the work and Word of Christ, and Him alone. We have been given a message: “Comfort,
comfort My people, says your God. Speak
tenderly to Jerusalem and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her
iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all
her sins.” Rejoice!
With St. John and St. Paul,
the church has been carrying out her orders for 2,000 years to: “Get you up to
a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good news; life up your voice with strength,
O Jerusalem, herald of good news; lift it up, fear not; say to the cities of
Judah, ‘Behold your God!’” Again will I
say, rejoice!
Dear friends, we do live in
the fallen world. We have struggles and
temptations and trials and we contend with the ultimate enemy of death
itself. And yet, we join Sts. John and
Paul from the dungeon defiantly and cheerfully crying out:
“Rejoice in the Lord
always. Again will I say, rejoice!”
The Lord Jesus is
coming! He is truly the prisoner’s
hope! With each passing year, the tramp
of his feet grows louder, the era of the devil grows shorter, and the time of
our redemption draws near! For our Lord
and Liberator is He “who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness
and will disclose the purposes of the heart.
Then each one will receive his commendation from God.”
“Rejoice in the Lord always,”
dear friends, dear fellow redeemed and rescued.
Rejoice as He draws near. Rejoice
even from our captivity as the days grow short.
Rejoice in the hearing of this good news! “Again will I say, rejoice!”
Amen.
In the name of the Father
and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
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