16 December 2012 at Salem Lutheran Church, Gretna, LA
Text: Matt 11:2-11
In the name of +
Jesus. Amen.
Gaudete! “Rejoice!” says our Lord. “Rejoice in the Lord always. Again will I say, rejoice.”
This is the season of
rejoicing – especially for retailers looking to finally run from red to
back. This is the season for rejoicing –
especially for pharmaceutical companies who sell antidepressants. This is the season for rejoicing – especially
for liquor stores cashing in on both the joyful and the profoundly sad.
We are indeed to rejoice
always. These are the very words of St.
Paul recorded in His letter to the Philippians that is not only the words of
Scripture but also the opening of today’s liturgy that gives this Third Sunday
in Lent its name. The rose-colored
“shepherd’s candle” lit this week is a visual reminder of the joy bursting at
the seams just under the surface of this season of purple penitence.
Jesus had wonderful news for
John the Baptist. He told John’s
messengers, with great joy and perhaps even excitement in His voice: “Go and
tell John what you hear and see: 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.”
Jesus is indeed telling John
to “rejoice” for the Kingdom of heaven is truly at hand. “Rejoice” for the Messiah foretold by the
prophets for thousands of years has arrived.
“Rejoice,” for you, John, have come as the last prophet, and “more than
a prophet” – the “messenger” foretold by Isaiah, sent to prepare the Lord’s way
before him.
“Rejoice,” St. John the
Baptist, for truly Jesus says to us concerning His own cousin John: “among
those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the
Baptist.”
And yet it is hard to imagine
John rejoicing. For he is
suffering. He is in a prison, a dungeon,
a cold, gloomy place of isolation, cut off from those he loves and from the
ministry the Lord called him to do. He
knows that at any moment, he could be seized by vicious goons and dragged away to
a chopping block to be executed. He is miserable
and lonely and hungry. He seems to be
having doubts about His own proclamation that Jesus is the Christ: “Are You the
One who is to come, or shall we look for another?”
One can only imagine the low
point in John’s life as everything he has known has been taken from him. Even his trust in God seems to have gotten
him nowhere. He is mourning in lonely
exile, seemingly defeated, as happened so often in his nation’s history, crushed
yet again by a mightier people aided by the scoundrels and traitors in the
puppet-government who collaborate with the tyrants.
And in this situation, Jesus
gives Him this “good news.” Rejoice in
the Lord always?
In the midst of our own
celebrations and family gatherings, our gift-giving and good cheer, this is for
many a time of loneliness, an exile of haunting memories and regrets about the
past. Our country mourns the senseless
and evil loss of 20 children and six adults in Newtown, Connecticut, suffering
the effects of evil, imprisoned by the notion that these children are not to be
seen again on this side of the grave – so close to Christmas. Think of the lifelong scar this will sear
into those families.
In the midst of our own
mournful exile here, we may be tempted to join with John in asking our Lord,
“Are You the One who is to come, or shall we look for another.” And our Lord tells us: “Rejoice! Rejoice in the Lord always. Again will I say, rejoice.”
Even when children are being
slaughtered. Even when the innocent
languish in prison. Even when evil seems
to have the upper hand. Even when we
suffer physically, psychologically, and spiritually. Even when we “sit in darkness and in the
shadow of death.”
For that is the point, dear
friends. Our Lord has come to ransom
captive Israel from this, to save us out of this, to liberate us from this
captivity, this prison, and to empower us to rejoice in the face of this, this
fallen world of sin, this seeming sovereignty of death, this apparent invincible
empire of the devil. No, brothers and
sisters, this is all temporary. It is
already undone. It has been overcome by
our Emmanuel! For “Jesus Christ is the light of the world, the light no
darkness can overcome.” And like one
stubborn candle burning defiantly in the middle of the night, our Lord comes to
disperse “death’s dark shadows” and to dispatch the devil, to conquer death by
dying and to raise us to new life by giving us victory “o’er the grave.”
For as vicious as Satan is
this time of year, and as seemingly powerful evil is in snuffing out the lives
of children (much as Herod did in a futile attempt to murder the young Jesus), as
mighty as the devil appears in destroying the unity of families, shredding
communities and churches and even the peace of the entire world itself,
remember, Satan is a paper tiger that has already been defeated by the Babe of
Bethlehem, by the one announced by John the Baptist, by the one crucified whose
mortal wound mortally wounded the serpent, and whose resurrection from the dead
confirms for us the promises and the fulfillment of Holy Baptism, the one who
bids “our sad divisions cease.” For John
was not merely the preacher of righteousness, he was the baptizer of the Only
One Who Is Righteous.
So take heart, dear brothers
and sisters, take heart! Even when your
health is in decline or even distress, know that your eternal life has been
declared. Rejoice! Even when family disharmony and strife
divides and seemingly conquers all that is good and right and holy, know that
your brothers and sisters in Christ around the world continue to confess Him
who is the one true Good, Right, and Holy.
Rejoice! Even when subjected to
prison, to false accusations, to physical depredation, to mental anguish, to
the stress and strains of life in this fallen and diabolical world – continue
to cling to Him whose “gentleness” is “known to all men” for “the Lord is at
hand.” Rejoice!
This is how we Christians can
rejoice even in sorrow, how we can find courage and strength to go on even when
confronted with a slaughter of innocents in our own day, when it seems every joyful
Christmas carol and Advent hymn proclaiming victory and hope ring hollow: remember
the words of the ancient hymn:
O come, Thou Dayspring from on high,
And cheer us by Thy drawing nigh;
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
And death’s dark shadows put to flight.
Rejoice!
Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to Thee, O Israel.
Dear brothers and sisters in
Christ, the coming Messiah, the Babe of Bethlehem, the Merciful One: Gaudete!
“Rejoice!” says our Lord.
“Rejoice in the Lord always.
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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