Sermon: Rorate Coeli (Advent 4) - 2019

22 December 2019

Text: John 1:19-28 (Deut 18:15-19, Phil 4:4-7)

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

John the Baptist was an unlikely hero.  He was an outsider.  He did not wear soft clothing and live in a palace or cozy up to royalty like the Herodians.  He was not a temple priest or a Levite.  He was not a Roman, neither a patrician nor a centurion.  He had no political clout among the ruling class.  He was not a scribe or a lawyer.  He was not a merchant and had no wealth.  He was neither a Pharisee nor a Sadducee. 

He lived in the desert, wore camel’s hair, ate locusts and wild honey, and sometimes insulted the large crowds who came to hear him preach and to be baptized by him.  Eventually he would even insult the king and queen.  But people flocked to him in multitudes.  He did not tell them they could have their best life now in seven easy steps, nor did he tell people that God accepts them just as they are.  

He told them to repent and be baptized.

He told them something else, “I baptize with water, but among you stands One you do not know, even He who comes after me, the strap of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie.”

The crowds could sense that something was happening.  John preached to them with a sense of urgency that the kingdom of God was near.  And when the crowds were interested in him, in John, when they asked him, “‘Who are you?’ He confessed, and did not deny, but confessed, ‘I am not the Christ.’”  John did not try to cash in on his fame.  John did not promote himself.  John did not put forward his own plans, but rather pointed them to Jesus.

But even the priests and the Levites knew there was something supernatural about John.  They asked if He were Elijah.  They asked if he were the Prophet spoken of by Moses in our Old Testament reading (who was fulfilled in Christ).  John kept saying, “No.”  And when the priests and Levites pressed him for an answer, John pointed them to the prophecy of Isaiah: “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord.’” 

And when the Pharisees also interrogated him about his ministry of baptizing people – being that he denied being the Christ, Elijah, and the Prophet – John did what he did best: he preached Christ.

John is not just an unlikely hero, not just the final prophet, not just, as Jesus said, one who is the greatest of men born to a woman – John is the model of every Christian.  John is the model for pastors, for he preached repentance and he preached Christ.  John is also the model for laypeople, for he “confessed and did not deny.”  John confessed not only who he was and who he wasn’t, but he also confessed Christ.

We Christians are confessors – not only of our sins, but also of the faith, of the Gospel, of the cross, of our Lord.  To confess is to say the same that that you have been told.  To confess is to repeat what God has revealed to you.  God revealed Christ to John by means of prophecy.  God reveals Christ to us by means of His Word: His Word preached and His Word given in Holy Baptism.  John’s ministry is the church’s ministry: confessing, preaching, and administering sacraments, bringing people not to ourselves but to Jesus, not for our personal gain, but for the sake of love, of redemption, of salvation, of obedience to what our Lord calls us to do.

John had a call to preach.  So do pastors.  How can we not?  We are given a Word, and we proclaim.  We are given to call people to repent, and so we give pastoral care.  We are called to baptize, and so we bring people to Jesus, and like John, we bring Jesus to the people.  We point people to the One whose sandals we are unworthy to untie.  

John had a call to confess.  So do all Christians.  How can we not?  We are baptized into Christ.  We are given His Word.  We are called to repent.  We are given absolution.  Like John, we are told to confess – before friend and foe alike, before our brothers and sisters in the church, and before those who do not believe – we are called to confess our Lord Jesus Christ, and to follow Him, to be willing to suffer for Him.  

So how do you confess, dear brothers and sisters?  You confess when you do not deny Jesus.  You confess when you openly say that you are a Christian.  You confess when the Word of God is a priority to you.  You confess when you regularly are where Jesus is, when you devoutly receive His body and blood.  You confess when you give offerings not only to your church, but to those in need.  You confess when you reach out to people in love, and show them the mercy of God.  You confess when you are Christ to your neighbor.

Preachers and confessors do not seek glory for themselves.  For they are subjects of the kingdom.  Preachers and confessors seek glory only for their King.  Preachers and confessors are motivated by love: for God and for neighbor.  They are also motivated by the love shown to them by the Son, by His blood shed on the cross, by the eternal life that we all inherit through the atoning death of our Lord upon the cross.

That is our confession, dear brothers and sisters.  That is what we in the office of the holy ministry preach.  And like John, we do not accumulate followers, but rather send them to Jesus.  Like John, we preachers and confessors must decrease, and He, Jesus, must increase.  

John spoke the Word of God because He knew it was true, and He knew that it worked.  He knew that the Scriptures spoke of Jesus.  And that is what John did: in word and in deed, in his life, ministry, and even in his death.

On this last Sunday of Advent, we listen to John, for John preaches and confesses Christ.  And whether we, like John, are surrounded by adoring crowds, or whether we, like John, are stuck in a dungeon facing execution – whether we live or die – we do as we are called to do: confess Christ.  It is only in Him, in Christ, that we can, as St. Paul invites us: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.”  And whether we are preachers or confessors, whether we are beloved by the many or hated by the powerful – our lives are focused in Christ: “by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving.”

“And the peace of God,” dear brothers and sisters, dear confessors of Christ, “the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”  Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.