Text: Luke
21:25-36 (Isa 40:1-11, 1 Cor 4:1-5)
In the name of + Jesus. Amen.
The first words that we sang together in this Divine Service, dear friends, was “Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, will I say rejoice.” This comes from St. Paul’s letter to the Philippians, and churches all over the world sing this as the introit on this third Sunday in Advent. In Latin, “rejoice” is “Gaudete” – and that gives this Sunday its name. The rose colored vestments and the rose colored candle in the Advent wreath remind us to rejoice!
As we wait for our Lord, we rightfully mourn our sins and pray for forgiveness. We rightfully seek reconciliation with God and with other people. We rightfully hear the Law and the warning that our Lord is coming back as the King of the world, and we do not want to be on the receiving end of His wrath. But let us never forget, dear brothers and sisters, that our King came not to condemn, but to save. And we are saved by calling upon His name in faith, by confessing Him as Lord, and in being brought into the covenant by means of Holy Baptism.
We rejoice at the Lord’s coming – His coming in the past as the babe of Bethlehem, His coming in the present under the forms of bread and wine, and His coming in the future to ransom His redeemed and to judge His enemies.
In the gradual that we sang right before the Epistle reading, we prayed to Jesus our Dayspring to “come and enlighten those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death.”
King David, in Psalm 143 speaks of his own enemy who “has made me sit in darkness like those long dead.” He prays to God to save him. And in the New Testament, St. Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, sings the answer to King David’s prayers: the coming of Jesus, the Son of David, the “sunrise” who shall “visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.”
In our Gospel reading, Zechariah’s son, St. John the Baptist, sits in darkness and in the shadow of death, having been placed into a dungeon by King Herod, who was offended by his preaching. It is a dark place. It is a place of death.
And John the Baptist is suffering as he sits in the darkness of his own cell, and the shadow of his own death looms, as his enemy Herod will have him executed. In his distress, St. John sends disciples to ask Jesus, “Are You the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?” Jesus encourages John to rejoice, even in prison; to rejoice, even in the face of death.
Our Lord tells John’s disciples to “go and tell John what you hear and see.” And Jesus gives John a list of reasons to rejoice: concrete and literal examples where those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death are indeed enlightened, and even raised from their mortal condition. Jesus points out the miracles that are happening, the prophecies of Scripture that are being fulfilled: “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. And blessed is the one who is not offended by Me.”
Jesus sends John’s disciples and messengers not with a command to rejoice, but rather with an invitation to do so, based on what is happening, based on what God is doing in the world. For not even John’s imprisonment, and not even his death, can prevent his rejoicing at what is happening in the world, and indeed, what will happen to John.
And with John, we too rejoice. Not because we are compelled to do so, but rather because we can’t help but to rejoice in the face of what is happening to us. The darkness that covers this earth cannot abide the “Light of the world” who is Jesus. The mortality, the death that we sit in, cannot contain us any more than it could contain Jesus in the tomb. Death is being undone by our Lord’s conquest and victory – a victory that John the Baptist shares in, and so do we, dear friends!
We rejoice because we are “surprised by joy,” as the great C.S. Lewis worded it. Because in this fallen existence, we all, like John the Baptist, sit in darkness – the darkness of the devil, the world, and our sinful nature. We all, like John, sit in the shadow of death, our own death and the death of our loved ones. Death blocks out the sunshine and casts a cold shadow over us.
But here is why we rejoice, dear friends. We rejoice because our fortunes have changed. We were once blind to the Lord’s mercy, but now we see. We were once deaf to the Lord’s promises, but now we hear. We were once trapped, but now we can walk. We were once consumed by the fleshly destruction of sin, and now we are cleansed. And though we will die, we will rise again! We poor, miserable sinners have “good news preached to [us].” The Good News is that we are forgiven, we will rise from where we now sit: in darkness and in death. We will rise from the gloom to the brightness. We will rise from the tomb and will indeed revive. And blessed are we, dear friends, when we are not offended by Jesus. In fact, we are not offended, but rather we are filled with joy!
“Rejoice in the Lord always. And again will I say, rejoice!”
The prophets who have been sent, and the preachers who have been commissioned to proclaim this good news have the same vocation, as the Lord commanded Isaiah: “Comfort, comfort My people, says your God.” The prophet and the preacher are to give comfort to their hearers: “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.”
This is good news! This is enlightenment to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death. And Isaiah gives us a preview of John the Baptist, “A voice cries: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God…. The grass withers. The flower fades, but the Word of our God will stand forever.”
This is good news, dear friends! For our previous bad condition has suddenly been reversed. The blind see, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and we poor, miserable sinners indeed hear this good news preached!
As St. Paul writes to the Corinthians, let us regard those who preach this Gospel to us as “stewards of the mysteries of God.” For we stewards have food to serve you, dear friends: food that has not only the power to nourish your bodies, but even to raise your bodies from death: the body and blood of the very Lord Jesus Christ, who invites us to rejoice because of what He has done! For St. Paul describes our Lord, who is coming again in glory, as the one “who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart.”
So let us continue to look around and remind ourselves of what John was told, what the Lord was doing, and what He continues to do, dear friends. Let us take St. Paul’s inspired invitation to “rejoice” to heart. Let us look to Jesus as our Dayspring, praying for Him to “come and enlighten those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death.” Let us come to this rail, leaving behind the darkness of sin and death to receive the Light of the World: the one who shines to dispel our darkness, to forgive our sins, and to raise us from death. For He invites us to hear His Gospel and see His redemptive work in our lives.
“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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