ADVENT FOURTH – SERMON OUTLINE – DECEMBER 19, 2010
Philippians 4:4-7; St. John 1:19-28
“…there standeth one among you, whom ye know not; He it is, who coming after me is preferred before me, whose shoe’s latchet I am not worthy to unloose.”
I. Introduction: When the World Turns Upside Down
a. Especially in our culture today, Christmas is a celebration of abundance, but with all the needy that have come into the church lately, I cannot help but ask: ‘What’s the world like when you lose everything? How does it feel to go from having so much to having nothing?’
b. These are actually appropriate questions, because on this last Sunday in Advent, that’s where our salvation story has brought us. A few centuries before Christ, Jeremiah the prophet was called by God to be the bearer horrifying news. Being a prophet in ancient Israel always came with the burden of blessings and curses, but Jeremiah had to give the people the tragic warning that they were about to lose everything. It’s no wonder that he’s often called “the weeping prophet.”
i. Jerusalem—the most beautiful city in Near East—would become a desolation: the city and its surrounding regions wouldn’t even be fit for an animal to inhabit
ii. All reason to sing, to love, to marry (etc.) would be taken away
iii. And the people would be exiled to a foreign nation and enslaved
c. But that wouldn’t be the worst part of this Judea’s darkest hour:
i. God would no longer dwell among His People
ii. Judea had sinned (idolatry, immorality, injustice) and broken God’s covenant: they would no longer know Him in the temple or the synagogue or even hear His voice through the Law
iii. Just imagine their being destitute, not just of their families, land, and possessions—but even the means to practice their Faith! Now they really had NOTHING!
d. Maybe some of us, like the Jews, today know what it’s like to lose everything?
i. A job, money, property, health, or a loved one—gone—and your world turned upside down
ii. Sometimes our mistakes cause this; sometimes not. Whether or not you fell from grace, maybe it even seemed like God wasn’t there anymore. No faith? That is losing everything!
e. What becomes our everything when we have nothing? For us or for the Jews back then, it’s the same.
II. From Desolation to Jubilation—A Tale of Two Prophets
a. This fourth and last Sunday in Advent, reminds us that the story took a turn for the better: something came to fill all that nothing.
b. In fact, as we heard in Morning Prayer, even Jeremiah’s prophecy became optimistic
i. “Thus saith the LORD; Again there shall be heard in this place…the voice of joy, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride, the voice of them that shall say, Praise the LORD of hosts: for the LORD is good; for his mercy endureth for ever:”
ii. God promised that one day He would rebuild Jerusalem and the people would return from Babylon, growing stronger than in the days of old
iii. Most importantly, He would renew the covenant to ensure that there would be peace and harmony between Himself and His People
c. Life would actually be better than it was before. But from the Bible, we find since Adam and Eve’s banishment from Eden that God always works this way. Whenever He redeems, salvation is advanced:
i. Our blessings increase, our love and appreciation for one another is more genuine, God’s presence becomes more knowable and real
ii. This timeless message from Jeremiah is read today to assure us that God will never completely abandon us. He loves us too much and it’s His delight to put as back together.
iii. God is glorified when He emerges as the everything out of our nothing
d. And with Christmas only a few days away, we already know how this restoration happens!
We’ve been tracing its approach on this Advent wreath!
A light will arise out of the darkness: note the Christ candle in the middle of the Advent wreath just waiting to be lit on Christmas Eve!
e. This is exactly what Jeremiah said to comfort the Jews:
i. “In those days, and at that time, will I cause the Branch of righteousness to grow up unto David”
ii. In other words, the King would return
iii. David’s son would rise up as the Messiah to save them and bring back safety and justice—
God would again stand among His People.
f. All these centuries later, this is the same way that John the Baptist leaves us just before Christmas
i. He picks up the story where Jeremiah left off to usher the Messiah onto our scene
ii. As we heard him say in St. John’s Gospel this morning: “there standeth one among you.” And the very next day, Jesus would meet John there at the Jordan River to be baptized.
iii. The fullness of time had come! With the start of Jesus’ ministry, our salvation would no longer be just new teachings or foretastes of promises: the substance was here. John was telling the world that God now walks the earth, and ‘I’m not worthy to even untie His shoe.’
g. “Christ standeth among us.” That’s the last message of Advent that we need to take with ourselves as we get ready for Christmas Eve this coming Friday night.
i. Like John the Baptist did not feel worthy to unloose Jesus’ sandal strap, we may not feel ‘worthy to have Him come under our roof’ as we declare in our liturgy. But, as Christians if we are willing to admit that we are nothing and have nothing without Jesus—then He will become our everything. And that’s the true meaning of Christmas.
ii. Because, right now, Jesus stands among us. His presence in the Sacrament is as real as it was 2000 years ago when He stood by the Jordan River.
iii. In the Holy Communion we cannot see His face, and yet we know Him. But not as a stranger (as He was to the Jews), but as our Emmanuel—our “God with us.”
iv. I hope that we will all carefully meditate on this reality as we receive today. Christmas means so much more when we recognize Jesus’ unseen Presence to celebrate His First Advent, because then we just can’t wait to welcome Him in His Second Advent. And, as we’ve been emphasizing this whole season, vigilant Christians are the ones Christ wants to find.
v. This is why we prayed in our Collect this morning: “O Lord…come among us, and with great might succour us…that…thy bountiful grace and mercy may speedily help and deliver us….”
III. Conclusion: Finding Joy in Christ’s Deliverance
a. Jesus takes our worst news and transforms it into the best news.
b. With Christmas coming, that’s more than just a sigh of relief for deliverance. Jesus becoming our everything is the greatest joy a person can know.
c. We have to recall from earlier this morning what St. Paul wrote to the Philippians:
“Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, rejoice.”
d. Joy isn’t just that Jesus came to save the world. Joy is that He came to unite Himself to the world. And as Christians we know that truth personally. When we make our communion, we should recall, as our liturgy says that, “[we are] made one body with him, that he may dwell in us and we in Him.”
In Jesus, God and Man are one forever, and we never have to worry about being reduced to nothing.
i. As St. Athanasius once declared: “God became Man in order that man might become God.”
ii. Not that God would cease to be God, or that man would cease to be man, but that by standing here where we come from, Jesus might lift us up to stand where He comes from.
iii. How’s that for joy this Christmas? AMEN.
