Intro
Like all kings, our Lord Jesus does not simply show up unannounced. A long line of prophets: Moses, David, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and others first prophesied of the Messiah. Then, the angel Gabriel spoke to the Blessed Virgin. And last, the last of the Old Testament prophets, John the Baptizer, blazed the path of the Messiah by announcing His arrival. John is the advent man, the preacher who prepares you for Christ.
All those preachers made the same announcement–that Jesus is the seed of Abraham, the Son of David, the Lord’s Messiah, the Anointed One, and the everlasting King. And all those preachers proclaimed the same message–that Christ’s rule and reign will have no end.
Main Body
Since John is the last of the prophets, the Baptizer’s announcement of our God and King’s arrival comes in a unique way. John is uncivilized. He doesn’t live in a prestigious house. He doesn’t buy his clothes at Kohls or Belks or his groceries at Harter House.
Turning his back on both city and village, John lived in the wilderness. The Judean wild country was his bedroom. John spat in the face of flattery, considering himself unworthy even to unstrap the Messiah’s sandals with his sin-laden fingers. John is everything that today’s lukewarm and smiley Christians are not–and don’t want to be.
The forerunner John doesn’t simply preach. He baptizes. He doesn’t simply say, “There’s the Messiah!” The Baptizer prepares the people by giving a baptism of repentance. That is his vocation, his work, his sermon, and his announcement. That’s how John the Baptizer makes the Lord’s way straight: by baptizing and preaching.
But what benefit is that some 2,000 years later? It’s old news. Let’s hear something I want to hear, not the same-old, same-old. That’s boring. What advantage is it to hear John assert that he isn’t the Messiah? And what virtue is it to hear John say, “There is One coming after me whose sandal strap I am not worthy to loosen”?
For that matter, what advantage is it for you to hear all those announcements pointing forward to Christ? After all, Jesus has already come. He has already made real His rule and reign. The story never changes. It’s old news.
And that’s why we need to hear it! For we all-too often forget. We hear the story, but forget what it means. We hear the prophets of old–and even the preachers today. We hear them repeat the same message.
Yet, the preached Word goes in one ear and out the other, and it creates no joy within us. It does not change the way we live, not really. We listen, but we do not hear. We forget why the preached Word matters and what difference it’s supposed to make. And so, for us, One is among us whom we barely know, whom we only know in the most-shallow of ways.
To be sure, we know His name: it’s Jesus. We know how His life goes. We know the outline of the story. We may even know many facts and figures. But what we forget is that Jesus, the King, has arrived, His everlasting reign has come, His will is done, and the gates of hell will not prevail against Him.
We forget that, and so we live in fear. Or we live as if that’s only the stuff of church, not the stuff of life. And so we compartmentalize our Jesus. We put Him in our own little God-box, a church-only box, a box for when life goes bad. We drag Him out when we need Him. We drag Him out when we put him in our cutesy-little manger and then wrap Him up again until the same time next year.
Yet, here stands John the Baptizer. He’s unrelenting: “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness.” John tells you to throw away your little God-box, where you believe that your job is your life, that your family is your life, that your possessions are your life. The Baptizer calls you to throw away your little God-box, where someone can live a “full life,” yet remain unbaptized. John calls you to throw away your little God-box, where your life has little to do with Christ but, instead, focuses on the everyday tasks of everyday living.
Oh yes, we are most-uncomfortable with this Baptizer. The old and ugly Adam in us hates to be stripped naked and made to stand ashamed before the mirror of the Law. We loathe John. For John shows how cozy we’ve become with our idols of possessions, how adept we are at blaming others for our failings, and how quick we are to rationalize.
The Baptizer’s chafing words are much too abrasive for our lukewarm version of Christianity. His preaching calls us to repent from compromising God’s truths to get along with others. John will not relent. He will not preach a Walt-Disney version of the Law. He is calling you to repent that you may escape from the wrath to be revealed when Christ comes again in glory (Preface for Advent).
John calls you out of your pleasant Christianity into the wilderness of repentance to sit with him in the desert sand. In the wilderness of repentance, where pride is absent, where humility is strong, there you confess what is real. “I have lived as if God did not matter and as if I mattered most. My Lord’s name I have honored as I should; my worship and prayers have faltered. I have not let His love have its way with me, and so my love for others has failed. There are those whom I have hurt, and those whom I failed to help. My thoughts and desires have been soiled with sin” (Individual Confession and Absolution, LSB pg. 292)
John calls you out of the comfortableness of sin, into the wilderness of repentance, to lead you, at last, to the river of Life. Once there, he’s done his job. For there, in the life-giving water of the Font, is your Savior, Jesus Christ. John points and says, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away your sin. Behold, the Lamb of God, who gives you the life of absolution in the water of Baptism.”
Yes, you are baptized into the real Jesus, not with water, but with water and the Holy Spirit. That means the forgiving, life-creating blood of Christ was poured over you. There, your fears, your sins, and your death were washed off you. There, you became one with Christ’s divine nature. There, you were firmly united by the Spirit to the Son of God the Father.
Jesus locates Himself there for you. Flowing through the desert of repentance is this Liquid of life. In the baptismal life, your conscience, burning from the heat of sins committed, finds the soothing coolness of sins forgiven. In the baptismal life, your heart, dried out and cracked under the blazing sun of the Law, finds shade and refreshment in the shadow of the cross. In the baptismal life, your mouth, parched from confessing your sins, is filled with the sweet drink of God’s compassion. Our Lord is found in the river of absolution. Come to Him, drink of Him, bathe, swim, and soak in this fountain of immortality.
Conclusion
O repentant saint of God, nothing needs to alarm you. You are baptized. O repentant saint of God, nothing needs to make you so afraid that you push others aside to get your own way. You are baptized. O repentant saint of God, nothing needs to scare you into despair or false belief. You are baptized. And nothing needs to let you believe the devilish lie that you must do for yourself, live your own life, fix your own messes, or make your own way. You are baptized. Live in your baptism. You are forgiven.
Such are the words for all who turn to the Messiah. Yes, even today, the rough-hewn Baptizer points us to Christ and into His care and keeping. Today, the prophetic word of John still prepares us to be citizens of the heavenly fatherland. Amen.
