Sermon - Gaudete 2020 - Matthew 11:2-11

 The main theme of the season of Advent focuses on the coming of Christ. During the first week we heard of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. Last week we heard that Jesus is going to return on the last day. This week, we hear that God comes even now through the ministry of the Gospel, which is the preaching and teaching of God’s Word, and faithful administration of the Sacraments.

This really is quite the remarkable thing! God is coming to us today. This isn’t just some historical event or a future prophecy of the last day, but this is right now. God is not so distant as we might often imagine. 

Realizing this, it ought to inform the way we think about the church, pastors, and what’s going on in our own daily spiritual lives. For a few generations now, Christianity has had a reputation which doesn’t look like what we see in the Bible. The church of today has an aesthetic of homey, comfortable, soft, grandmotherly niceness. It follows cutting-edge business strategies with eye-catching graphics, catchy mottos and slogans, and marketing Christ to the masses. Its ministers are effeminate, holding hands with a glued on smile, never causing offense. The spiritual life of the Christian is filled with pop-psychology and pseudo-churchy moralistic therapeutic deism. 

Most of those things aren’t all that bad in and of themselves, but they’re not the Christianity we see in the scriptures, and they’re not what the church truly is all about. The Christian church looks a lot more like John the Baptist. A man in the wilderness, eating bugs and a type of edible tree sap. He’s the last great prophet of the Lord, preparing the way of the Lord by preaching “Repent! The Kingdom of Heaven is near!”

He doesn’t tell people what they want to hear, but calls out their grievous sins. He tells them to repent, to stop doing their wicked deeds, and come to Christ. He doesn’t meet the people in their felt-needs, keeping them comfortable, but makes them come to him in the wilderness. Every opportunity he gets he proclaims not only repentance, but the reason for the repentance, he preaches Christ, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” In the middle of the desert, the middle of our loathsome sins, he heeds the command of God, which says: “Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. 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.”

But like Jesus asked the crowds, so He asks us: “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind? What then did you go out to see? A man dressed in soft clothing? Behold, those who wear soft clothing are in kings’ houses.” Jesus doesn’t go easy on us, and He’s not wrong either. Typically all we want from God is a reed shaken by the wind. We want something that looks nice on the outside, but is hollow on the inside, and blows any which way. We want a god who bends whichever way we breathe to say what we want him to say.

We don’t like a god who hurts our feelings and makes us uncomfortable and requires that we change instead of him. We don’t like being told that our sins are deadly and we need to knock it off. But that’s exactly what He does. He is not the reed, we are. “All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the LORD blows on it; surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.”

That’s what the Word of God does to us! God’s Word blows upon us and knocks us over, revealing our plethora of sins and exposing just how weak we are on account of those sins. But the Word of our God stands forever, so that after the Word blows us over, He builds us back up in Him. “Behold, the Lord GOD comes with might, and his arm rules for him; behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense before him. He will tend his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms; he will carry them in his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young.”

The truth is that this isn’t popular with the world. Sure gobs of people went out to hear John preach and were baptized by him, but they didn’t all like it, particularly Herod. Herod was married but liked his brother’s wife better, so he divorced his wife and made the other woman get divorced so that he could marry her. John the baptist called him to repentance for that sin of divorce and remarriage, and that got John arrested and murdered. 

Even though John was arrested and killed, Herod wasn’t really angry with John, he was really angry with Jesus, since John simply spoke God’s word. It’s the same when we get angry after hearing our sins condemned. St. John the Baptist was a “servant of Christ and steward of the mysteries of God.” Likewise, pastors today are simply servants of Christ and stewards of God’s mysteries.

Thus, even if it’s unpopular, the work of the church is to point people to Christ and preach and teach God’s Word. As nice as it is when churches feed the hungry, clothe the naked, heal the sick, provide social gatherings, and give you friends, that’s only secondary to the ministry of the church. The foremost task of Christ’s church on earth is to preach the Gospel to poor miserable sinners. 

To John the Baptist’s dying day, that’s what he did. John wasn’t doubting for himself that Jesus was the christ; John had known this since before he was born. But even when he was in prison, he sent his disciples to Jesus for their sake. That’s the ministry of the Gospel, that’s what the church is all about: receiving Jesus today.

The work of the church isn’t to make people comfortable and give them a soft homey atmosphere; it’s to give them Jesus! So right here, today, you receive Jesus in your ears and on your tongue through the Word and sacrament. We don’t sing hymns just because they’re fun and sentimental, but because they give us Jesus who died and rose for us. We don’t get together in person because this is a friendly social function, but because the divine Creator of the universe is here to comfort us poor sinners with the news that Jesus has died to forgive us our sins!

The work of the pastor isn’t just to be your friend, hold your hand when you're sick, and make you feel good about yourself; it’s to give you Jesus! The pastor preaches, teaches, absolves, and consecrates in the stead and by the command of our Lord Jesus Christ, so that when he says “I forgive you,” you’re assured that you’re forgiven as if by Jesus Himself in the flesh. The pastor isn’t an effeminate comedian who makes you laugh and tells you what you want to hear, but he’s a prophet like Isaiah or John the Baptist and calls you to repentance and then gives you the comfort of Jesus who forgives you.

The spiritual life of the Christan isn’t just to read books by the heretic Joel Osteen and have an uplifting attitude; it’s to receive Jesus! The work of the Christian is to be surrounded and filled with God’s Word. The Christian spiritual life is to read the scriptures, repent, pray to God, receive the sacrament, confess your sins and be absolved, tell God’s Word to others, and be comforted by Christ.

None of this is maybe as comfortable and homey as we’ve grown to believe it should be, but it’s better than that because it’s all about Jesus who comes to us today. The church is so much more than some soft wealthy effeminate fun and friendly place; it’s the place where the Divine serves us with His Word and His body and blood.

So when you woke up and came to church today, what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. You came here to see Jesus, and He has delivered on that promise, since Jesus is here for you.