A, The Birth of our Lord, Christmas Day- Isaiah 62:6-12 "The Sign for all Times"

Isaiah 62:6–12 (ESV) On your walls, O Jerusalem, I have set watchmen; all the day and all the night they shall never be silent. You who put the Lord in remembrance, take no rest, and give him no rest until he establishes Jerusalem and makes it a praise in the earth. The Lord has sworn by his right hand and by his mighty arm: “I will not again give your grain to be food for your enemies, and foreigners shall not drink your wine for which you have laboured; but those who garner it shall eat it and praise the Lord, and those who gather it shall drink it in the courts of my sanctuary.” Go through, go through the gates; prepare the way for the people; build up, build up the highway; clear it of stones; lift up a signal over the peoples. Behold, the Lord has proclaimed to the end of the earth: Say to the daughter of Zion, “Behold, your salvation comes; behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense before him.” And they shall be called The Holy People, The Redeemed of the Lord; and you shall be called Sought Out, A City Not Forsaken.

Growing up outside towns, country kids ride their bikes on rural roads and over rough tricky terrain.  Many of us have childhood memories of negotiating our way along tracks around sticks, stones, and soft sandy soils.  There was nothing worse than the bike being jolted after hitting an obstacle only to feel its effect on your bottom as the bump shot up through the saddle of the bike seat.  Or, the strain on your legs to keep pedalling when the wheels of your bike sank in sand almost bringing you to a standstill.

When growing up on the farm riding a bicycle, I often dreamt and wished I lived in town.  Oh, how wonderful it would be to ride roads of bitumen and footpaths of cement where my backside could savour the smoothness of the highways and byways prepared for smooth sailing on a bicycle!

We are reminded of this as Isaiah calls God to prepare a way for his people in Zion — a restored Jerusalem. Isaiah calls God to, “Go through, go through the gates; prepare the way for the people; build up, build up the highway; clear it of stones; lift up a signal over the peoples.” (Isaiah 62:10 ESV)

Ah, how nice it would be not to hit stones with my wheels, not to struggle in sandy soils, and to ride like a royal on repaired roads of hot-mix and concrete!

Though, this is not just a picture of a childhood dream! It’s a picture of Zion, a new Jerusalem.  What is this Jerusalem, this Zion?  It’s not just a place of pleasant highways and byways!  It’s a place where all roads lead to the righteousness of God!  Where humanity can once again live with God in peace, as God originally intended when he created Adam and Eve and placed them in the Garden!

For us it is not the city of Jerusalem as such, but the place where heaven and earth, God and humanity, meet together in holy fellowship, where sin is atoned for, where salvation is realised in the recompense and reward of God.

But see what Isaiah says of Jerusalem­—of this holy Zion!  A strange thing occurs in this Jerusalem where God and humanity will meet.  The watchmen don’t merely watch and report what happens outside the city.  Rather, they are heralds, crying out to him who is outside the gates to come and cleanse the place.

The watchmen are called not to watch but to call God himself to remember Jerusalem.  This is unexpected, watchmen exposing the city, but for what purpose?  Watchmen should stand guard and protect the place against the enemy, not uncover the reality of a place to outsiders!

God had become an outsider in Jerusalem.  He had been thrown out of his own holy habitation.  His own people, chosen to be a holy nation turned their back on God; severing themselves from his presence at the temple, its Holy Place, and the Holies of Holies!  But Isaiah does not call the people back, to repent!  No! He calls God to come and establish Jerusalem and make it a praise in the earth.

In God’s eyes Jerusalem and its people had become wearisome to him rather than a praise in the earth.  

Of Judah and Jerusalem Isaiah speaks on God’s behalf, “Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth; for the Lord has spoken: ‘Children have I reared and brought up, but they have rebelled against me. The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master’s crib, but Israel does not know, my people do not understand.’ Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, children who deal corruptly! They have forsaken the Lord, they have despised the Holy One of Israel, they are utterly estranged.” (Isaiah 1:2–4 ESV)

God’s people opposed him!  They made themselves his enemy, yet God sought to reconcile them to himself, “‘Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool. If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be eaten by the sword; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.’ How the faithful city has become a whore, she who was full of justice! Righteousness lodged in her, but now murderers.” (Isaiah 1:18–21 ESV)

So, God became the outsider, the enemy.  Now God engages faithful watchmen of the city to call God back into the city and restore it.  “Go through, go through the gates; prepare the way for the people; build up, build up the highway; clear it of stones; lift up a signal over the peoples.” (Isaiah 62:10 ESV)

So, from behind the curtain of holy eternity a signal was sent.  Like a white flag is a sign of surrender the sign came.  However, it wasn’t a sign of surrender, but a sign of salvation was waved by God’s watchmen.  And God’s watchmen still wave this flag of salvation today, “And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” (Luke 2:12 ESV)

Shepherds became the first watchmen of God’s renewed kingdom.  Unclean men outside the gates of Jerusalem heard, saw, and witnessed baby Jesus who would become “Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles”. (1 Corinthians 1:23 ESV)

This baby Jesus would become both, “a sanctuary and a stone of offense and a rock of stumbling to both houses of Israel, a trap and a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.” (Isaiah 8:14 ESV)

The call goes out this Christmas, for the church to allow Christ in from outside to rightfully take his place back into the heart of Christmas.  For the church to be the Jerusalem of God, to be the sanctuary where God and humanity gather around the throne of grace.

Jerusalem and the temple mound still stand as the testimony from God to Christians and Jews that God removes the stones from his pathway of salvation.  It continues to be so, but worse will happen to Jerusalem at an appointed time by God as a sign so God’s church turns from its sin from which Isaiah was calling Jerusalem and Judah. The desolation that Isaiah proclaims of Jerusalem, will make Chernobyl’s radiation look like a light sunburn.  The brokenness and rock-strewn path of Jerusalem, of Mugwort[1], will be cleared by God’s Son when he returns to put right the salvation of God, proclaimed by Isaiah

Like a child on a bike picturing a perfect pathway on which to ride, God sent his Son to reform the road of righteousness back to his holy presence.  The curtain of temple of God’s holiness has long been torn asunder, and the temple is gone, yet the cornerstone of our salvation remains in Christ Jesus.

The Son of God is now our sign.  From the crucifix the Christ child is risen and comes back into the most desolate of godless places and offers to restore hearts, people, and nations back into fellowship with God our Heavenly Father.  He is our peace through his birth, death, resurrection, and ascension to the right hand of our Father, and he is coming again.  Come Lord Jesus come!

Daughter of Zion, know your master’s manger! See the signs! Repent and allow for the restoration work of the Holy Spirit!  Let understanding be with a Holy Spirit-filled understanding within us, your church.  Let us stand firm in faith under God’s word, or not at all! 

Let us pray.

Holy Spirit harness us, your church, call Christ into its Jerusalem and cleanse the stones from Christ’s holy highway.  Let the cross of Christ’s birth and resurrection be raised up as our eternal sign in the world.  Thank you for making your faithful church holy through his sinless blood.   Remove all nuclear reactivity from your church, stop us from split from you and fuse within us renewed righteousness and clear salvation in Jesus Christ alone.  Amen.

---

[1] Mugwort is “artemisia vulgaris,” (see Acts 19:23-41, where the Ephesian church followed Christ under the constant shadow of the common vulgar female Artemis cult). Mugwort is from where the Ukrainian city of Chernobyl gets its name. See Paul’s written call for the Ephesians to remain in the “heavenly place” in Jesus Christ and not other “heavenly places” throughout his letter to the Ephesians. (Eph 1:3,10,20,  2:6, 3:10,15 4:10, 6:9,12)  Chernobyl stands as a modern-day sign for the church to reject the worldly vulgarity and the commonness of “Artemis type heavenly places”.  Jerusalem in the next generation will become Mugwort, a radioactive sign, for the church, greater than Chernobyl, even greater than Sodom and Gomorrah (Isaiah 1:9-10, 3:9).  God was prepared to make a similar sacrifice of Israel to save Judah from falling. (Isaiah 7)   Similarly, God will reveal his power to a church that has rejected his Son, the Christ Child - Immanuel, in the future desolation of Jerusalem as a sign calling his people back to him, before the day when Christ will cleanse Mugwort of its radiation with his light of eternal life at his second coming.  It’s the church’s mission to proclaimed Christ crucified to both Jews and Gentiles so some might repent and be saved.

A, The Fourth Sunday of Advent - Romans 1:1-7 Isaiah 7 "Christ the Head in a Decapitated Society"

The promise of Immanuel that God spoke through the prophet Isaiah comes at a time when the evil of God’s people was feverishly high.  King Ahaz, king of Judah had turned from the Lord to the gods of the nations around him.  He sacrificed his own son as a burnt offering and set up high places of sacrifice on hills and under significant green trees.  Ahaz had priests build a copy of a pagan altar he had seen in Damascus and had it placed in God’s temple in Jerusalem. (read 2 Kings 16, 2 Chronicles 28)

Their sister kingdom of Israel was no better.  They had not had a king who led them in the ways of the Lord, since their split from Jerusalem.  Pekah, the King of Israel, was not a son of the king.  Rather he was the former king of Israel’s captain, who conspired against the king and murdered him in the citadel of the king’s house. (read 2 Kings 15:25) Now he joined forces with Syria to fight against Israel’s sister, Judah.

It was an ugly time in Israel and Judah, as two kingdoms of God became bodies without heads. Two sons, indeed kings, estranged from each other, and their holy head, our Heavenly Father.

The restoration of God’s holy headship comes in the resurrection unity of Jesus Christ.  Saint Paul stands as a servant, set apart as God’s apostle for the gospel of God, and points his Jewish brethren and both grafted Gentiles and Romans to Jesus Christ, “who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations, including you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.” (Romans 1:3–6 ESV)

Jesus now stands as the fulfilment of God’s promise to all nations through Abraham, and to his chosen people of Israel, as the righteous head. He is the faithful head, who perfectly follows the will of the Father, and obediently serves the people of God, for the benefit of all nations, all people.  But disobedient kings lost their heads with vainglorious leadership and led the people of Judah and Israel to do the same and sacrifice God in favour of pagan pleasures.  On the other hand, Jesus didn’t do this, rather, he loved his church, his body, in faithful submission unto death.  The holy head is now restored in the resurrection, with the body of believers who’ve been grafted into his holiness.

But alas, we too live in ugly times.  Times of individualism, that see the pleasures of the heart make people perform as though they have no heads.  Vengeance from leadership, retribution against leadership, people’s payback in shootings and other violent attacks, hatred, gossip and character assassinations reveal the ugliness of our world -  even more, the ugliness of the human condition. 

Since society has dethroned God from being its head in “the Age of Enlightenment” from the late seventeenth century, the Holy Head has continued to be severed from society.  Parents, God’s holy headship on earth, have lost or forsaken their authority. History is treated with suspicion and has now been made subject to the pleasures of the individual, and in recent times we’ve been wooed and now face the woes of individuals rejecting the genetics and gender of their bodies.  Literally, the head now can be severed from the body, and God’s will, by how one feels about their sexuality.

In the nineteen eighties, there was a comedy show, where in a scene four fellows were on a train.  One of these four young ones was rebellious. He saw a sign in the train, warning people not to put their heads out the window of the train.  So, being anti-authority, he disobeyed the sign and put his head out the window and had his head knocked off. 

The next scene shows his headless body walking back along the railway line trying to find its head.  His head sees its body stumbling around without direction and with much abuse and alerts his body to his head.  But his body doesn’t walk up to collect and restore its head.  No! Rather in a continuation of the body’s anti-authority over the head, it kicks the head along the railway line[1].

Never in my wildest dreams did I ever picture this morbid black comedy as anything more than that!  But today this black comedy from the nineteen eighties appears to be a prophetic picture of exactly what society has become — an ugly body disconnected from its head kicking itself along the rails of self-destruction.

Isaiah’s word to the king of Israel and the promise of Immanuel stands as a word of law and gospel to the church today. Israel and Judah stand as a warning to the church, which in the same way is seeking to join society in its quest for separation and headlessness.

Unlike King David, King Ahaz didn’t see God the Father as his head.  So, we hear, “When the house of David was told, ‘Syria is in league with Ephraim (Israel),’ the heart of Ahaz and the heart of his people shook as the trees of the forest shake before the wind.” (Isaiah 7:2 ESV)

However, despite Ahaz’s abominable sins against his son, his kingdom, and God, God calls Isaiah to say to Ahaz, “Be careful, be quiet, do not fear, and do not let your heart be faint… thus says the Lord God: ‘It shall not stand, and it shall not come to pass. For the head of Syria is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin. And within sixty-five years Ephraim will be shattered from being a people. And the head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is the son of Remaliah. If you are not firm in faith, you will not be firm at all.’” (Isaiah 7:4,7-9 ESV)

God sought to be merciful to Judah and sever the heads of Syria and Israel, because of the promises he had made to King David years before.  But King Ahaz continued in faithlessness and his rejection of God’s headship, severing himself from God. We hear, “Again the Lord spoke to Ahaz: ‘Ask a sign of the Lord your God; let it be deep as Sheol or high as heaven.’ But Ahaz said, ‘I will not ask, and I will not put the Lord to the test.’” (Isaiah 7:10–12 ESV)

By saying, “I will not ask, and I will not put the Lord to the test.” King Ahaz was actually putting God to the test.

God promises to be faithful to Ahaz, if Ahaz would bow to his head and ask for a sign, but he doesn’t so God says through his prophet Isaiah, “Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary men, that you weary my God also? Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.”  (Isaiah 7:13–14 ESV)

In the midst of such rebellion and ugliness God gives the promise of Immanuel—God with us.  Isaiah then proceeds to tell Ahaz what to expect since he has severed himself from his Heavenly Head.  He says, “The Lord will bring upon you and upon your people and upon your father’s house such days as have not come since the day that Ephraim (Israel) departed from Judah—the king of Assyria!” (Isaiah 7:17 ESV)

In the midst of human ugliness God’s promise of Immanuel still stands as the great beacon of light for society and the church, despite “Assyrian-type” terrors!  God continues, “to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations, including you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.” (Romans 1:3–6 ESV)

This obedience is literally a “calling under” Christ Jesus.  To once again allow God to be the head and all who are baptised into the body of Christ to function as one body under the Head for his sake so the gospel can be spread to all nations.   

The church and its leaders are called to repentance back under the headship of Christ. To be God’s church of the word, but under the eternal word of God.  Rather than conform to the ugliness of the world, we’re called to be agents of reformation and renewal led by the Holy Spirit for the salvation of the world.

The church, its leaders and bishops, indeed, all baptised, can only stand as the body of Christ when the body remains under the headship of Christ.  This means the body remains under the head in submission to its head.  The church is called to remain under the word of God and be led by the headship of Christ rather than being led astray by the whims of the world.  Like King Ahaz, Lutherans and other denominations are sacrificing God’s Son to society, to feed the gods of popularity and pleasure.

Let us not be a church of bishops and people that stands over the word of God, interpreting it or dismissing parts of it for our evil pleasure or popularity.  What kind of love shows itself when we do this?  It’s a love that’s separated from the obedience of faith in God.  It’s a human uprising, a beheading of the faith in a human-spirited revolution!  Human faith in a lost headless body walking away from its Immanuel, who’s calling it back.  

God’s kings of Israel and Judah led God’s people to sin against him.  This word stands as an eternal testimony and reminder that God’s chosen people, the true vine, can be grafted off and destroyed.  Are you prepared to gamble God’s work to save you with your human desires and stance over God’s word?  Interpretation that explains God’s word away for pleasures or popularity’s sake, will only reveal that you’ve decapitated yourself from Immanuel, who is coming again to judge the living and the dead. 

In these ugly times, know that he will remove the headless dead bodies that have kicked him, Immanuel, God with us, to the kerb. Therefore, live in the hope that Jesus, our Immanuel, is coming again to put repentant sinners right with holy, eternal resurrection and restoration. Amen. 

[1] The Young Ones, Series 2, Episode 1, “Bambi” (1984)

A Prayer for Peace

Dear friends of faith in Christ Jesus our Lord…

In the wake of the Sydney shooting massacre, let us pray:

Heavenly Father, yesterday, the third Sunday of Advent, should have been a day of joy, wrapped in the arms of hope, peace, and steadfast love - in your promise that Jesus is coming again.  Yet we tarry here in an existence that exposes the wretchedness humanity faces with its own human condition.  Sunday the fourteenth of December now stands as a day of great turmoil, terror, and tragedy, in the minds and hearts of Australians in the wake of the Sydney Bondi shooting.

Lord in your mercy… hear our prayer.

Flood hearts and minds with soothing that only the Holy Spirit can bring at a time like this.  Be with those who grieve the death of loved ones.  Help them to grieve with a Godly grief and keep them free from vengeful sin.  Where hearts are angry replace this with the compassion of your Son, Jesus Christ, who as the Son of Man, became a servant of salvation to us all.

Lord in your mercy… hear our prayer.

Be with those confused and traumatised by the chaos of the shooting.  Rally medical and mental supports around them so ripples of resentment do not radiate through them.  Empower our Australian community with the forgiveness of our Lord Jesus Christ who forgave us all from the cross and calls us to carry this cross of compassion and sacrifice in our lives.

Lord in your mercy… hear our prayer.

Heavenly Father, the Jewish community are your chosen people, be with this community in Australia, and in Sydney.  Console hurting hearts!  Comfort them in their grief and confusion.  Give to them hearts to receive their Messiah, Jesus Christ who also died for them.

Lord in your mercy… hear our prayer.

Renew your call to the Jewish community in Israel and throughout the world.  Help them to beat their swords into ploughshares, to lay down their weapons of war, and walk the way of peace.  Help them to see the way of Jesus Christ in his cross of salvation.

Lord in your mercy… hear our prayer.

Be with the Gentile communities, especially here in Australia, but also in the Middle East, and across the world.  Give them avenues to express their hurt and anger that does not replicate the hostilities that have occurred.  Fill their hearts with compassion and forgiveness that can only come through your Holy Spirit.

Lord in your mercy… hear our prayer.

Encourage your Holy Church, the body of Christ, with boldness to “come out” as Christians.  Help all Christians to join in with the works of Jesus, our great High Priest at your right hand, in his holy petitions of prayer.  Help all Christians to recognise that our prayers are powerful in Jesus’ name.  When we are so stunned and dumbstruck by what has happened,  help us to trust in the petitions of Lord’s Pray (Matthew 6:9-13, Luke 11:2-4) and the Psalms, knowing that the Word of God is a double edged sword given to us by the Word made Flesh, your Son, Jesus Christ.  That it’s a sword dissecting sin from the hearts of those who pray and from the hearts of those for whom we pray!

Lord in your mercy… hear our prayer.

Overcome the temptation in us to join the shooters in their sin.  Help us to place our self-righteousness, self-justification, and our natural tendency for revenge,  on the cross.  Show us by the power of the Holy Spirit in Jesus’ word that hatred is akin to murder in God’s eyes (Matthew 5:21-22).  Where we struggle with resentment and feelings of revenge help us take up the call to repentance and replace it with peace in your holy presence.

Lord in your mercy… hear our prayer.

As we stand before you in this season of Advent, help us all to consider our part in why you sent your Son to die on the cross.  Fill us with doubtless hope in the resurrection of the dead, in your peace that surpasses all human understanding, joy in the good news that you are coming again to put all things right, and love for each other as Christ loves us.

Lord in your mercy… hear our prayer.

Come Lord Jesus come…      Amen. 

A, The Third Sunday of Advent - Isaiah 35:8 "The Way of Holiness: Prophets True or False"

Isaiah 35:8 (ESV) And a highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Way of Holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it. It shall belong to those who walk on the way; even if they are fools, they shall not go astray.

Jesus speaks to the crowd after John the Baptist’s disciples are sent back to him to report that Jesus is “the one”.  Jesus questions the crowd as to why they went to see John.  After all, John was not a man dressed in soft clothing, he was dressed like a nobody, a wandering nomad.  And the message he brought wasn’t a gentle message to the ears that heard it!  No! John was calling Judea, those who lived in the region of the Jordan River and all of Jerusalem to repentance.

Other prophets before John weren’t treated favourably for calling Israel and Judah to repentance. We know of Elijah fleeing from the wrath of King Ahab and his vindictive wife, Jezebel, after he killed the false prophets on Mount Carmel.  Also, Jeremiah faced ridicule, arrest, and was dropped into an underground dry well as punishment.    

The author of Hebrews continues, “Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated— of whom the world was not worthy—wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.” (Hebrews 11:36–38 ESV)

John the Baptist knew the plight of being God’s prophet or messenger!  We also know he ultimately had his head chopped off for his trouble!  So why did he put himself in this situation?  Why did the prophets before him risk life and limb to call God’s straying people to account?  In today’s standards it seems like a foolish thing to do!

So, what is a prophet?  And what is a false prophet?  How do you discern the difference?  In the New Testament the Greek word for prophet is a “foreseer”.  Literally a prophet is shown something by God and then called to tell others what they have seen!  This could be a future physical event or something that is going to occur to a person or persons. But it always comes from the faithfulness of God to save someone from danger or error.

On the other hand, a false prophet is one who is faithful to themselves.  Who appears to proclaim on behalf of God but really leads people away from God’s faithfulness into deception, to believe the false prophet’s dreams and desires.  A false prophet glorifies the god of the self and not our Heavenly Father. Their dreams and desires  usually end up being the nightmares of those who are deceived by their message.

John the Baptist with his camel skin clothes, his diet of wild honey and locusts, shows us a couple of things.  He did not need the sponsorship of others to survive.  Therefore, he wasn’t promoting anyone’s message in exchange for favours.  Also, he wasn’t seeking honour for himself.  He was a dirty and dishevelled looking individual, doing a deed that disturbed and disrupted those to whom he was called to speak. John the Baptist was selfless, blunt and abrasive to those who could have comforted him with their comfortable positions.  Yet he just didn’t care about his wellbeing in the world, as opposed to his wellbeing in the face of God, who called him to be God’s foreseer of Jesus Christ.  

So why did the people flock to John the Baptist?  There was power of some sort that drew people to him.  Likewise, prophets and false prophets operate with power and authority too.  Many are led by prophets, and more are led to false prophets. Saint Paul rightly reflects to Timothy, “For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.”  (2 Timothy 4:3–4 ESV)

Peoples’ ears never itch to be called to repentance!  No! But God knew that is what was needed!  John the Baptist’s preaching was induced by the Holy Spirit as was promised to his father, Zechariah, by the angel of the Lord who said of John, “…he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb. And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.” (Luke 1:15–17 ESV)

The only reason John, with his hard looks and message, drew and baptised people for the repentance of their sins, was that the Holy Spirit was doing the work of softening hearts!

To most today, even within the walls of churches, the way of John the Baptist, seems the way of foolishness.  However, “the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.” (1 Corinthians 1:25 ESV) And “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong.” (1 Corinthians 1:27 ESV) Also, “Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise.” (1 Corinthians 3:18 ESV)

John the Baptist was not concerned about what people thought.  His care factor was zero and it shows in the way he dressed, in what he ate, in what he said, and to whom he said it!  Rather, he was concerned about God and the message he called him to proclaim. Led by the Holy Spirit, John walked the highway of heaven, albeit by the humblest of ways!  This way Isaiah names the Way of Holiness.  He may have looked like a fool following this way, but his foolishness shamed the wise of the world.

As God’s people we are called to follow the Way of Holiness.  Some are called to be prophetic speakers on behalf of God, for his glory, and patiently endure suffering from sinners inside and outside the church.  However, all are called to follow God’s word, on his Way of Holiness.  It makes no difference if it’s a bishop or a fledgling disciple, whether one is seemingly wise or foolish, none are above God or the word he sends through his messengers, no matter how unpopular it seems.

Because some of us have been marinating in the way of the world for most of our lives, we’re deceived into thinking we can choose who and what we want to hear when it comes to God speaking to us.  How might it make you feel when someone chooses to ignore what you say?  Now consider how God feels about us when we choose to reject what he wants. 

Jesus endured similar anger and rejection.  “Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.” (Hebrews 12:3 ESV)

This consideration goes both ways!  Firstly, you’re called to consider the hostility Jesus endured from sinners to save you.  Hostility that put him on the cross.  Secondly, you’re called to consider what could happen to you when you also act in hostile or passive aggressive ways towards those God sends in the name of Jesus to lead you to eternal salvation!  Are your actions in accord with the Way of Holiness?

In your consideration, let the Holy Spirit determine in you if you’re hearing God through those, he has sent to proclaim his word. Establish where your glory is going in your conduct. Is your foolishness, folly to the world, or is your foolishness, folly in the eyes of God? 

Consider your grumbling might be against God when you grumble against God’s called servants. We’re told, “Do not grumble against one another, brothers, so that you may not be judged; behold, the Judge is standing at the door. As an example of suffering and patience, brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.”  (James 5:9–10 ESV)

It’s better to be judged by the world as a prophetic fool and receive mercy from God who forgives repentant people who seem like fools.  Alternatively, it’s foolish to be judged faithful by the world and reject God’s faithfulness in sending you, his servants, even when their prophetic message seems foolish in popular thought.  All need to consider what foolishness to follow. Foolishness that follows the Way of Holiness, or foolishness that falls and follows a hellish way thereafter!

Every person needs to pray for the Holy Spirit’s help to test the spirits! To test the prophets, to test the bishops, to test your pastor, and establish which way is truly the Way of Holiness.  Not all ways are ways of forwarding the faith to future generations and glorifying God! Other “ways” that glorify itching ears, popularity, immediate gratification, visual growth, and deviation from God’s word might forward the fruit people want.  But when these ways are not the Way of Holiness, Jesus’ way, truth, or life, they won’t faithfully forward the eternal fruit God desires.   

We are called to, “Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” (Hebrews 13:7–8 ESV)

However, don’t just blindly be led by those who lead.  After all, Jesus confronted the blind guides of Judaism, and they put him on the cross.  Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. Therefore, allow the Holy Spirit to make sure your guides have been sent by Jesus to lead you to the cross for eternal salvation.  Make sure you are not re-sacrificing Christ on a false prophet’s cross of vainglory and eternal shame. Amen.

A, The Second Sunday of Advent - Matthew 3:10-12 "Three Fires:Destruction,Spirit,Refinement "

Matthew 3:10–12 (ESV) Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.  “I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.  His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

It looks like a forest full of eucalyptus trees, but on closer inspection the trees are in uniform rows and not scattered like they are in a forest.  No! These eucalyptus trees are a plantation grown for the purpose of harvesting hardwood. Because the trees were all planted at the same time they have competed for sunlight and have grown tall and straight to make good timber for construction. 

One week the plantation stands tall, and then in a relatively short time it’s flattened.  The timber is harvested.  It goes on to serve its purposes for many years to come.  But the dying limbs and leaves are pushed into piles and burnt.

The plantation forest is a dismal sight compared to its former self. The only thing left is stumps.  Over time the seemingly dead stumps show signs of life and green shoots appear.  Within a year or so, these shoots form a mass of leafy bushes growing out of the stumps.  But these eucalyptus bushes that replace the tall trunks from the tree’s former life are stunted and twisted — not good for any use.

In time the owner of the field looks to a new type of harvest, the collection of electricity in a solar farm.  But first, the stumps are laboriously and painstakingly dug up one by one and burnt with the now dying leafy bushes.  Then the land can be cleared and cleaned for a solar farm to be constructed.

Matthew’s Gospel reports John the Baptist accusing the Pharisees and Sadducees of being a “brood of vipers”, to “bear fruit in keeping with repentance”, if they were “to flee from the wrath to come.” (Matthew 3:7-8)  John refers to them as the trees at which an axe is laid at the roots waiting to see what type of fruit is produced.

Last week we heard Jesus speak about signs of his coming. With the picture of the fig sending out shoots as a sign, we hear about bearing fruit in keeping with repentance.   Here we are reminded of the fig again, when Jesus curses a fig tree for not bearing fruit as he walks the way of the cross to bear the bad fruit of humanity.

On the day after Palm Sunday, Jesus, in hunger, seeing a fig tree, “found nothing on it but only leaves. And he said to it, ‘May no fruit ever come from you again!’ And the fig tree withered at once.” (Matthew 21:19 ESV)

These decisive words from Jesus’ mouth destroy the fig tree. Similarly, John the Baptist’s words to the Pharisees and Sadducees are equally significant as he warns of their destruction without the fruit of repentance.

Three times John speaks of fire.  First, trees are cut down and thrown into the fire.  These trees are those that are not repentant.  The Pharisees and the Sadducees have arrived to see what John was doing at the Jordan River.  Perhaps some were intending to be baptised with others who were fruitful in confessing their sins.  Were they coming to flee the coming wrath through repentance, by confessing their sin?  Or were they coming to make a show before others who were confessing sin and being baptised with a baptism of repentance?  Either way John warns that the axe lies in wait!

Second, John compares his baptism of repentance with the coming of Jesus, saying, “I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” (Matthew 3:11 ESV)

Here John connects Jesus’ baptism in (by, or with) a baptism of the Holy Spirit and fire.  This is John’s second mention of fire.  We know that tongues of fire appeared at Pentecost when the Holy Spirit was given.  This was good fire.  When Jesus was baptised by John in the Jordan, he was baptised to fulfil all righteousness.  The fulfilling of all righteousness meant Jesus faced the fires of hell and death at the cross and gained victory over the fires of hell that were meant for us.  This is also good fire, when we allow the judgement to fall on Jesus at the cross through our confession of repentance.  Otherwise, as John rightly mentions these fires of judgement await all those who stand stubbornly unrepentant and will be chopped down and burnt bearing their unrepentant sin.  Then the fire becomes dire and deadly!

John mentions fire a third time to the Pharisees and Sadducees after Jesus winnows the wheat from the chaff that burns with an unquenchable fire. 

Unquenchable fire paints an ugly picture of those whose unquenchable passions resist the refining fires of the Holy Spirit.  Like one in the path of a raging unquenchable bushfire, so too is one who does not allow the Holy Spirit to backburn the human heart and the unquenchable sin that lies within.

Fire may be frightening, but I put it to you, a life “without fire” can also be frightening.  Since the first humans worked out how to make fire, we rely on it for everything.  Without fire, we all bathe in cold water, all food is cold and uncooked, and warmth in winter is just a memory.  Without fire, minerals stay in the ground and never become the metals relied upon in every part of modern life.

One might think fire and peace are mutually exclusive of each other.  The three fires John the Baptist proclaims speak differently. 

The first fire is the promise of destruction for all those who reject the two fires that follow.  Rightly, this fire fills hearts with fear.  As Luther says of Holy Baptism in his Small Catechism, “our sinful self, with all its evil deeds and desires, should be drowned through daily repentance; and that day after day a new self should arise to live with God in righteousness and purity forever.”  In other words, in the face of this fire, we flee to the cross as knowledge about our sinful selves is daily brought to light.  Like the Prodigal Son in whom the Holy Spirit wins out over the human spirit, you and I are prodigals brought to a right mind and daily returned to the graciousness of God the Father, in his Son Jesus Christ!

We are returned to the second fire which John proclaims!  This is the baptism of Jesus in the Holy Spirit and fire.  In fact, this second fire is essential to overcome the first fire! 

In his baptism Jesus was baptised into the fires of humanity’s sin — your sin!  Having put aside his divinity as the Son of God, as the Son of Man in human flesh in his baptism he received the Holy Spirit on which he relied, to sinlessly be the sacrifice for our sin — your sin! 

Just as under the old covenant God lovingly consumed the sacrifices for the atonement of sin by fire, God joyfully receives the sacrifice of our sinful pride, as we confess our sins in repentance.  Humility is a small price to pay for the reception of Jesus Christ’s sinless death,  for our sin that deserves death and the eternal fires of hell.

In light of Jesus’ sacrifice, the need to make fiery sacrifices under the Law is finished.  All who know their works are not good enough for salvation would agree this fire is very good.  Just like fire is very good for cooking food, washing oneself, and for feeling warm!  The fire of the Holy Spirit that allows us to burn our sins in repentance through Christ is truly very good.  This fire makes us warm when we are cold!  It makes us warm in Christ, as he takes the coldness of death on himself on the cross.

Where the forest, the plantation of Israel was destroyed and thrown into the fire, Jesus has become Israel for the repentant, and we the church are his body of repentant confessing believers.   Jesus is Israel’s shoot from the stump of Jesse, and now stands as the tall, towering trunk into which the church is grafted. 

The Spirit of the Lord that rested upon him, rests upon the repentant church.  This is the Holy Spirit that gives wisdom and understanding, counsel and might, knowledge and fear of the Lord to the body of Christ – his holy church.  Despite our humanity looking like a fruitless fig tree, Jesus does not judge us by what he sees or hears, but by his righteousness sifting the wheat of Holy Spirit-germinated righteousness from the chaff of our humanity.

This brings us to the third fire after Jesus winnows or sifts us.  As we live in Christ, daily allowing the death of self in our baptism and being raised to life in the resurrection of Jesus, we are refined  by the fires of the Holy Spirit in Jesus’ death and resurrection.  The fruit of the Spirit is sifted from the chaff of our humanity.  We are being constantly pruned and used as pieces of Holy Spirit-treated timber for the building of Christ’s church on earth. We are Holy Spirit-refined wheat, cleansed to be germinators of God’s word wherever he’s put each of us in this world.

The Advent candle of peace is lit!  Let the peace of God burn in you as the Holy Spirit leads you in your repentance and confession for the forgiveness of sin.  You have been grafted into Christ to bear the fruit of Christ to others.   In the name of Jesus Christ, you are fruitful — let grace and peace be multiplied in you as the Holy Spirit makes him known to you. 

Let the Holy Spirit make you fruitful and faithful in Christ!  May his fire warm your heart, refine your spirit, and strengthen your witness. And may the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, now and always. Amen.