December 5, 2012
Advent is a time of preparation. What are we preparing for? How do we
prepare? During these midweek worship services in Advent we will explore how
our Lord teaches us to prepare. The simplest way to say it is that He teaches
us to turn our sights on Him. There’s a little book that does that better than
any other, except for the Bible of course. It’s the Catechism. We will spend
some time examining how the Catechism is a great way to prepare our hearts and
minds for the ways our Lord comes to us.
In Advent there are three ways we are shown in which our Lord comes to
us. He has come, He will come again, and He comes to us now. The first one most
people are pretty aware of, He came as a baby. The Second one is somewhat
familiar, He will come again in glory on the Last Day. The third one is sadly
not emphasized much at all in the Christian Church today and perhaps our third
midweek Advent worship service will do a little toward changing that. This
third way is that He comes to us now, but not just in the knowledge that He’s
always with us, or in the conviction that He lives in our hearts. He comes to
us in specific ways, just like He came in a specific way the first time, born
in a stable, and laid in a manger; and just like it will be specific in His
coming again on Judgment Day, everyone will know. The specific ways He comes to
us are what we refer to as the Means of Grace, the Gospel and the Sacraments.
Before we get to His Second Coming and His coming to us often in the
Gospel and in the Sacraments, we need a little preparation for a fuller appreciation
of what those second two comings of Christ mean. And by this we mean not just a
better knowledge of them but also a better grasp of how they apply to us both
now and for eternity.
The Ten Commandments help us out here. The Ten Commandments stand at
the head of the Catechism. The Catechism takes no prisoners. Off the bat you
realize that you are a sinner. God lays down His Law and you are left holding
an empty bag because you have nothing to put in there to give to God. You shall
have no other gods? You have plenty. You shall not misuse the name of the Lord
your God? You misuse the name of your Lord more times than you would care to
admit and in more ways than you probably even realize. Remember the Sabbath day
by keeping it holy? Do you trust fully that God keeps you in body and soul
through His Gospel and Sacraments? You can’t even get off the hook here with
the defense that you’re here every Sunday, and even more, cause you’re here in
the middle of the week when it’s Advent and Lent.
The Ten Commandments nail us to the wall. We look to ourselves, to
other people, to other things for our greatest good. We do not trust that God
works all things—all things—for our good. We do not love our neighbor as ourselves.
That’s because we’re often too busy thinking of ourselves to think to serve
them. The Ten Commandments show us that we have fallen short of the glory of
God. They show us that the God who revealed them is a God who demands
perfection; and no matter how good you can convince yourself that you are, you
cannot pretend that you are perfect.
In Advent we need to be aware of this. Okay, not just in Advent, but
Advent is a good time to bring this home. The reason is that this is why Jesus
came. The reason Jesus was born is because of the Ten Commandments. The Law is
God’s revelation to us but it is not the only one. And it is not the primary
one. His Son is. The baby born in Bethlehem is. God demands perfection of us in
the Ten Commandments but He gives His Son to us to meet that very demand.
The way Jesus speaks of it is as fulfillment. He has come to fulfill. Matthew 22:37 says this: “And
he said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with
all your soul and with all your mind.’” This is about as good a way to sum up
the Ten Commandments as there is. What Jesus has done in coming to earth was
not to lay down more Law. Not to hand down more burdens. Not to heap on us more
demands. He came to fulfill the very Law He has given to us.
The demand of perfection is met in Christ. You and I fail all the time
in keeping the Commandments. Jesus kept them perfectly. You and I sin against
them instead of delighting in them. Jesus delighted in them and actually
carried them out in their fullness. When we think of what Christ has done, and
why He came to earth, we rightly proclaim and lift up His crucifixion and His
resurrection. He suffered and died and rose for the sins of the world. He took
our punishment for not keeping the Law of God as if He were the one who did not
keep it. His blood was shed instead of our getting what we rightly ought to
get: eternal punishment for our sin.
What we too often forget is that Jesus did that and more. He didn’t
just receive what we deserve, He did what was demanded of us. He kept the Law perfectly.
He fulfilled the holy, pure, righteous Law of God. This is what He says in the
second reading we heard: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or
the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” [ESV] This
is good news! As much as we’d like to wipe out the Ten Commandments because of
our failure to live up to them—because of our sin, because of guilt and lack of
holiness—Jesus does no such thing. He doesn’t get rid of the Law, He fulfills
it!
If it were just a matter of Him saying to us, “Hey, I’m Jesus, I’m God,
and I’ve done this; namely, I’ve done what you could not do”—well, that
wouldn’t be very good news for us. It would be just the same as the Ten
Commandments being laid upon us. Jesus came to fulfill the Law for us.
That’s why He came. That’s why He was born. What does He go on to say in that
reading? “For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an
iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.” [ESV] He
said it Himself and then He did it. He speaks of fulfilling it, of accomplishing
all that is necessary for being holy in the sight of God. And He does it. He
fulfills. He accomplishes.
It might seem as though He follows this up with more Law, as He goes on
to say: “Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches
others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but
whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of
heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes
and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” [ESV] But Jesus
doesn’t do that. He doesn’t follow up His work of salvation with more Law. That
would wipe out the salvation.
What He is doing is laying out exactly what is necessary for salvation.
Namely, as we have already noted, perfection. Full compliance with the Law.
Keeping it wholeheartedly. As we heard, loving “the Lord your God with all your
heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” Jesus is not demanding
this of us but showing us that He does it and He does it for us. Our
righteousness is perfect righteousness because Christ gives it to us. He gives
us His own righteousness.
How do you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your
soul and with all your mind? Not by attempting it. Not by thinking you have
done it or are on your way to doing it, getting better and better at it all the
time. You just do it. But hear this clearly: you don’t just do it because
you’re able to. You just do it because that’s what your Lord has given you to do
in giving you His righteousness. Are you righteous? Yes, in Christ you are
righteous. Are you holy as you stand before God? Yes, you are because your
holiness is nothing else than the holiness, the perfection, the purity, the having-accomplished-all-ness
of Jesus Himself.
He has come to fulfill. He has come to save you. He has come not to
bury you with the Law but to fulfill it for you. Next week we will ponder the
promise of our Lord to return again in glory. That implies that we are waiting
for that. Much like the people of God waited for the Messiah to come the first
time, at Bethlehem. What do we do as we await? Having the righteousness of
Christ, having the Law accomplished perfectly by Christ, we are freed up to
serve. We are not under the burden of having to fulfill the Law, we are under
the joyous call by our Lord to serve others as He has served us.
Because, after all, Jesus has come to fulfill. Amen.
SDG
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