Today is the Second Sunday in Advent and we continue to prepare ourselves for our Christmas Day Celebration. Preparation is something that is very important to us. When we do not take the time to prepare, things do not go the way we might want. It is very much like the old saying goes, “People do not plan to fail, they fail to plan.” God had a plan. His plan was to send His one and only Son to suffer the eternal consequences for the sins of the whole world. God did a lot of preparing to make sure His plan worked. At just the right time God set His plan in motion and His plan did work, because God prepared it and worked it. As we go about our daily lives during this time of the year, it is as if most people skip the part of planning for Christmas and just jump straight to the Christmas celebration. That is too bad, because the time for preparation brings more excitement and anticipation for the celebration.
Our text for today speaks of God’s preparation. We read about the sending of a Savior beginning at verse one; “1Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. 2Speak 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. 3A voice cries: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. 4Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. 5And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken’” (v. 1-5).
In English a double negative is not a good thing. In Greek and Hebrew a double negative compounds and emphasizes the negative. Likewise a double positive emphasizes the positive. In our text we hear the prophet Isaiah emphasizing the positive when he says, “Comfort, comfort.” This word is one which means to breath deeply, to sigh in deep relief. These words remind us that our comfort, our real comfort, comes only from God. The prophet speaks words which prepare the people for God’s comfort, because the people had suffered enough.
The prophet announces the Savior’s coming. The Savior’s coming would be in Bethlehem, but His saving work, His dying on the cross would be in Jerusalem, the capital city of the children of Israel.
Before Jesus began His earthly ministry, His way, His path was prepared. John the Baptist is the voice of one calling in the desert. John the Baptist is the one the Lord sent to prepare the way for the Savior. In somewhat the same way as we prepare ourselves for our Christmas celebration, so the Lord prepared His people, those who continued to believe in the promise of a Messiah so that they would recognize Jesus as the One promised to save the world.
John came calling in the desert. Many years earlier the Lord delivered the children of Israel out of the desert into the promised land. This deliverance was a foreshadowing of what was now about to happen. Now the Lord has sent His Son to deliver the people out of their desert of sin into the promised land of salvation. How fitting that John came calling in the desert.
John came calling people to repentance. Jesus came to earn forgiveness for the world, but the world can refuse that forgiveness. John knew and understood this, thus he came calling the people to not refuse Jesus’ work of forgiveness by encouraging them to repent. John knew that some of the people were looking for a social-political savior, one who would overthrow those in power over them. He also knew that this was not the reason Jesus came into the world, as a social-political savior. The promise of a Savior was first given in the Garden of Eden, to Adam and Eve and to all humanity. The promise was for a Savior who would bring forgiveness of sins, a Savior who would bring humanity back into a right relationship with God the Father. Thus, John came calling, not a call to arms, but a call to repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
The prophet continues with his encouragement to repent because he knows the shortness of time. We pick up at verse six, “6A voice says, ‘Cry!’ And I said, ‘What shall I cry?’ All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field. 7The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the Lord blows on it; surely the people are grass. 8The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever” (v. 6-8).
We have talked about this before and we will again. Time is always relative. When you were a child, how long did it take you to go from one place to another? It depended on what you had to do to occupy your time. How long did it take for Christmas day to arrive? It depended on how much other stuff you had filling your time. Our time on this earth is short, especially when we fill it with so much earthy stuff and, even more so when we compare our short time here with our eternity in heaven. The prophet reminds us that our time is like that of the grass and flowers, that is, our time is but a season compared to the whole year.
Again, our time is nothing, our time is very short, compared to eternity. We tend to forget that in eternity our time here on this earth will be merely a blip on the screen, and yet we spend more time being concerned about the things of this world, often to the detriment of our eternal life. The Devil would have us contend ourselves with the pettiness of this world rather than being about the business of being God’s people, because if our time is time away from the Lord, if we die in sin and unbelief, then our time away from the Lord will be in hell for eternity.
If you have lived in this world long enough you may have come to the conclusion that there is nothing permanent in this world. The only thing that does not change is the fact that everything does change. As Christians we realize that everything in the world might change, but the Word of the Lord does not change. The word of the Lord stands forever.
God through the prophet proclaims the Savior’s first coming, but the prophet also reminds us of Jesus second coming. We pick up at verse nine, “9Get you up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good news; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good news; lift it up, fear not; say to the cities of Judah, ‘Behold your God!’ 10Behold, the Lord God comes with might, and his arm rules for him; behold, his reward is with him’ and his recompense before him. 11He 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” (v. 9-11).
Jesus’ first coming was to live for us and to give His life for us. Jesus’ second coming will be to take us to live with Himself forever in eternity. Jesus’ second coming will also be at a time no one knows.
Jesus’ first coming was humble and in a manger. He came riding humbly into Jerusalem on a donkey. He humbled Himself and was crucified for us on the cross. He humbled Himself so that He did not always or fully use all His divine power. Jesus’ second coming will be with power and great might. He will come to judge the world. He will come to create a new heaven and a new earth. He will come to destroy the devil and all his works and all his ways and to lock him up forever in the abys. He will come in all His glory and all His divine power and all His majesty.
At Jesus’ second coming every knee will bow, those believing as well as the unbelievers. Unfortunately, it will be the unbelievers who will bow and yet blame God for their unbelief. They will blame God because they are going to hell. They will blame God because they still will not recognize that God does hold us accountable for our sins if and when we refuse Jesus’ work on the cross to grant us forgiveness.
Jesus’ second coming will be to judge the world. He will judge the world rightly. He will judge those with faith in His saving work on the cross to eternal life with Him in heaven. And He will judge those who refuse to believe in Him to eternal life in hell.
Jesus’ first coming was to give His life as a ransom for the world. Jesus’ second coming will be to take us to heaven to be with Himself for eternity.
As we move into this second week in Advent we ask, “how do we prepare ourselves to celebrate Jesus first coming?” We begin preparing ourselves by being in the Word, that is by reading and studying our Bibles. We begin in the Word, because the Word, the Bible is a word with power. It is a Word through which the Holy Spirit works to create faith and to strengthen faith.
We prepare ourselves by remembering our baptism. It was at our baptism that the Lord put His name on us, put faith in our hearts, gave us the forgiveness of sins, life, eternal life and salvation. There may be times during this Advent season that we do not feel very Christmas-y or very Advent-y for that matter. It is at these times that we put our minds in gear and remember that it is not our feelings that save us, rather it is God through Jesus who saves us.
We prepare ourselves by coming and confessing our sins and hearing the most beautiful words in the world, “Your sins are forgiven.” These are the most precious words because left in our sin we would be eternally condemned, but with forgiveness is life and salvation.
And we prepare ourselves by attending the Lord’s Supper. The Lord’s Supper is that means where by the Lord comes to us through His true body, in, with and under the bread, and His true blood, in, with and under the wine, to give us forgiveness of sins. Forgiveness of sins gives us strengthening to know that God has accomplished His work of salvation for us on the cross.
Our text for this morning reminds us, not of the messenger, but of the message and its fulfillment. It is not the messenger that is most important. What is most important is the message and its fulfillment. The message of God is the message of the sending a Savior to be born to save us and to come back to take us to heaven. The message and its fulfillment is given as we read, hear and experience it in God’s means of grace. As we make use of God’s means of grace, these means do what they say, that is they give the gifts God has to give, faith, forgiveness and life, even eternal life. And as we are given these gifts we are so moved to say, to God be the glory, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
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