Every year during the season of Advent we invite the children to come forward during the children’s message and we talk about the Advent wreath. Each Sunday we talk about the different candles and the meaning of each one. This year during the Wednesday services and concluding with Christmas Eve and Christmas Day we have been talking about the Advent wreath and what each candle represents especially for the adults of the congregation. This evening we conclude our series and this calendar year by looking to God’s Word of hope for us for our future.
If you have ever watched any “end times” movies, apocalyptic movies as they may be called, you may notice that none or at least very, very few if any predict a bright future. Most all depict a rather bleak future, one with a lot of death and destruction. Of course, from our sinful human nature as well as how bad we see that life truly is in this world, that idea might be more fact than fiction. And here I would add, at least for the unbeliever who truly has no hope for any future. But what about for us Christians?
It is said that the Old Testament has been given to us in light of the New Testament. In other words, because God knew what He was going to do in the New Testament, He has given us the Old Testament to lead us to the New Testament. Which brings us to the example of Israel, God’s chosen people. Remembering that God lives in the eternal present and that He already knows all, not that He predestines anything, but that since God knows all we see His great love for us in His creating us in the first place. Anyway, in the Garden of Eden we have God’s first promise of hope and future in the promise of a Messiah, a Christ, a Savior.
Later in Genesis God makes an unconditional covenant with Abram whose name He changed to Abraham that the Christ would be born through His line of descent. Now remember that Abraham was an idol worshiper when God called him as we are told he had to put away his idols and leave his land. God’s covenant with Abraham was unconditional relating back to His covenant with Adam and Eve that is that God would send a Savior for all people (of all places of all times). Later we have God’s conditional covenant with Moses and the Children of Israel, His chosen people. The conditional covenant with Moses and Israel was that if they obeyed His commands they would retain the land and greatness as His people. So we have the unconditional covenant of eternal salvation as complete gift from God to us. And we have the conditional earthly covenant of an earthly land and kingdom, which as we know, has been lost.
Of course, as we have followed their history, they failed time and again. Time and again they would allow the temptations of those around them to lure them into sin, idolatry, adultery, and other great shame and vice. When they would fall away God, in His love would discipline them. He would send armies to overtake them and enslave them. Of course, when disciplined they would remember God and cry out to Him for help and deliverance.
And of course, again we know their history, God would hear their cries and He would send someone to save them. And we see that this history continually repeated itself during the years of Israel’s existence as a nation, at least up until the time of Jesus. And we well know what happened at the time of Jesus, whose birth we just celebrated. Too many Israelites were still seeking a social political Savior, a Mosaic Savior instead of an eternal spiritual Savior, an Abrahamic Savior.
Yet, we may see in their failure and discipline a vision of our own lives. In our own lives we have God’s call to life at our conception wherein we are given a body and soul and a life in this world. Hopefully soon after birth we have God’s call to faith through His Word and Baptism. At our Baptism God, using the hand of the pastor puts water on us and with the mouth of the pastor speaks His name on us, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. At that moment we are given faith, our sins are forgiven, God writes His name on us and He writes our name in the book of life. All is well, at least for a while.
As we live our lives, we also live lives of temptation. The devil, the world and our own sinful nature continue to lead us in to sin, despair and other great shame and vice. We sin in thought, word and dead. We sin sins of omission and commission. Indeed, our nature is to sin and we simply cannot help but sin, and yet that is no excuse. Our personal lives very much reflect the lives of the nation of Israel. We constantly fail, we constantly sin, we constantly break the commandments. And we do not even need practice.
And the Lord disciplines us, perhaps not in the way in which He disciplined Israel, in other words, He does not necessarily send nations to enslave us, although having said that we may wonder about our own country and just how sinful it has become and at what point God may indeed allow us to lose our freedoms as we see has happened in countries around the world. Yet, God does call us to repentance so that we do come and we confess our sins and God who is faithful and just does forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And yet, just as Israel did, so do we, we go out and sin more.
Indeed, our lives are lives reflecting the lives of Israel in our failure, our sin, our repentance, our forgiveness and our failure and sin again. Thanks be to God that He sent Jesus, again, whose birth we just celebrated, to be born into our time in order to bring us forgiveness.
God’s love is shown in this that even knowing our nature, sin, God created us anyway. Even knowing that He would have to enter human history as a man, God created us anyway. Even knowing that He would have to suffer the punishment for our sins, the punishment He instituted, the punishment of hell, for us, He created us anyway.
And so, as we just celebrated, God sent Jesus, true God to take on human flesh, to be born as a true human. As we confess in our creeds, true God, conceived by the Holy Spirit and true man born of the virgin Mary. Jesus came to do for Adam and Eve what they were unable to do, obey one command. Jesus came to do for the nation of Israel what they were unable to do, obey ten commands. Jesus came to do what we are unable to do, live obedient lives. And so He did. The fullness of the Gospel is that Jesus came to live for us. After living the perfect life demanded of us Jesus then took our sins, all our sins, your sins and mine and the sins of all people of all places of all times and He paid the price of hell for us in our place and He died for us.
And yet, as we celebrate His birth in the shadow of the cross we know the whole story, He did not stay dead but He rose from the dead defeating sin, death and the devil. And Jesus’ suffering and death earned forgiveness for us and for all people. As we are so often reminded, when we come to the Lord’s Table we eat His body and drink His blood given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. As we eat His body and drink His blood He becomes a part of us. His life becomes our life. His death becomes our death. His resurrection becomes our resurrection. And His eternal life in heaven becomes our eternal life in heaven. There is indeed, no greater hope, that is certainty, and future.
So, what is our hope and future? What will 2025 bring? Sorry to tell you, but only God knows. Only God knows what will happen and as I say that let me assure you that does not mean that God predetermines nor predestines what will happen. For our part, we may make resolutions of things we might desire to change in our lives. We may make resolutions without God in mind or with God mind. And yet, even though we may make such resolutions, we still continue to be like Israel, not so good at keeping our word. Thanks be to God that His word is certain.
On His part, we continually have God’s promise of hope and future. Indeed, for us Christians God has a hope and a future for us, not necessarily in this world, but for eternity. Our ultimate hope and future go back to Eden and to Abraham, that of heaven. And so we live our lives as a response to all that God promises and gives but only with God’s help. As always, not only is our being made just and right in God’s eyes all His work, so our living lives of faith is also according to His work in and through us.
So, our encouragement for this coming new year is to continue making regular and diligent use of the means of grace. Be in Divine Service to hear the word, to be reminded of your baptism, to hear the most beautiful words in the world, that your sins are forgiven, the word of Holy absolution, partake of the Lord’s body and blood in His Holy Supper wherein you are as close on this earth as you can be to those dearly departed saints that are family and friends. Our greatest comfort, hope and future do not come from inside of us but outside, from Jesus to us and then we reflect that hope and future to others, with the help and by the power of the Holy Spirit.
As we end this year, 2024 and look forward to a new year 2025, although we do not know what is ahead, we have the certainty that God is with us, that He will never leave us nor forsake us, that His plans for us are ultimately to be with us in His home in heaven for eternity. And quite frankly, it does not get any better than that. To God be the glory, for Jesus’s sake. Amen.
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