Third Sunday in Advent (December 16, 2018)
“A Scandalous
Stone” (Luke 7:18-23)
The
anticipation of Christmas morning fills our hearts with joy. The joy of being with family ... the joy of
giving and receiving ... the joy of watching children unwrap their presents
with unbridled enthusiasm ... the anticipation of all those joy-filled moments
builds and builds every day as Christmas Day approaches each year.
Today
is the third Sunday in Advent, and the lighting of the pink candle signals to
us that Advent is once again coming to a close very soon. Our celebration of the birth of our Savior
Jesus Christ is right around the corner.
In the midst of our Advent repentance, we also have Advent joy.
Joy
is all over the place in today's service.
We began by singing “O Bride of Christ, Rejoice.” The Introit and the Epistle reading both
begin with St. Paul's encouragement to “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I
will say, Rejoice!” In the Old Testament
reading, the prophet Zephaniah says, “Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O
daughter of Jerusalem!” We sang the
words from Zechariah in the Gradual, “Rejoice, greatly, O daughter of
Zion.” The choir anthem had the refrain,
“Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.” But when we get to the Gospel reading, joy
momentarily comes to a screeching halt.
John
the Baptist, the forerunner of the Messiah, is in prison. That's him pictured on the cover of your
bulletin this morning. John doesn't look
very joyful, does he? He was put in
prison by Herod Antipas, son of Herod the Great who was king when Jesus was
born. John had publicly criticized Herod
Antipas for committing adultery with his brother's wife. Rulers don't like it when you talk about them
like that. There was no such thing as the
First Amendment guaranteeing freedom of speech in those days. If you made the ruler mad, he could put you
in prison. And that's what Herod Antipas
did to John.
So,
when our Gospel lesson today opens, John had been in prison for a number of
months. Apparently, there were visiting
hours in this prison, and some of his followers came and reported to him about
what Jesus had been doing. In
particular, they must have heard about Jesus bringing back to life the widow's
son in the city of Nain, which Luke records right before our text and says,
“This report about him spread throughout the whole of Judea and all the
surrounding country.”
What
was going on in John's mind? He couldn't
have been jealous of Jesus for getting all the attention. Earlier in his ministry, he pointed to the
Lord and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the
world.” And when some of John's
disciples left him to follow Jesus, John was satisfied about this, and said,
“He must increase, but I must decrease.”
But prison is not a happy place, especially prisons in those days. Was John starting to get a little
depressed? Was his faith in the Lamb of
God wavering? Why did he send two of his
disciples to ask Jesus, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for
another?” Was he wondering why there was
such a delay in the Messiah's plans to bring about the Kingdom of God? Was he losing his joy as the King's messenger
who had come to “prepare the way of the Lord”?
Some
commentators say that John had no doubts.
They say that he sent his disciples to question Jesus because John's
disciples were still too loyal to him, and now they needed to give their
allegiance to Jesus.[1] Others say that John knew about Jesus' acts
of grace and mercy, but wondered where his acts of judgment were, which John
himself had preached about ... all that business about the axe being laid to
the root of the trees and all those fruitless trees being cut down and thrown
in to the fire.[2] This is all quite possible. But taking the text at face value and
considering the present condition of John ... including that sinful nature that
he shared with you and me ... I can't help but think that John was starting to
have some questions of his own.
As
you and I anticipate Christmas, maybe you have some questions. “Why am I not as joyful as everybody expects
me to be during the holidays ... with all the pressure to shop, buy the right
gift for everyone, decorate, and entertain?
Do I have to go to a bunch of office parties and family parties and put
on a happy face, even though there is so much unresolved, underlying tension
between some of us?”
This
is not just the case with anticipating our Lord's First Advent. It also goes for anticipating our Lord's
Second Advent. We have questions about
that, too. “Why does Jesus seem to be
dragging his feet as this world seems to spin out of control? When will his justice finally be delivered
for all the wickedness and evil in the world?
Is he really going to come back again, like he said, or is this all a
made-up fairy tale?”
You
see, you and I are not much different than John in our text. We are not in a prison cell. But we are in prisons of our own. We are all in bondage to sin. The sins of others and our own sins have
wreaked havoc in our life. The chains of
doubt, despair, discontent, bitterness, resentment, hatred, slander, and
impatience hold us down and keep us from Advent and Christmas joy ... along
with so many other sins that handcuff us and keep our hearts as cold as stone.
But
there is a living stone in our Gospel reading today who says, “Blessed is the
one who is not offended by me.” The word
for “offended” can be translated “scandalized.” It’s taken from a Greek word
that means something which trips you up, like a stone in your path over which
you stub your toe or trip and fall. Both
St. Paul and St. Peter, that rocky apostle, wrote that for those who do not
believe, Jesus is “A stone of stumbling and a rock of offense” (Romans
9:33; 1 Peter 2:8).
Why
is Jesus so scandalous? Why do people
trip up over him? Because he does things
we don't expect. John expected Jesus to
do more than what he was doing. John may
have been expecting Jesus to dispense his judgment right then and there,
instead of at his Second Advent as is God's plan. And so, Jesus sends John's disciples back
with some encouraging words. He reminds
John that he is truly the promised Messiah who was doing what he was sent to
do. “Go and tell John what you have seen
and heard: the blind receive their
sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are
raised up, the poor have good news preached to them.” Through his miracles, Jesus demonstrates that
he came to release people from their imprisonment to sin and its effects in the
world.
But
Jesus is an even more scandalous stone than that. During his First Advent, he didn't
automatically heal everyone and raise all the dead. You would expect God to do this for
people. But God does things we don't
expect, including being born as a helpless baby. When he grew up, Christ's main purpose was
not to be a miracle worker, but to become weak and to suffer and die for the
sins of the world on the cross, to rise again from the dead, and to offer forgiveness,
life, and salvation as a free gift ... no strings attached. People stumble over that Good News, because
they think that there has to be a catch.
They expect to be saved at least partially by their own good works rather
than by faith alone in the Son of God who loved them and gave himself up for
them (Gal 2:20).
We don't like
scandal ... unless, of course, it comes out of Hollywood or Washington,
D.C. We like our lives to be free of
controversy. We don't want God dying on
a cross. That's scandalous. That's offensive. Instead, give us a sweet little baby in a
manger. But when you really think about
it, that baby in the manger is just as scandalous, because, as the Scriptures
teach and as the Catechism confesses, he is “true God, begotten of his Father
before all eternity, and true Man, born of the Virgin Mary.” How can a man be God? How can a Virgin give birth? Let the angel Gabriel tell you how this can
be: “Nothing will be impossible with God.”
Nor
is it impossible for God, through that Baby, to release you from the prison
that sin has created in your life .. .to forgive you ... to renew you ... to
reconcile you to God and to others ... to restore your Advent and Christmas joy
... and to bless you, as Jesus said, “Blessed is the one who is not offended by
me.” Blessed are you, no longer
stumbling over that stone named Jesus, but with faith firmly established on
such a solid foundation as his birth, life, death, and resurrection.
INI
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