Advent 4 - Rorate Caeli, 2022
Rev. Thomas Van Hemert
Advent 4
St. John 1:19-28
December 18, 2022
In the name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit.
It seems as though the season of Advent is as much about John the Baptist as it is about Jesus. This may seem out of place and odd to many of you, but it is, nonetheless, the case. John the Baptist prepares the way of the Lord. The message that he preaches—a message of preparation and of repentance resounds in our ears many years later. Many of our Advent hymns in the hymnal contain direct references to John the Baptist and his ministry and even more, still, if they are not explicit, they contain implicit references about him and what he preached concerning the imminent advent of the Messiah. Some of these hymns are hymn 343 “Prepare the Royal Highway”, hymn 344 “On Jordan’s Bank the Baptist’s Cry”, hymn 345 “Hark! A Thrilling Voice Is Sounding”, hymn 346 “When All the World Was Cursed”, and hymn 354 “Arise, O Christian People.”
When it comes to the Gospel texts appointed for the Sundays in Advent, two of them, half of them, are concerned with John the Baptist. Last week John was in prison and sent his disciples to ask if Jesus was the Coming One or should they look for another. Today, we hear the testimony of John himself when he deals with the priests, who sent Levites to ask John who he was and by what authority, he was doing these things.
Because Advent is a preparatory season, it makes sense that we would hear John’s cry of “Repent. Repent because there is one coming after me, who is preferred before me, the One whose sandal strap I am not worthy to loose.” Even the Proper Preface in the Service of the Sacrament for Advent focuses on John and his ministry, “It is truly meet, right, and salutary, that we should at all times and in all places give thanks unto you, Holy Father, Almighty and Everlasting God, through Jesus Christ our Lord, whose way John the Baptist prepared, proclaiming Him the promised Messiah, the very Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, and calling sinners to repentance that they might escape from the wrath to be revealed when He comes again in glory. Therefore, with angels and archangels…”
The main message of John’s ministry is “repent.” The Advent of Christ is imminent. It will come when we do not expect it. Prepare yourselves. You must be ready. But what is repentance? How can we repent if we do not know how and if we do not know what repentance truly is? Repentance consists properly of two parts: [The first] is contrition, that is, terrors smiting the conscience through the knowledge of sin. This means what when your sins are weighing you down because you know you have done something wrong in the eyes of God and have transgressed His commandments, such as, if you have taking His name in vain—if you have sworn falsely; if you have not observed the Sabbath day and kept it holy, if you have despised preaching and have not listened to preaching and His Word with gladness; if you not have honored your parents or authority; if you have harmed your neighbor in his body; or if you have even become angry or have ever held a grudge; if you have lusted after someone who is not your spouse or allowed your eyes to wander where they shouldn’t have; if you have lied or slandered your neighbor behind his back; or even coveted anything that belongs to your neighbor, and because of this, you feel bad about it, this is contrition. This is the first part of repentance. And God be praised that you do feel this way. You should feel this way about sin because this means that the Holy Spirit is working within you to call you back to God and convert you once more.
The second part of repentance is faith, which is born of the Gospel, or of absolution and believes that, for Christ’s sake, sins are forgiven—that Jesus does not hold your sins against you because He has taken them up on Himself. Absolution, then, comforts the conscience, and delivers it from terrors. Then, good works are bound to follow, which are the fruits of repentance.
Thus, there are two parts of repentance: contrition, which is knowledge and terror over sins committed. And faith, which believers that because of Jesus, sins are forgiven. We all would do well to remember this and to heed John’s warning cry, “Repent!” Not one of us here this morning is without sin. Not one of us is so self-righteous that we do not desperately need to repent and receive absolution, which is another word for forgiveness. Do not fall into the trap of looking over yonder and comparing yourself to other people here today in regard to your sins. Do not fall into that trap. Not one is righteous. No, not one.
In this regard, I do want to point out something that all of us are prone to falling into. Often times, because our liturgy does follow the same patterns, there is a temptation and danger of becoming apathetic when participating in the liturgy. All of us, myself included, are all tempted to just go through the motions when it comes to either the pastor’s parts or the congregation’s parts of the liturgy. But let us all take notice of this. Do not fall into that trap, either. Let’s actually do something about it and participate in the liturgy deliberately. Because what we do here has meaning. What we do here, what we say here, has consequences, eternal consequences. When it comes time at the beginning of the Divine Service to confess our sins—quite literally—to repent, so that we might enter into holy places and into God’s presence, let’s not just go through the motions and “ho-hum” through the liturgy. Ponder these things. Prepare yourselves. Think about what sins you have committed this week and why you desire to come into the presence of God so that you might seek his forgiveness. Think about what a blessing it is to be here. Think about why you need to be here.
Let’s rethink what it means to be repentant. We don’t just go through the motions in order to get through the service quicker so we can go back home to our own stuff. The stuff that goes on here, the means of grace: preaching, Holy Scripture, the Sacrament of the Altar, provide us with Divine and Sacred blessings, which cannot be found anywhere else, or in any other activity. Like John the Baptist and his ministry and message, we must repent. We must prepare so that we might receive Jesus; so that we might be ready to receive Him as He comes to us, whether that be at Christmas, in the Lord’s Supper, or as is our hope, when He comes again in glory.
Who is John the Baptist? Well, he’s not the Christ. But he is greater than us. Among those born of women, there has not risen one greater than John the Baptist. Heed his words. Receive his ministry. Repent. Repent so that you will be ready for Jesus at Christmas and also at the end of the age because our faith follows us through death and the grave. What we sow in this life will be reaped in the next. If we do not repent and if we do not now have faith, we cannot receive the Christ.
Who is John the Baptist? He’s not the Christ. Nor is he Elijah. And yet, he came in the spirit of Elijah to turn the hearts of the fathers back to their children and to turn the hearts of children back to their fathers. We hear his message today, by which, he turns our hearts back to our Heavenly Father through repentance.
Who are you? You aren’t the Christ either. Nor are you John the Baptist, nor Elijah. But you will soon witness the glory of the Lord in His own risen Body as He comes to you, just like John the Baptist and Elijah. For behold, Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the World.
In +Jesus’ name.
