Rejoice John, you are a child of Wisdom! - Sermon for the 3rd Sunday in Advent

3^rd Sunday of Advent, December 15^th, A+ D 2024
Our Savior’s and Our Redeemer Lutheran Churches
Hill City and Custer, South Dakota
Rejoice John, you are a child of Wisdom!

Sermon Audio available HERE.

   Rejoice John!  For the Lord God rejoices over you with a song, because you are a child of Wisdom! 

   St. Paul exhorts John the Baptist, and all Christians, to rejoice always, in every
circumstance.  But, as our Gospel reading begins, John the Baptist is sitting in Herod’s prison, has been for months.  John’s disciples are allowed to visit him, and once in a while Herod will bring John out for a while to speak with him.  But John is still imprisoned.  I think he probably assumes, correctly, that he will not leave captivity alive.  I would find it very hard to rejoice in such circumstances. 

   Unsurprisingly, John seems to be struggling.  He hears news of all the wonderful things Jesus is doing, and he expresses confusion.  He sends a question to his Cousin:  “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?”  We aren’t given any more of a window inside John’s mind, but the Baptizer seems to be doubting Jesus’ identity, whether He is truly the Messiah, the promised Savior.  Perhaps John expected more fire and brimstone from Jesus, more burning of the chaff, more warnings for sinners about the coming judgment.  Instead, John keeps hearing about Jesus delivering gifts of healing and restoration.

    Well, the fire will come.  But burning the sinful chaff of humanity is not the main point of Jesus’ ministry.  The hell of fire for the wicked is reality, but Jesus’ goal is not to send people to the flames.  His goal is to save them from the fire, and bring them into God’s eternal family.  Even warnings about the fire serve this greater purpose, to turn people from the broad and easy way that leads to destruction, so they can be moved onto the Way of Salvation.  The fire serves to prepare Jesus’ hearers for saving water, for the washing of regeneration, for new birth, into the Kingdom of Heaven. 

     The miracles of Jesus, healing the sick and lame, casting out demons, raising the Widow of Nain’s son, these are like new births.  Jesus restores broken people to shalom, peace and wholeness.  He rescues the outcast, bringing them from estrangement from God to acceptance and unity.  A new start in life, a new start with God, and also with others.  Jesus in His ministry is driving at New Birth, the New Birth of Wisdom.  For, as Jesus concludes our reading this morning, Wisdom is justified, declared to be righteous and wonderful, by all her children. 

   Wisdom in the Bible is portrayed as a woman, especially in the book of Proverbs, probably because in both the Hebrew and Greek languages, Wisdom is a feminine noun.  But even though Wisdom is portrayed as feminine, the Truth is that Jesus is Wisdom, the Wisdom of God, the Father’s best and highest thought.  When Jesus says Wisdom is justified by her children, He is claiming to be Wisdom, and He is claiming to be God, by echoing the justifying words of the sinners and tax collectors, when they heard Jesus celebrate the greatness of John the Baptist, and so they justified God. 

   Our Lord sends off the disciples of John to reaffirm him in the good news that Jesus is the Messiah.  “Tell John about the miracles,” He instructs them, because they’re just like the prophet Isaiah predicted the Christ would do.    

   Jesus then goes on to discuss the Baptizer with the crowds.  Who did you go out to see?  The last and great prophet, second to none among men born of women.  On par with Moses, Elijah and Elisha, a first ballot election to the Prophets Hall of Fame.  “When all the people heard this, and the tax collectors too, they declared God just, having been baptized with the baptism of John.”  Whoo-hoo, we were baptized by one of God’s greatest servants, God has smiled, on us.  And so, they declared that God is just.  They justified God, that is they proclaimed that God is righteous and good, most especially for sending them John to administer a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 

   Wisdom, and God, are both declared to be just, righteous and good, by all who see and hear and believe the Good News, the Gospel, that Jesus of Nazareth is both declaring and enacting.  In fact, Jesus announces that all who enter the Kingdom of God are even greater than John the Baptizer.  “I tell you,” He says, “among those born of women none is greater than John. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.” 

   Being reborn as a child of God, being made a child of Wisdom Incarnate, the God-Man Jesus Christ, this re-birth is the greatest thing that can happen to a human being.  Being a child of God is even greater than being a great prophet like Elijah or John the Baptizer.  Why?  Because the only way to become a child of God is by being united by faith to the eternal Son of God.  “He who believes and is baptized will be saved.”  All the prophets, from Moses and Elijah down to John, were forerunners, preparing the Way of the Lord, promising justice and mercy would come with the Messiah, the Christ.  “But now the Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save.” The Christ has come.  Everything old is being made new, everything broken is being restored, new life springs up all around. 

    Jesus is not excluding John the Baptist from the Kingdom of God.  John the Baptist, along with all the faithful prophets, indeed, all the faithful children of Israel, are also included in the Kingdom, by God’s grace, poured out from the Cross.  Jesus is simply reminding us that nothing we sinners do, not even a great prophetic work, nothing we do earns us the right to be called children of God.  Because our works are not perfect, because we are not perfect, we are not sinless.  But the Sinless One has come and is doing His great work, from Bethlehem to Calvary.  Jesus called the fire that we deserve down upon Himself, and extinguished the flames in His own body.  So now, all who live from baptismal faith in Christ are justified.  All who trust in Christ are declared to be righteous, the free and life-giving gift of God.  And since you are justified, you are also great in God’s eyes, forever, for Jesus’ sake.      

      The faithful Old Testament prophets and saints, along with the believing crowds, including the tax collectors, all these characters in today’s Gospel drama, are children of Wisdom.  Thankful, wise children rejoice to declare that Wisdom is just.  The children of Wisdom are Christians, little Christs, who find their self-worth in Him, and so tell forth His excellencies.  Because He is truly worthy of praise, forever and ever, Amen.

     There are others characters, of course, naysayers, in today’s Gospel.  Opponents of the message of John and Jesus, whom it will be good for us to study.  Because we still face opponents today, who are descended from the opponents of Jesus’ and John’s time.  And they still employ many of the same tactics. 

     The first opponent isn’t mentioned, but the backdrop of the whole account depends on his opposition.  I’m speaking of Herod, Herod Antipas, to be precise, the tetrarch of Galilee, a local ruler installed by the Romans, the son of the infamous Herod the Great.  The earlier Herod fashioned himself a king, a jealous and fearful one.  Three decades before today’s Gospel events, Herod the Great slaughtered many innocent baby boys in and around Bethlehem, as he tried to kill the newborn King of the Jews, whom he feared would take his throne. 

    King Herod is part of a pattern, which includes ancient Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon.  Each of these empires was an enemy and sometimes the overlord of ancient Israel.  Rome acted the same way, feeling compelled to oppose Christ and His Church.  Herod Antipas is a bit player in a struggle that is as old as this fallen world.  In the mysterious wisdom of God, His people will always be living under some earthly power, until the Last Day when Christ returns visibly once again.  This arrangement can be advantageous, as in 313 A+D when Constantine recognized the reality on the ground, and legalized Christianity.  Or, fun calendar coincidence, on this day, December 15^th, in 1791, the day when the Bill of Rights was approved, enshrining religious freedom in the U.S. Constitution. 

   The Church can be blessed through good government.  But there is always a tension between the Church and any earthly government.  There will always arise a desire in earthly powers to control and use the Church for their own ends.  The Church prays for good, just rulers, and even for truly Christian rulers.  At the same time, we are not surprised when earthly powers turn against God and His Truth.  Like John the Baptist did, when earthly authorities turn against the God’s Word and Way, we are called to speak the Truth of Christ, come what may. 

   John the Baptizer got in trouble when he condemned the illicit relationship between Herod and Herodias, who was the wife of his brother Phillip.  John wasted away in prison for the sake of not avoiding conflict with the governing authorities, for always speaking the truth.  God grant that we learn such fidelity and courage from John, and from countless martyrs and saints through 2,000 years, who gave up their freedom and often their lives, rather than betray Christ and His precious Word. 

   God calls us to uphold both His Law, which defines what is right and condemns what is wrong, and His wondrous Gospel, which reveals God’s desire and actions to rescue lawbreakers from eternal condemnation.  If upholding God’s Word requires us to say things that bring the ire of the government upon us, so be it.  Rejoice, God be praised, His Truth is marching on.     

   In the Baptizer’s time, the government was firmly in league with the pagan world.  Supporting the worship of national and local deities was a civic duty, whether that God was Zeus, or Athena, the Sun, Moon and Stars, or the Emperor.  Strangely to our ears, early Christians were accused of atheism, because they only worshiped the One true God, not the whole pantheon of idols. 

   Today, the governing authorities are not quite as clearly in league with the idol worshipers.  Although in some jurisdictions, denying the cult of transgenderism can put you at risk of losing your job.  Old fashioned pre-Christian paganism is making something of a comeback, but much more influential are a whole series of belief systems that deny being religions, but seek to enforce their worldview with fanatical fervor.  Try speaking up for marriage as God defines it, or criticize the radical sexual freedom that dominates our popular culture.  Try being a public school teacher who rejects the worldview of scientific materialism.  Even though contemporary evolutionary biology and current origin of the universe studies face serious contradictions and mathematical impossibilities, still, daring to speak against these belief systems can cost you.  

   However, worst of all for John the Baptist and Jesus were their supposed co-religionists.  The Pharisees, the lawyers, experts in the Law of Moses, and the priests: all of them should have been allies of the Forerunner and the Christ.  They more than anyone should have seen how the prophecies from Abraham to Malachi were being fulfilled before their eyes.  But for many of them, their faith had been corrupted with the age-old temptation of works righteousness, the false belief that I by my goodness and works have made myself pleasing to God.  Others had their faith corrupted by seeking the approval of the world, in particular mixing in ideas from Greek thought and religion.  Others simply preferred comfort and power in this life, and found it in alliances with Rome, even if that required compromising God’s Truth. 

   Today it is much the same.  Many of faithful Christianity’s worst opponents are people who claim to be Christian, but reject anything in Biblical teaching that conflicts with the world’s preferences.  So we see people who claim to be Christians endorse giving hormones and disfiguring surgery to try to change boys into girls and girls into boys.  We hear pastors shouting their abortions, and denying that God created the world in six days, or that Jesus’ blood is the only Way of Salvation.  There seems to be no end of friendly fire trained on Biblically faithful Christians, by those who in theory are also Christians.   

   So be it.  We face social and economic pressures, but we do not yet face violent persecution.  We are not being thrown in jail.  We are still free to gather.  We are still free to speak truth, here and in our daily lives.  Although speaking the truth may cost us now and again. 

   But even if God should allow sharper persecution to come into our lives, we know of a better prize, that the world cannot take from us.  For the “Lord your God is in your midst,  a mighty one who will save.”  You have been reborn by faith in Jesus.  You have been washed.  You are forgiven.  You are a child of Wisdom.  The Lord rejoices over you with a song.  We have gathered here this morning to declare that God is just, because He has gathered us to declare that we are just, justified by the forgiving love of Jesus.  And so we rejoice, always, by faith in Jesus Christ. 

Let us pray:  Holy Spirit of the Coming Christ, drive out fear from our hearts, and fix our eyes on Jesus, who is our Wisdom, our Righteousness, and our Holiness.  As the Son of God has come and won forgiveness for all the sins of every sinner, strengthen us by Your Word, that we resist the temptations and pressures of the world.  Fill us with joy that we are children of God the Father, through Jesus His Son.  Let our rejoicing be seen in our lives, that other sinners may see our hope, and seek its Source, which is Jesus Christ, the Savior of Sinners, who reigns with You and the Father, One God, now, and forever and ever, Amen.