Advent Midweek 2 - 2nd Article

 

Advent Midweek 2 – The Second Article

In the Name of Christ Jesus our Advent King +

    So last midweek in the Gospel lesson we had the rich young ruler who didn't want to give up his stuff. In response, the ever cheerful Peter says, “Oh, look at what we've given up to follow you, Jesus!” And here we see the patience of Jesus, the wisdom, the love – because Jesus doesn't lay into Peter here for his pride or bragging – that's what Peter is doing here. If you tell someone to do something, and they fail, and then I pop up with a “well, I've done all that already” - I'm being a brown-nosing braggart. But Jesus doesn't rebuke Peter directly. Instead, Jesus teaches. Jesus teaches us what precisely He is doing by becoming incarnate and living and preaching. Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not receive many times more in this time, and in the age to come.

    Now on the one hand, this is simply speaking to the church. We are called to follow Christ, even when our families and friends don't like this – and we gain the church. I have far more brothers in Christ than I do human brothers. But there's a weight, an impact to what Jesus is saying that slides on by the disciples, and it can slide on by us. Who for us men and for our salvation – left His Home in heaven, left the right hand of the Father, and was made Man. What you have here is Jesus describing what He Himself is doing, what the point of His coming was and is. Jesus leaves heaven and comes to earth to win salvation for the Kingdom of God, to fill it with many brothers and sisters, including you and me, both for now and for the life of the world to come.

    This is the beauty, the wonder of the fact that Jesus is both True God, begotten of the Father from all eternity, and True Man, born of the Virgin Mary. When Christ comes at Christmas, He gives things up. He sets aside His power, His glory... and He takes on weakness and frailty and hardship. Hear how Philippians 2, the text we hear read on Palm Sunday, puts it - “though He was in the form of God, He did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking the form of a servant and being born in the likeness of men.” This passage has one of my favorite little Greek-isms in it that's so hard to put simply into English – He did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped. He didn't hold on to the fact that He was God; He didn't go around like some spoiled brat saying, “Don't you know who My Father is” - He doesn't call upon His identity, His privileged His status – although He is God – in the shape and form and reality of being God (again, more Greek-isms) – Jesus lets that all be ignored. He doesn't cling to it – because for Jesus as He comes to earth all His own power and mighty and glory isn't important. You are. You are more important to Jesus than His own respect and power and praise and heaven itself.

Jesus left all that behind, and He made Himself nothing – He emptied Himself of all His power and glory, and was born just like we are. Jesus doesn't just appear as a fully formed adult – He comes as one of us. He is an infant, too weak to lift His head. He comes, and He has to learn how to walk. He comes, and He has to grow. The stained glass there doesn't show it, but boy Jesus in the temple probably had acne and I wouldn't be surprised if His voice cracked a few times when He was talking to the Rabbis. And all this is to gain you salvation, to rescue you from the powers of sin and death. Jesus is True God, but He becomes True Man... and for a time, Jesus sets all the rights, powers, and privileges of being God aside – because His focus is on saving you.

    And how does that happen? Note what Jesus does in the Gospel lesson. There's been all this talk about giving things away and following Jesus, and leave family but gain the kingdom, and Jesus pulls the 12 aside. Whenever Jesus pulls the 12 disciples aside, He's going to explain something to them, to spell things out more clearly. I'm really diving into how Salvation will be accomplished – and He says, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished. For He will be delivered over to the Gentiles and will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon. And after flogging Him, they will kill Him, and on the third day He will rise.” As we say in the Catechism, Jesus purchases and redeems us not with gold or silver, but with His holy, precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death. There's a very practical reason why to be the Savior Jesus can't hold on to His divine power. He has to suffer to save you. He has to take up the weight, the burden, the punishment for sin – your sin – and that means all the events of Holy Week, the shame trial, the beatings, the mockery, the Cross.

    And of course the disciples don't get it yet – they are still a bit full of themselves, how great they are because they're following Jesus – and they've been doing it longer than so many of all you Johnny-come-latelys and they've been in the club longer and so on and so forth. But they understood none of these things. This saying was hidden from them, and they did not grasp what was said. While Jesus doesn't grasp, doesn't hold on to His power – the disciples don't grasp the idea of His suffering; they are still clinging on to their own dreams of earthly power and pomp – the very things Jesus tosses away to save them. Of course they couldn't understand – they hadn't seen it yet – they hadn't see the Cross yet. It made no sense to them, not until after Easter.

    Everything Jesus does in the Gospels, He does to save you, to redeem you, to rescue you. Everything He does drives Him, pushes Him towards the Cross, where your sin will be paid for, where the power of Sin and Death over you will be shattered. And He dies. And on the third day, He rises – as He and Moses and the Prophets had said He would. And after the resurrection, there's something different about Jesus. Oh, He is indeed still really and truly Man – you can touch Him, He eats some fish with the disciples in John 21. But after Easter, all that divine power and majesty that He had to abandon for the sake of salvation – He doesn't have to ignore that any more. After the resurrection, we see Jesus in His fully True God and True Man glory and majesty. A door is locked in the upper room on Easter night – doesn't stop Jesus. He had just been with the disciples on the road to Emmaus, and now He wants to be in the Upper Room – so He can and will. Doesn't have to walk, He just goes now – because He's God, and there's no need, no need for your salvation, for Him to not use His power. And for 40 days after Easter He comes and goes and shows Himself to people and teaches and prepares the disciples, and then of His own accord He ascends to Heaven. He's prepared and is preparing a place for you there, but even in the meantime, He will be with you always – literally coming to you in His Body and Blood in the Supper because Jesus is True God and True Man and He can do that if He wants to thank you very much.

    But there is a shift that comes with the Ascension, that is revealed even more fully come Pentecost. The Church as we know it comes about. Whereas the saints of the Old Testament looked forward to the coming of the Messiah, and whereas the disciples followed Christ wherever He went, now in the days of the Church the disciples and apostles would be scattered around the globe, and wherever they went the Holy Spirit would cause the Church to grow – but that is really for next week when we consider the Third Article of the Creed. But for tonight, let it suffice that we remember what it is we are preparing to celebrate this Christmas – that Christ Jesus our Lord would step aside from heaven and its glory to win you forgiveness and life, so that you would be able to enjoy heaven with Him. This is His love for you. In the Name of Christ Jesus, our Advent King +