Christ Lutheran Church
Cleveland, Ohio
November 27, 2022
by: Rev. Dean Kavouras
Advent 1
What Isaiah Saw
Concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the heavenly angels, nor the Son, but the Father only; for just as the days of Noah were, thus also the arrival of the Son of Man. For as things were in those days, people eating and drinking, taking wives and husbands until the day when Noah entered the ark, and were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away; this is how it will be with the arrival of the Son of Man!
Then two men will be in the field one will be taken, and one left behind. Likewise two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken, the other left behind. Watch, then, because you do not know which day the Lord is coming. But know this! If the master of the house had known what time of night the burglar was coming he would have stayed awake and not let anyone break in to his house. Because of this you also must be ready! For the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour. Mt. 24:36-44
--
For the last 2 Sundays we have gone to some length to explain that what people call “the Lord’s End Time prophecies” are not likely prophecies about the End of the world at all; but that the Lord had in mind his impending death, which was the End of the Old World – the one forever stuck in a dark and hopeless cycle of illness, accidents, violence, larceny, deep deception and every sorrow known to man. But by the cross, and only the cross, that world’s days are numbered.
Much to the dismay of spiritually dead culture, and its spiritually dead sycophants humanity is not progressing; not getting better, kinder or gentler. But instead man’s rebellious heart and toxic intellect wax worse with each succeeding generation. Each beating its plows into better swords, and its pruning hooks into more deadly spears. So that it seems entirely plausible when people say that: the 20th century was the bloodiest of all history; and if that is the case then what can we expect of the 21, or the 22nd, which some sitting here today will live to see.
Yes, we said that the Lord was not referring to the End of the World in those teachings, but instead to the chief Event of all creation: his redemptive and cleansing death on the cross that “takes away the sin of the world.” Whose red blood makes the world, and all its inhabitants “ever-green,’ ever alive, ever at peace and calm.
But that said today’s gospel does seem to have the End of all things in view.
The “Big Bang.”
Not the imaginary one that magical-thinking-scientists tell us took place 14 billion years ago; and by which they hope to eliminate the possibility of “God the Father Almighty maker of heaven and earth.” But the “Big Bang” to come in which according to Scripture, “the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! But … according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.” (2 Peter 3:12-13)
And so please do not be deceived, Beloved. Because God himself will do this and 100 Kyoto Protocols; or Climate Summits; or prayers of Climate Repentance” (as some “woke” churches are praying), can not stop it.
And so let us look forward with great confidence to the return of our Lord which we mark in the seasons of Advent, Christmas and Epiphany. But let us be sure to know that our celebrations are not merely psychological remembrances. But that in Eucharist the church factually participates in her Lord’s incarnation, his revelation to the Gentiles, and his glorious return wherein he will judge the living and the dead; which will be our everlasting vindication from sin, death and devil – and it cannot come soon enough.
To help us do this the church calls us out of culture’s darkness on the 1st Sunday of Advent with today’s Scripture readings.
Beginning with the Psalm we join King David in chanting: “I was glad when they said unto me, ‘Let us go into the House of the Lord.’” This Sacred Space is that house. These walls. This floor. This altar. Wherein this liturgy imparts the remission of sins. Old ones and new ones. Ongoing, and deadly ones that live in our flesh like foot fungus under our toenails; and dog us until our bones lie still. It is here that all of our senses experience the refreshing “beauty of holiness.” The beauty that makes the church the fetching Bride of Christ. And the blessed normality that sustains us as we travel through this wilderness.
Next we have St. Paul reminding us that the night of sin is far spent, and the Day is at hand; and admonishing us to wake up from our spiritual torpor, dress ourselves with Christ, and take up the weapons of spiritual warfare on the right and the left. By which we assault not flesh and blood, but spiritual wickedness in high places, and in low. Namely the sinful desires that reside in our dying flesh. And to clothe ourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ.
We did that once at our baptism (or rather it was done to us). But each day let us renew baptism by putting our low desires to death, and rising up anew to serve our God in “righteousness and purity forever.” For our struggle is not against our fellow man, but against the devil and all his works and all his ways.
This being the case the world has no better friend than Jesus. No better hope than the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ as it is administered in the church! For he is the One whom Isaiah saw in his prophecy.
He is the Incarnate Torah/Law of God who proceeds from Zion.
He is the Eternal Word made flesh that comes to us in purity from Virgin Womb.
He is the one by which the world will “beat its swords into plowshares and its .spears into pruning hooks,” so that humanity will “learn war no more.”
He is the One who will finally “arbitrate between the nations of the earth,” and teach us to walk in his Light; to the dazzling House of God; higher than the highest mountains! Higher than the ideologies and summits dreamed up by those who are sound asleep, but who dream in their sleep that they are “woke.”
They cannot help you, improve you, or save you. But Jesus can and Jesus does. Not the abstract Jesus that people talk about from time to time. But Jesus liturgized in his church. Whose mellifluous voice is heard in the gospel; and whose own Glorified Flesh and Blood, the “medicine of immortality,” enter into ours to raise us from the dead.
Glory be to Jesus Christ!