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Advent 2 2024
Immanuel Lutheran Church, Hamilton, Ohio
Pastor Kevin Jud
December 8, 2024
Malachi 3:1-7b, Philippians 1:2-11, Luke 3:1-20
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John the Baptist is sent by God on a mission of earth moving; a mission of roadbuilding. Fulfilling the words of Isaiah the prophet John is… Luke 3:4–6 (ESV) 4 …“The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. 5 Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall become straight, and the rough places shall become level ways, 6 and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’ ”
John is sent by God to fill valleys and level mountains. John is God’s earthmover…God’s bulldozer. His job is to prepare the way of the Lord. John is God’s bulldozer.
No, it may just be my inner six year old boy talking, but bulldozers are pretty cool. I love to watch the bulldozers on the gold mining shows. Bulldozers are incredibly powerful. A small Caterpillar D1 dozer weighs 9 tons and costs over $200,000. It is 80 horsepower and can push about 2 tons of dirt at a time. The Cat D11 dozer is a behemoth 850 horsepower, 114 tons and costs over $2 million. It can push 45 tons of dirt with a blade 20 feet wide and 7 feet high. I enjoy watching the big dozers moving tons of earth to get down to the gravel pay layer where the miners hope to find gold.
Sometimes they get down a ways in the overburden and find a rock hard layer of permafrost. The blade of even the biggest dozer cannot penetrate this layer so the miners deploy a ripper, a curved, sharp-tipped arm that extends down from the back of the dozer to rip through the permafrost and expose it to the sunlight so it can thaw.
John the Baptist is charged with earth moving, but John does not have a bulldozer. Caterpillar won’t make their first bulldozer until 1945. So, what kind of bulldozer is John? John’s blade and his ripper are the Word of God. With God’s Word John pushes people to turn from their sin and rips into their belief that they can save themselves by strict obedience to the Pharisees’ many additional commandments. John pushes and rips and exhorts folks to return to the Lord, their God. The Pharisees instituted an extensive legal code in order to avoid God’s judgment, but they lost sight of God, and His mercy, and His promised Messiah. John proclaims a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. He calls people to turn from sin and self-righteousness and believe in the coming Messiah.
And like a bulldozer, John is not subtle as he pushes and rips with the Word of God. Luke 3:7–9 (ESV) 7 He said therefore to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 Bear fruits in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. 9 Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” John is clearing the way for Jesus and ripping deep into the false securities of the people.
Different people react differently to his words of warning. Many hear John’s words and repent. They turn from their sin and receive John’s baptism of repentance in the Jordan River in order to be prepared for Messiah’s arrival. They ask John “What then shall we do?” John tells them to be generous with those in need and do what you have been given to do with honesty and integrity.
Some are just curious. They come out to see this crazy wilderness prophet and investigate what all the fuss is about, but they are not interested in John’s message. They resist repentance, and instead trust in their ancestry and their own works. They are the children of Abraham and they have everything under control. They do not need a coming Messiah.
Bulldozer John speaks the blunt truth to all, including those in charge. Herodias, Herod Philip’s wife who is living with her husband’s brother, Herod Antipas, hears John’s words of warning and is greatly offended. Who is this wilderness madman to tell me who I should be sleeping with? Herodias will demand that John be arrested and thrown into prison and Herod Antipas will comply.
John is in the wilderness preparing the way of the Lord. He is spiritually filling valleys and lowering mountains and straightening curves. John calls on the people to turn from their sin and believe that the promised Messiah is near. The children of Israel entered the Promised Land through the Jordan after the exodus wilderness wanderings. In the same way, the children of Israel who repent pass through the waters of the Jordan in baptism and return to the Promised Land knowing the Messiah is near.
God’s law is still proclaimed today. John’s message to repent is still being preached. When the world hears God’s Word of law warning them to turn from sin and return to the Lord their God, how is it received? When you, a follower of Jesus, hear God’s word of warning to repent…how do you respond?
Many hear God’s law and get angry and reject God’s call. Martin Luther addresses these people in his Large Catechism writings about the First Commandment. “They utterly disregard whether God is angry at them or smiles on them. They dare to withstand His wrath, yet they shall not succeed. Before they are aware of it, they shall be wrecked, with all in which they trusted. All others have perished like this who have thought themselves more secure or powerful.
Such hard heads imagine that God overlooks and allows them to rest in security, or that He is entirely ignorant or cares nothing about such matters. Therefore, God must deal a smashing blow and punish them, so that He cannot forget their sin unto their children’s children. In that way, everyone may take note and see that this is no joke to Him. These are the people He means when He ways, “those who hate Me” [Exodus 20:5], i.e., those who persist in their defiance and pride. Whatever is preached or said to them, they will not listen. When they are rebuked, in order that they may learn to know themselves and make amends before the punishment begins, they become mad and foolish. They rightly deserve wrath…”[1]
In Old Testament times…at the time of John the Baptist…at Martin Luther’s time…and still today… there are so many who do not listen to God. They have turned away from God and have become, “people with brute hearts who think that it makes no great difference how they live.” [2]
God’s law preached by John the Baptist or by preachers today is a call to repent; to have a change of heart; to turn away from sin and return to God – to know you need a Savior because you cannot save yourself.
Hearing God’s law I believe there is a danger that you can sometimes feel like you have God’s law under control and most of what He is concerned about does not apply so much to you. That God’s law is mostly about those other people, the ones proud of their sin; that God’s law is aimed at those who are proud of engaging in ongoing, open sexual immorality, or theft, or violence. And God’s law certainly is targeting those people to turn from sin and return to the Lord. But God’s law is also targeting you and your own struggles with secret temptations of thoughts and words and deeds. But sin is not just sexual sin or stealing or violence.
This is where God’s law rips deep into the permafrost of your heart. Reading the list of the works of the flesh in Galatians 5 you see that sexual sins are listed, but a much greater emphasis is put on sins of division and anger and strife.
Galatians 5:19–21 (ESV) 19 Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21 envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.”
The plowing and ripping of God’s law in your life hurts. Valleys are filled. Mountains are lowered. Curves are straightened. As a baptized child of God, let the ripper arm of God’s law pull up the permafrost of stubborn sin in your life and expose it to the light of Christ’s forgiveness and love.
There are four warnings of sexual sins, two for having other Gods, one for drunkenness, and eight examples of infighting and divisions. This is a reminder that it is far too easy to fall into the sin of division and discord. This happens in families, at work, at school, in the community and in God’s family here at Immanuel. Anger and rivalries and such are the devil’s work getting you to proudly believe that you are right and they are wrong. The devil wants you to get annoyed and angry and judgmental at your fellow believers in Christ so he can use that crack of annoyance to drive in a wedge of division and tear apart God’s Church. Be on guard against the devil’s temptations of anger and division.
God’s law is for you. As a follower of Jesus, you feel the bulldozer of God’s law pushing away daily sin and ripping deep into the longstanding hardness of your heart and it is painful. It is tempting to try to justify your thoughts, words and deeds that you know are contrary to God’s will. It is tempting to reject God’s call and believe everything is just fine. It is tempting to ignore God’s law and bury your sin deeper and deeper. Anything but say those most difficult words. “I was wrong. I messed up. I sinned against God. It is my fault, my own fault, my own most grievous fault.”
The plowing and ripping of God’s law in your life hurts. Valleys are filled. Mountains are lowered. Curves are straightened. As a baptized child of God, let the ripper arm of God’s law pull up the permafrost of stubborn sin in your life and expose it to the light of Christ’s forgiveness and love.
John’s message is, “Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.” Jesus is coming to reign, but His reign is not immediately a reign of judgment and punishment, but rather a reign of forgiveness and love -- a reign of service; sacrificing Himself as the payment for all sin. John 3:17 (ESV) 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”
Advent is a difficult season. Advent is a time of waiting. Advent is a penitential time when you look deeply and honestly at yourself and allow the Word of God to dig up your stubborn sins and have them melt away in the light of Christ’s love. It is a time to ponder, once again, your helplessness to save yourself and the great joy of knowing that, on the cross, Jesus has already forgiven your sin and freed you from the guilt and shame.
Advent means coming and coming means preparing. Jesus is coming back and you do not know when. To stay prepared you continue to hear the Word of God’s law which convicts you, and hear the word of God’s Gospel which sets you free in the blood of Jesus. Living in the light and love and forgiveness of Jesus you bear good fruit. Galatians 5:22–23 (ESV) 22 …the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.
Despite the pain, let the bulldozer of God’s law do its work in you. You are God’s treasure and He loves you enough to refine you like gold into His most precious possession. You belong to the Lord Jesus. He is coming back to claim you. Stay ready. Amen.
[1] Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions—A readers edition of the Book of Concord – 2nd Edition, pg. 362
[2] Ibid, pg. 361