Advent 3 2016

December 27, 2016 in Sermon by Scott Landrum

James 5:7-10
7 Be patient, therefore, beloved, until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious crop from the earth, being patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains. 8 You also must be patient. Strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near. 9 Beloved, do not grumble against one another, so that you may not be judged. See, the Judge is standing at the doors! 10 As an example of suffering and patience, beloved, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.

Matthew 11:2-11
2 When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples 3 and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” 4 Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: 5 the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. 6 And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.” 7 As they went away, Jesus began to speak to the crowds about John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to look at? A reed shaken by the wind? 8 What then did you go out to see? Someone dressed in soft robes? Look, those who wear soft robes are in royal palaces. 9 What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. 10 This is the one about whom it is written, “See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.’ 11 Truly I tell you, among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist; yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.

“You also must be patient. Strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near,” James counsels us. Patience is a tough skill to learn. We come into this world demanding what we want when we want it and when it comes to mastering the waiting game I suspect all of us struggle with varying degrees of success. Our culture certainly has trouble with patience. We’ve had Christmas shoved down our throats since October it seems, many people have no idea what the difference is between seasonal fruits and vegetables and that genetically altered stuff in the produce department, and there are a host of other examples of our inability to wait. Lurking behind our impatience is that most unholy trinity of me, myself, and I. Lack of patience is simply another manifestation of the original sin because ultimately it is God who is making us wait because he’s God and we’re not and we don’t like it. Nobody is immune either, not even John the Baptist whom we heard about last week and again here in the gospel passage for today. Gone was his popularity as he sat there in the prison cell. He had been doing what God called him to do, fulfilling the mission of making straight the pathway of the Lord and just look where that got him, locked up!
“Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” he asked through his disciples. Apparently things weren’t working out like John envisioned. Where was the unquenchable fire? Where was the ax at the root of the bad trees? He was in jail and the bad guys were still running amuck. Forced to wait, forced to be patient; that was John’s plight. What John needed was a preacher and he got one, a pretty good one, Jesus Christ.
“Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them,” Jesus said. Jesus’ answer was taken straight from Isaiah, the same Isaiah who had prophesied about John. That was what John needed because it was a promise that Jesus was in fact the one John thought him to be. Still Jesus’ answer was a double edged sword. The inability to see, walk, and hear are characteristic of the broken old age and Jesus was fixing this literally with the miracles he performed. But John was keenly aware that if Jesus was the one, where was evidence that a great transformation was truly underway? The world appeared to be pretty much the same as it was before Jesus with respect to idolatry, injustice, powerlessness, exploitation, scarcity, and violence. There was a huge disconnect between what John experienced and what John had been promised and so he could do nothing but be patient, wait for God to be God and here’s a nasty little truth, John had to wait until he literally lost his head before he saw fully that Jesus was the one. So what are we talking about here? We’re talking about the fact patience is not resignation. Patience is produced by the hope we have that Jesus is the one, the Messiah, the savior. The end has come and Jesus Christ is the victor. There is nothing anybody or anything can do to change the fact that God has won but we cannot see that fully this side of the grave. Our sin is ever before us. We are dying, we are hurting, nostalgia is a favorite pastime. That is why we walk by faith, not by sight; in other words we must be patient. We, like John and all the saints, wonder if God cares and if he knows what he is doing and we become offended by God.
And like John what we need is a preacher with a word from God to get us out of ourselves and back to what matters most. So listen up, the babe in the manger, the miracle working rabbi, the crucified Jew, is almighty God and he is for you. He is the reason that I say to you that you are forgiven unconditionally by the Father for Jesus sake and, as Luther said, “where there is forgiveness of sin there is life and salvation.”Because of Jesus before you even got up this morning God said “everything is going to be alright between us.” The matter is settled, it cannot be changed, you will never be lost or forsaken, it’s a fact so be patient. Christ has come, Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again for you. Amen.