Grace, Mercy, and Peace Be Unto You from God Our Father and Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ

Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

I think it has already been well established here this morning but today we begin the new church year.

And it makes perfect sense that the new church year begins with the season of Advent.
The term “Advent” is a version of the Latin word meaning “coming.”
Or more accurate and complete it means “to come to.”

As a general definition, the arrival of a notable person, place, or thing.

Within the church it is the arrival of our King, the Messiah.
Jesus comes to us.

He did that some 2,000 years ago when He came to us that first Christmas.

We look back to that glorious event.
That life changing event.

And He is, of course, with us at this time also.

We use the term, “now, not yet.”
He is with us now in Word and Sacrament and His spiritual presence.

Yet we also prepare and wait and look forward to His second coming on judgment day.

The fulfillment of time when we will see Him face to face.
We talked about this in our sermon last Sunday.
We have so much more to look forward to.

So with Jesus coming and being a part of humanity, there is a lot going on.

There will be a lot going on in this Advent Season.
The question then becomes for us, how do we prepare and wait in this Advent Season?
What is the proper mood, attitude, and approach for us as the faithful followers of Christ?

Waiting is not easy is it?

Why is it that as you wait for someone, 15 minutes can seem like 5 hours?
And for the one trying to be timely, the 15 minutes can seem like 15 seconds.

Waiting for the Lord to act is not easy.

We may even wonder how long do we have to wait?
We may even ask, is He listening?
Does He not see what is going on in the world?
Does He not see all the sinning, all the murder, mayhem, and mangled lives?
Does He not hear the silence of people not calling upon His name?

By now we may think we have spent enough time with God to have a pretty good idea of who He is and how He works.

We know God’s history.
We know how He has incorporated us as believers into this history.
But still, waiting on the Lord is not easy.
How are we supposed to act and prepare our hearts in this Advent Season?

Today I would like to give you encouragement in four areas.

Reflection
Repentance
Prayer
And active expectation.

First reflection.

Reflection on how awesome and almighty our God is…….
And reflection on our sinfulness and need for this almighty God.

We know we have an almighty God.

We know we have a God who loves us and will never forsake us.

And as we reflect, we know we have a God who shows us this……..Many times in our Church history in unexpected ways.

The Children of Israel in dire despair at the Red Sea when the Egyptians were approaching them.
And unexpectedly God parted the Red Sea.
When the Children of Israel had crossed the Jordan River and were now in the Promised Land.
Their first opponent was that fortified city of Jericho.
Unexpectedly God brought down the walls of Jericho.
All of mankind on that road to eternal darkness.
And God sent His Son. The event that we look forward to again celebrating in a few weeks.

And even post-God’s time physically on this earth, our God comes at unexpected times and unexpected ways.

How about the first Pentecost when the Holy Spirit was poured out on the disciples and the people.

Our Old Testament reading for today, Isaiah chapter 64, which forms the basis for our meditation this morning is really a prayer.

A prayer of believers to God pleading with Him to come and save them.
And many of the thoughts already put forth and that will be put forth in the remainder of this message are reflected in the prayer of Isaiah chapter 64.
Verse 3 says, “When You do awesome things that we did not look for.”

No other god acts like Yahweh, our God who even comes at unexpected times and in unexpected ways.

Even doubting Thomas had to say, “My Lord, and my God.”

And so we reflect and we wait for His second coming.

But as we reflect, we also acknowledge and confess that we need this almighty, ever faithful God.

We are poor, miserable sinners.

Verse 6 of Isaiah’s prayer says, “We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf and our inquities like the wind take us away.”

Interesting metaphor here that fits perfectly with the time of year we are now in.

Our sins are indeed dangerous to us.
They might turn us against God and destroy our relationship with Him.
It is like the leaves on a tree.
They dry up, fall off the tree, are blown by the wind and eventually disintegrate.

That’s how we are in our sinfulness without God.

Gregory the Great said, “What is man but a leaf who fell from the tree in paradise? What is he but a leaf driven by the wind of temptation and lifted up by the gusts of his desires.”

And so reflection leads to the second point of our preparation this Advent Season.

Repentance.
Advent is a time sometimes called, “The winter Lent.”
We’ve already seen this morning that during this season “The Gloria in Excelsis” is excluded from our liturgy.
Sober/solemn thought about sin leads us to repentance and watching and waiting.

One of the key Biblical figures of the Advent Season is John the Baptist.

“Make straight the way of the Lord. Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”

But let’s be clear and let me be personal for a moment.

The problem here is not merely with other people’s sinning against God…..it is also the problem of your and my sinning against God.

Which leads us to the third area this Advent Season

We pray, “Do not be too angry at our sins, Lord. Do not remember our sins forever for we are Your people. Protect us. Save us. Deliver us from our sins.

Verse 8 of our assigned Old Testament reading from Isaiah chapter 64 gives us further hope and closeness…..even to pray and call on an almighty and all powerful God.

We can call Him “Father.”
Verse 8 says, “But now, O Lord, You are our Father, we are the clay and You are the potter; we are all the work of Your hand.”
We can turn to, call on, and rely on our Father.
And we ask Him not only to forgive us but mold us into what He would want us to be.

Which leads us to the final area I want to talk about for us in this Advent Season.

It is what I call active expectation.
Notice this is not passively sitting back and filling time until something happens……
But rather waiting for the Lord in active expecting.

It is watching, hoping, living in faith, and repentance.

It means living in Christ’s righteousness, in joy of the Lord, in praise of Him who has come and will come again to save us.
It means a lifetime of relying on the Lord
Of hearing His Word.
Of receiving His forgiveness.
Of observing His time.
Waiting on the Lord is calling on His name.

Perhaps a good analogy to all this is the lights of the Advent Season.

On our own we live in darkness.
And in this Advent Season in one sense it is getting darker and darker.
The days are getting shorter and shorter.

But at the same time more and more Christmas lights are going up.

Each week our Advent wreath has another candle lit.
While in one sense it is getting darker and darker, in another sense more and more the light of Christ is getting closer and closer.
We actively expect the coming of Christ.

In His righteous anger God may hide His face from us for a time yet He did not hide his face forever.

He had compassion on us and He sent us a Savior.
And in doing so God turned His face to His people and He came to them.
We clearly are reminded of this as we enter this Advent Season.

God has come once to save in Christ and He has promised to return again.

We, the people of God, waited for a Savior to deliver us and now we wait for Christ to return in glory.
Every promise He has kept. Every promise He will keep.
Luther says that in darkness our reason thinks that God is angry and a tyrant. But our faith concludes that He is our Father because it grasps the promises.
God’s unconditional covenant of grace began with the patriarchs and was certified by the blood of Christ.
It is the basis upon which God’s people pray and trust in His steadfast love.
Within our church we use the color blue for Advent.
Blue is the color of hope.

In this Advent Season I encourage you to reflect, repent, pray and wait in active expectation.

Call on the name of the Lord.
Take hold of Him and never let go with the absolute certain hope that He is our God and we are His people.

Advent. God to come to us. Amen.

(Please stand) Now may the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

Having heard the Word of God we now prepare our hearts to confess the words of the Nicene Creed as found on page 158 of your hymnal.