Prepare the Way of the Lord - Advent Message

 

Malachi 3:16-4:6

Then those who revered the Lord spoke with one another. The Lord took note and listened, and a book of remembrance was written before him of those who revered the Lord and thought on his name. They shall be mine, says the Lord of hosts, my special possession on the day when I act, and I will spare them as parents spare their children who serve them. Then once more you shall see the difference between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve him.

See, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble; the day that comes shall burn them up, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. But for you who revere my name the sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall. And you shall tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet, on the day when I act, says the Lord of hosts.

Remember the teaching of my servant Moses, the statutes and ordinances that I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel.

Lo, I will send you the prophet Elijah before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of parents to their children and the hearts of children to their parents, so that I will not come and strike the land with a curse.

Malachi gives us plenty to chew on.

Here are some bites I am taking:

Sometimes it is confusing to sort the good from the evil. It is not really our job.

But God says there will come a day when it will be very obvious who serves God and who does not.

We might even be a little vague in our understanding of ourselves as we compartmentalize our lives. We think we are serving in this area, but not in another. We name some activity in our lives and designate it as something that honors the Lord.

But maybe it is more self-serving than we think.

We might dismiss some menial task we do as not worthy of God. Yet, it is this that pleases Him most.

We might be equally confused about people as a whole.

Stubble is what has no substance in our lives, Arrogance and evil burn away in the heat of God's righteous judgment. Nothing is left of them. Pray for that heat to come early in your life. You don't need the stubble.

The hotness of God's wrath will be manifest to His people differently. The sun of righteousness rises with healing in its wings.

We bounce like young calves with the joy of new life.

We tread down the wicked who oppress.

We win.

Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus!

Luke 1:68-79

God's tender compassion

"Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,

for he has looked favorably on his people and redeemed them.

He has raised up a mighty savior for us in the house of his child David,

as he spoke through the mouth of his holy prophets from of old,

that we would be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us.

Thus he has shown the mercy promised to our ancestors and has remembered his holy

the oath that he swore to our ancestor Abraham, to grant us

that we, being rescued from the hands of our enemies, might serve him without fear,

in holiness and righteousness in his presence all our days.

And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways,

to give his people knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins.

Because of the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us,

to shine upon those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace."

I would nearly burst with excitement as I anticipated the visits of distant relatives. Their suitcases always contained gifts. Their stories always transported me to distant places. And their jokes always seemed funnier than any I had heard for a long time.

I remember the emotions of wonderment and joy and, at times, disappointment when our guests suddenly had a change of plans and could not come.

The waiting would start all over again.

God’s people had been waiting for a long, long time. Most had stopped watching – stopped believing that He would really come. Their hearts had grown cold, their hopes had dimmed or even died.

Still others prayed and remained alert. They knew the visitation would come, that the dayspring would spring forth and hope would arise on the earth. They were waiting for Jesus and knew it not. To such, He appeared in the fullness of time.

Such tender mercy that God shows toward those who toil through the night. Dayspring comes. It bursts forth in the darkness and illuminates every hidden thing. With Him are freedom, hope, consolation, and joy. In Him all of our longings are answered. Anticipation is rewarded and gifts are abundant.

Come, Thou long expected Jesus,

Born to set Thy people free.

From our fears and sins release us.

Let us find our rest in Thee.

Israel’s hope and consolation.

Hope of all the earth Thou art,

Dear desire of every nation,

Joy of every longing heart.

 

Luke 3:1-6

Prepare the way of the Lord

In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah, "The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.'"

 World Context

It sounds like "too much information to some ears.

Yet, it is vital information. It sets the story in time and place so that understanding time and place, the message can be timeless. The truth can transcend its historical setting.

In the arena of God’s activity, there are always multiple events transpiring at the same time.

Everything happens in context.

Christian awareness has a true north focus on the activity of God in the world, but it cannot ignore the world around it. To do so would be to deny that God uses world events to establish a context for His message.

God is aware of our world. He knows its culture, politics and trends. When His Word comes to us, it is in context. The Christian who shuts his or her eyes to the world is going to miss part of what God is addressing in time and space.

Not to acknowledge context is to make God’s Word simply an esoteric nicety with no punch.

Removing Impediments

Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low; and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways shall be made smooth; And all flesh shall see the salvation of God. – Luke 3:5-6

God called John to be a smoother and a “straightener”. In many ways, John’s role was nothing more than to clear away the obstacles that might impede the message of the one who would come after him.

He was a voice.

He was a voice in the wilderness.

And he cried out with passion and conviction removing excuses and uncovering facades.

He was the one to come before Jesus who could really move some mountains and clear some paths. John was a co laborer with God as we are called to be and His mission was simple:

To be an agent through whom all flesh might see the salvation of God.

God has no desire to hide His salvation. He wants all to see it. He wants all to receive it.

We have the task of removing the impediments.

What kind of impediments are there? Sometimes mountains are too high, valleys are too low, and roads are too crooked and rough. We can cooperate with God to change that.

One impediment to people seeing God’s salvation is our tendency to speak religious jargon that no one understands. We mask the grace of God in a jungle of theological language and church talk.

Another is our insistence on traditions that have lost their meaning. Or it may be our own negativity or the contradictions of our lives – the dichotomy between what we profess and what we practice.

We have to remove the obstacles that keep people from coming to Christ or even hearing the Word of God. The problem is not so much that people don’t want to hear as much as they sometimes cannot hear over the irrelevant chatter. Remove the impediments and let everyone see the salvation of God.

As a benediction, I offer the words of Paul to the church at Philippi:

Philippians 1:3-11

I thank my God for every remembrance of you, always in every one of my prayers for all of you, praying with joy for your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now.

I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work in you will continue to complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.

It is right for me to think this way about all of you, because I hold you in my heart, for all of you are my partners in God's grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel.

For God is my witness, how I long for all of you with the tender affection of Christ Jesus.

And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight

to help you to determine what really matters, so that in the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless, having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God.

Scriptures from New Revised Standard Version