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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. (Amen.)
There may have been some “joy” for certain lawmakers in our nation’s capital this week, as the House of Representatives Wednesday voted along party lines to formally open an official inquiry that could lead to the impeachment of President Biden, though that “joy” may have been tempered somewhat by Hunter Biden’s stunt earlier Wednesday, when he appeared publicly outside on the Senate end of Capitol Hill instead of privately inside the nearby Rayburn House Office Building, where he had been subpoenaed to testify. Somewhat similarly, the Gospel Reading for today, the Third Sunday in Advent, in part seems to describe an official inquiry underway and public testimony’s being given, and, if we read a little further into the Divinely‑inspired St. John’s Gospel account, there is even more relevant testimony, including John the Baptizer’s saying that, in his, the friend of the bridegroom’s, hearing the voice of Jesus, the Bridegroom, John the Baptizer has been given the full measure of joy (John 3:25‑36). Traditionally, the Third Sunday in Advent, like the Fourth Sunday in Lent, has an emphasis on “rejoicing” and so a lighter shade of penitence, if you will, indicated by the “pink” or “rose‑colored” candle, bulletin covers, and paraments, if we had them. That emphasis on “rejoicing” certainly is more explicit in some of today’s chosen hymns and in the appointed Old Testament Reading (Isaiah 61:1‑4, 8-11), Psalm (Psalm 126; antiphon: v.5), and Epistle Reading (1 Thessalonians 5:16-24), as well as the emphasis on rejoicing’s being implicit in the Gospel Reading about John the Baptizer’s testimony. So, considering primarily today’s Gospel Reading, this morning we direct our thoughts to the theme, “Witnessing and Rejoicing”.
As we heard, in keeping with both John the Baptizer’s being sent from God as a witness and his strongly-emphasized purpose of bearing witness about Jesus, today’s Gospel Reading gives John the Baptizer’s “witness” (the same Greek word‑group is used, though the English Standard Version that we heard read changed from “witness” in the beginning of the Gospel Reading to “testimony” in the end of the Gospel Reading). That “witness” was given when an official delegation of priests and Levites, experts in religious purifications, was sent from Jerusalem by the Pharisees to interrogate John, and that “witness” was given where he was baptizing, across the Jordan, in a place named “Bethany”. Born of a priestly line (Luke 1:5), John was hardly preaching and baptizing as a stunt but as a fulfillment of God’s prophecy (Isaiah 40:3). John confessed and did not deny but confessed his identity—not as the Christ, Elijah, or the Prophet (Deuteronomy 18:15, 18) but as the prophesied voice crying in the wilderness, and John bore witness about Jesus, Who was coming after him, and later Jesus even referred the Jewish leaders to John the Baptizer’s having born witness about Jesus (John 5:33).
Whether politicians or celebrities, sworn testimony privately before a congressional committee or public statements before—what at least journalist and later politician and lawyer Lemuel Ely Quigg in a June 18‑87 article called—“The Court of Public Opinion” (North American Review, volume 145, number 367, pages 625-630), we might think of technical perjury and “simpler” lies. Of course, by nature we are no better than anyone else, and our sinful nature leads us to lie and to commit all sorts of other actual sins. Not only might we give false testimony, but we might also withhold any witness at all. Unlike John the Baptizer, we might not confess but deny our relationship to Jesus, as did Peter quite infamously (John 18:25, 27). Or, as St. Paul once described to Titus, we might confess to know God but deny Him by our works (Titus 1:16). Or, again unlike John the Baptizer, in hearing Jesus, we might not find enough or even any joy. Our sinful nature and all our actual sin warrant temporal death and eternal punishment, but God calls and thereby enables us to confess both our sin and our faith and so to be saved.
In today’s Gospel Reading, John the Baptizer knew his humble position in relation to Jesus, the true Light, Who was coming into the world (John 1:9). One of the unread verses between the beginning and end of today’s Gospel Reading reports John the Baptizer’s referring to the Son of God as ranking before John in part because He existed before John (John 1:15). The next two days after John the Baptizer gave the testimony about Jesus that we heard, John pointed to Jesus as the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29, 36). Indeed, Jesus is the Son of God from eternity Who in time became flesh (John 1:14). Out of God’s great love even for fallen humankind, Jesus lived the perfect life that we fail to live, and Jesus died the death that we deserve for our failure to live that perfect life. On the cross, Jesus died for you and for me, in our place, and then He rose from the dead. The Jewish leaders tried to use false testimony about Jesus to put Him to death, but Jesus testified about Himself to them truly with the same result. John the Baptizer bore true witness about Jesus that all might believe in Jesus and so be saved. When we confess our sin and our faith, then God forgives us for Jesus’s sake. God forgives us through His Means of Grace.
Neither our personal experience, nor our fallen reason, nor our human decisions lead us to believe, but God’s working—God’s working through the witness of John the Baptizer, Jesus, His apostles, and their successors, pastors today—God’s working leads us to believe. In his witness, John the Baptizer emphasized not himself but his office and work. John was, as he said later, the friend of the Bridegroom, Who has the Bride, the Church. In Holy Baptism, we in the Church are, as St. Paul wrote to the Ephesians, cleansed by the washing of water with the Word, so that Christ might present to Himself the Church, His Bride, in splendor (Ephesians 5:26-27). Or, as today’s Old Testament Reading described, we are clothed with the garments of salvation, covered with the robe of righteousness, as a bride adorns herself with her jewels, and so we greatly rejoice in the Lord, we exult in our God. Our baptisms, which, like John the Baptizer’s witness in today’s Gospel Reading, happened at a specific time and in a specific place, include confessions of sin and faith, as we, through our sponsors or for ourselves, answered the questions put to us. When we are troubled by particular sins, we confess them and our faith again to our pastors for the sake of Holy Absolution. The Jews excluded from their midst those who confessed Jesus as the Christ (John 9:22; 12:42); we excommunicate from our midst those who are open and unrepentant sinners, until they repent. But, we who are baptized and absolved are admitted to the Holy Supper, where bread is the Body of Christ given for us and wine is the Blood of Christ shed for us, and so they give us the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation.
As God leads us to believe and then transforms us through His Means of Grace, He prepares us: to celebrate Jesus’s having come in His birth at Bethlehem, to receive Him as He comes to us now, and for His coming with glory to judge the living and the dead. In the meantime, like John the Baptizer, we witness and rejoice. We may or may not stand before a formal inquiry regarding our faith, but, as St. Peter urges, we are always prepared to give an answer to anyone who asks us for a reason for the hope that is in us, and we give that answer with gentleness and respect (1 Peter 3:15). We may sow in tears, as today’s Psalm put it, but we will reap with shouts of joy, as God promises. So, we can, as St. Paul said to in today’s Epistle Reading, rejoice always, for, daily confessing our sins and faith, we always live in God’s forgiveness of sins.
This morning we have considered “Witnessing and Rejoicing”. No matter what we might think about the U-S House’s impeachment inquiry or the testimony of President Biden’s son Hunter, only time will tell what will become of them and of whatever political joy Republicans might have right now. But, we can be sure of our present and future religious joy, for God in His time and way certainly will bring about all to which He has testified.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +