Shepherd of the Springs
Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod

As we enter the third week in Advent, you are invited by our lessons this morning to go out of your way for Christmas. You are invited to go out of your way by partaking of the ministry of Elijah returned, that is, the prophetic ministry of John the Baptist. With the ministry of John, God once again breaks his silence and speaks directly to his people on the plain of human history by a chosen mouth-piece. It was 400 years of silence that the children of Israel endured under conditions of slavery after a Pharaoh arose in Egypt who knew not Joseph. For 400 years, they lived in bondage while God held His tongue. But then, God broke his silence and raising up Moses, He again spoke to His people and delivered them out of bondage. In preparation for the promised land, God had his people experience Him and themselves for 40 years in the wilderness. It was wilderness life first, then the promised land. Then again in similar fashion, God fell silent for another 400 year period when the prophetic ministry of Malachi came to an end. And continuing the parallel from its early history, a remnant of the children of Israel endured hardship and bondage, this time from several world powers that came on the scene: first, the Ptolemies of Egypt, then the Selucids of Antioch, and finally they fell under the domination of the Roman Empire. Malachi prophesied that God would remain silent until Elijah the prophet was sent back to his people.

And 400 years later, John the Baptist began his ministry - and again we find God breaking his silence and speaking to his people, calling them to the wilderness. This ministry was foretold by the prophet Isaiah as we heard in our Old Testament lesson this morning. According to Jesus, John represents Elijah and the returned voice of God among His people. Listen again to the words of Isaiah: A voice cries in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord. (Is. 40:3) John is that voice that cries in the wilderness, but he does so in a double sense. First, people are going to have to go out of their way, they are going to have to interrupt their usual patterns and places of everyday life to behold the voice of God through John. They are going to have to leave the cities or villages and travel to very desolate regions to encounter the ministry of the Baptizer. He cries in the wilderness in the sense that desolation is where you will find him preaching his baptism of repentance.

But then, in a second sense, John is the voice that cries out to the people: In the wilderness, prepare a highway for your God who is coming. In this sense, the wilderness is not the physical environment that John inhabits, but rather the spiritual condition that you possess. John= s ministry is to prepare a world of sinners for the coming of their Savior. We know that Jesus of Nazareth shows up in the wilderness to manifest himself as Immanuel. He reveals Himself through his teaching and mighty acts to John= s disciples as God= s chosen Anointed. And He does so in the wilderness of the Galilean countryside. In the desolate wilderness, He came to be baptized by John and to identify with the world of sinners He has come to save. But also, and especially during this Advent Season, He comes to you in similar fashion. He seeks you out to make contact in the desolate regions of your sinful condition. The ministry of John is the voice of God to you, to prepare you to receive your Savior who has come into the world to save you from your sins. He invites you to inspect the sinful wilderness of your life and there to make an avenue, a point of entry - a highway as it were - to receive the coming Messiah.