Shepherd of the Springs
Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod

From the Old Testament of the Day: “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction. [Mal. 4.5-6]

From the Epistle of the Day:  “For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.” [Rom. 15.4]

From the Holy Gospel: And then they will see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. [Luke 21.27; RSV]

Today is the Second Sunday of Advent, called “Populus Zion,” from the Introit of the Day: “O People of Zion, behold the Lord cometh to save the nations,” and like last Sunday, the lessons appointed to be read on this day just doen't seem to be the right ones for the Sundays that lead us to Christmas. Last Sunday, you may recall, you heard as the Holy Gospel the entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem on what is today called “Palm Sunday.” And on each year, the day called “Palm Sunday” the Holy Gospel you heard last week, is repeated.

The function of the First Sunday of Advent is to introduce the historical events that begin Holy Week. It is read to you that you might mark the preeminent reason for the celegration that we call “Christmas”: that God the Son comes to your world, as the person of Jesus of Nazzareth, that He might take upon Himself your human nature, and in that human nature He will go to Jerusalem to be where God the Father promised from of old that He could be found, and there Jesus becomes that sacraifice that brings you the forgiveness of sins and an adoption into God's holy family.

I.

And now today's Holy Gospel takes us back to mark what the final Sundays of the now-past Church Year had taught, the promise of the Last Days, the Return of Christ, the Final Judgment, the destruction of this present world, and the establishment of a new world, with New heavenly bodies, and beneath them, an new earth, where we will dwell in righteousness, peace, and joy, forever. Like the Palm Sunday entrance into Jerusalem, and just like the Last Day return of Christ, today's texts show you the eternal gifts that God places under your Christmas tree each year.

With the Palm Sunday entrace into Jerusalem, you see Jesus coming to be your Redeemer. That is the ultimate gift – the gift of forgiveness, life, and salvation – that again is placed among the gifts under your Christmas tree. With the Holy Gospel of Christ's return to earth in glory, God places among your Christmas gifts this year the promise of a different and better life that awaits you and all who love Christ's appearing – the different and everlasting life that brought your Savior to earth in the first place, as the baby of Bethlehem. Thus, both of these first two Sundays of Advent lead you to Christmas, but in a far different way than does the society in which we live. These two Sundays do not lead you to anticipation based on what you give and what you want to receive. Rather, these two Sundays lead you to repentance, based on what makes the true Christmas gifts from God so necessary for your daily life as well as for eternal life.

This is why we have Advent in the Church – though many Christians do there very best to turn Advent into Christmas-come-early. The Church gives us Advent as a season of repentance.

II.

    In today’s Holy Gospel, you hear the ominous description, from your Lord’s own lips, that He, the Son of man, will return to this earth.  It will be a time of foreboding because it will be a time of judgment, and this judgment will expose all mankind as those who are guilty before the bar of God’s justice. And as you look through the eyes of faith in what Christ has to say here, you see that the judge is none other than Christ Himself: “And then they will see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.”

    This is good news, despite the ominous surroundings. For the judge is your Savior. The judge is your Advocate. The judge is your God, who is reconciled to you in Christ and His holy cross. So, the day of judgment is the day of celebration: “And they will go into eternal life.” So, that’s the good news of Christ’s return on the Day of Judgment. Now, since there is this Day coming in human history, the Day when Christ returns in glory, there is also another day that will precede it. The last Christmas will precede it. What will this last Christmas be like? On the one hand, the times will be increasingly troublesome leading up to Christ’s return, but on the other hand, life will seem to continue as it has been. For many, this Last Christmas will be very much like whatever will be for this coming Christmas, some 21 shopping days away. This ongoing pattern of Christmas after Christmas continues seemingly forever – some Christmases better than others, some more disappointing than others, but all fitting the pattern of what Christmases have been and indeed what they ought to be.

And the Last Christmas – the one that comes some time in the last 365 days or so before Christ’s return – will seem no different than all the others. And indeed it will be no different than the others, except for this one fact: with the Last Christmas, Christmases stop. They come to an end. Day after Christmas sales of lights and decorations and wrapping paper will be a total waste of money. The planning to make next year even better will futile. All that we have come to expect of Christmas and to make of Christmas will cease. But, we won’t know it, for the Day of judgment will come as a thief in the night.

So, what’s the point? Here’s the point: the Last Christmas stands somewhere ahead of us as a testimony that the point of Christmas is to give you something greater than toys and gifts. God the Son takes on a human nature and reveals Himself as the baby of Bethlehem for  a gift beyond and better than what we have come to make and expect of Christmas.  God the Son becomes the Son of man, the man of God, and the Savior. The holy infant comes to you to show you God in human terms and to invite you to follow Him into His adulthood. There you find the true reason for the season: It is the Cross; the ransom of a fallen race; reconciliation of God and sinners; the saving of the lost; and the preparation of a people to inherit the new earth and the everlasting life that comes with it.

III.

     The point of the Second Sunday of Advent – this “Lo, He Comes Sunday” – is for you to hear these words and to mark your Savior’s promise to return on the Last Day. You hear them now so that you might be prepared for that coming, as part of your Christmas experience.

Advent brings a reminder of the signs of the end-times, so that you might be encouraged, as part of your Christmas preparations, to “look up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” This repentance is precisely how you stay awake at all times, rejoicing that your redempion draws near, in which you will stand before the Son of God as the apple of His eye. God’s promise to you makes the reminder of His 2nd Coming a Christmas gift and not a threat to you. For this reason, Advent brings you this gift from God in the form of promise and of a certain hope: You, are given this great gift , soaked in sacred blood, that, as the Last Day  approaches, you may raise your head with joy, for  your redemption is drawing nigh!