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Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Good morning, St. Paul Lutheran Church, it's Pastor Wolf Mueller. You're on the Sunday drive to church for December 15th, year of our Lord 2024. Gaudate, that's what the old name for today is the third Sunday in Advent, the pink or rose colored candle. Which reminds us that it's time to start shopping for Christmas. And also that it's this little respite in the fasting of Lent. Well, in the fasting of Advent. Sorry about that. That's getting us ready for the last push where we're thinking about how the Lord is on the way, coming back for us to deliver us. We continue with a theme of John the Baptist, especially today, also where John sends his disciples to Jesus to ask, are you the one? Let's pray. Lord Jesus Christ, we implore you to hear our prayers and to lighten the darkness of our hearts by your gracious visitation. For you live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
[00:01:05] That is a prayer to cut out and use as a bookmark in your Bible. Beautiful light in the darkness of our heart. Okay. Into the text we really. Oh boy. I'll tell you, your pastor, one of your pastors, this one of your pastors, me is having a hard time. I've got three sermons. I've got the Zephaniah text from Zephaniah3 which is so beautiful. And I've got the Philippians from Philippians 4 and I've got the Luke 7 from the gospel lesson. And who knows, by the time we're done with this recording, I probably going to have a fourth sermon on Psalm 85. This beautiful, which is our entrance Psalm, Psalm 85. And by the way, we have two baptisms today.
[00:01:51] One in the early service, one in the late service. Two young men being baptized, Brandon and Tyler. God be praised for his great mercy and kindness to us. And that he's seeing so fit to have the gospel preached and heard that we have so many baptisms, especially so many adult baptisms. It's just great.
[00:02:15] Anyway, Psalm 85, pulling it up here. This is a psalm of the sons of Korah. So it's a later psalm. So we don't know exactly when it was written, but the context fits really perfectly. The same kind of context as Zephaniah, kind of late or maybe, yeah, late in the Old Testament when the Lord is bringing back the people from Babylon, restoring his kingdom there in Jerusalem after having been destroyed by the Babylonians. If you want to divide the psalm up the first three verses could be talking about the past, how the Lord has restored the fortunes of Jacob. Then verses 4 to 7 are about the present. Revive us again that your people may rejoice in you. And then eight is the future, this hope that righteousness go before him. Here's a few verses. Here's the part, for example, part of the opening verses. Lord, you were favorable to your land. You restored the fortunes of Jacob. You forgave the iniquity of your people. You covered all their sins, you withdrew all your wrath. You turned from your hot anger. In other words, we know that you are merciful. You've been merciful in the past, you've been kind and generous and forgiving in the past. So now in the present. Verse 4. Restore us again, O God, of our salvation and put away your indignation toward us. Will you be angry with us forever? Will you prolong your anger to all generations? Will you not revive us again that your people may rejoice in you? Show us your steadfast love, O Lord, grant us your salvation.
[00:03:58] And in this hope, let me hear what God, the Lord will speak. This is like Habakkuk who starts. Remember that part in Habakkuk where he says, I'm going to stand here and see what the Lord has to say about this. Let me hear what the Lord says. And then here's the answer. He will speak peace to his people, to his saints, but let them not turn back to folly. Surely his salvation is near to those who fear him. That glory may dwell in the land. Steadfast love and faithfulness meet. Righteousness and peace kiss each other. That's so beautiful. That's a preaching along gospel. Faithfulness springs up from the ground, Righteousness looks down from the sky. That, by the way, that verse 11 is probably the key theme theological text and the old ancient church fathers. I think even I remember Luther doing this somewhere, that they take this text as a picture of the Incarnation. Faithfulness from the ground, the human nature of Christ, righteousness from the sky, the divine nature of Christ. And those two, the sky and the ground. When you see those coming together like this, you get a picture of the Incarnation, like the manna that comes down from heaven. The Lord will give what is good, and then righteousness will go before him, the Lord. But who's now walking on the earth according to his incarnation, make his footsteps away. It's a really pretty amazing psalm there, Psalm 85, then Zephaniah 3.
[00:05:19] This is so comforting.
[00:05:24] This was read at the hospital this week. And you think, well, what Zephaniah what kind of comfort is going to come out of Zephaniah? Remember, Zephaniah is a short little prophet talking about the rebuilding of the temple when the people are coming back. And Zerubbabel, who's the governor at the time, is trying to scrape the temple out of the rubble. And then Nehemiah comes along and helps him build the walls of the city of Jerusalem. But listen to this text. It is so full of comfort and peace and wonder and joy.
[00:05:58] Sing aloud. O daughter of Zion. That's you, by the way. Shout, O Israel, that's also you, the Lord's Church. Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter of Jerusalem. That's also you, Daughter of Jerusalem. Why, the Lord has taken away the judgments against you. He's cleared away your enemies, sinned, death and the devil. And if you got anyone else, the King of Israel, the Lord is in your midst, that's Jesus. You shall never again fear evil.
[00:06:26] On that day it shall be said to Jerusalem, the church. Fear not, O Zion, let not your hands grow weak. The Lord your God is in your midst. A mighty one who will save. He will rejoice over you with gladness. He will quiet you by his love. He will exalt over you with loud singing. Ha.
[00:06:49] I will gather those of you who mourn for the festival so that you will no longer suffer reproach. Behold, at that time I'll deal with all your oppressors.
[00:07:00] I'll change their shame. This is so good. I'll change their shame into praise and renown in all the earth.
[00:07:10] Part of our spiritual warfare is the Lord's changing boasting into shame and shame into boasting.
[00:07:21] So remember Psalm 4. How long, O men, will you turn my glory into shame? And that's one of the devil's strategies, to take those things that we should be, that we should glory in, that we are baptized, that we belong to the Lord Jesus, and turn it into our shame, the thing that we're embarrassed about.
[00:07:38] Or take the thing that we should be embarrassed about, our sin and our failures, and turn it into our boasting. It all flips it on its head. No, the Lord will turn our shame into glory so you will no longer suffer reproach.
[00:07:54] At that time I will bring you in. At that time I will gather you together, for I will make you renowned and praised among all the peoples of the earth when I restore your fortunes before your eyes, says the Lord.
[00:08:07] And this is followed on by this epistle. Now, this epistle is The. It used to be, if you'd go back to the.
[00:08:14] To the old Introits, we're using the entrance psalm now instead of the Introit. It's the same idea, but because we're just going through the psalm and kind of verse one, verse two, verse three, working our way through the verses of the psalm. It's not exactly the Introit because in the old Introits they would kind of move things around.
[00:08:35] And especially for the antiphon, that is the first verse of the Introit, they would sometimes grab a text from somewhere else. So in general, the old Introits, this goes back to the Middle Ages, and it's connected with the one year Lectionary. The Intro Introits would have a major psalm, a chief psalm, and normally it'd go through it, although sometimes it'd bounce around. And then it would normally pull one of those verses from the psalm and put it in as the Introit. So it would say, pay special attention to this particular verse.
[00:09:09] Well, there was a few times when the Introit when the antiphon would come from a different psalm altogether, or the antiphon would come from a different book altogether. And a few times, a very few times where the antiphon for the intro, it would actually come from some apocryphal text, the song of the three sons of Israel from the fire, for example, and some of these things in the old, historic one year lectionary. This verse from Philippians 4 was the introit for today, the third Sunday in Advent. And that's where the Sundays got their name. They would get their name from the first word of the first of the verse of the antiphon of the Introit.
[00:10:04] Probably, if you were to go back to 1300 or 900 or 1700 or something like that, 1600, when you'd go into the church, the very first thing you'd hear would be the antiphon for the introit. And then the priest would sing the Introit while he walked down the aisle, down the center of the church. That's why it was called the Introit, because it was the entrance hymn. Sometimes the choir would sing. So the very first word that you would hear that Sunday would be, again, the first word in Latin of the introit. And that's how the Sundays got their name. So gaudate is the first word of Philippians 4:4, which was the antiphon for this third Sunday in Advent. I have a feeling, as I've explained that, that I have not explained it clearly so that it makes sense. You can let me know when you see me. Yeah, Pastor that did not make sense. So if we had the historic one year lectionary and we were using the intro, we would sing Philippians 4:4 and then we would sing a different psalm. I can't remember which psalm. And that. So the first words. So really it's Gaudate Sunday. Or for us in English it's Rejoice Sunday. Because that's how Paul is preaching in Philippians, all through Philippians, and especially he's just going to lay it on here in the last chapter. Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I say rejoice.
[00:11:24] Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord's at hand. Don't be anxious about anything.
[00:11:31] But in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of. This is what we say after the sermon. And the peace of God which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Here's Paul in prison. And remember the context. We might have talked about it last week, how first time Paul was there, he got busted out of prison. Now he's in prison and his accusers are saying, well, God's abandoned him. And he says, no, look, this is all according to the Lord's will and no matter what the circumstances, we rejoice. We rejoice in the Lord who is with us and who sustains us and who hears our prayers and who upholds us and forgives us and does not cast us out.
[00:12:15] He gives us peace which passes what our minds can do. I had a professor who translated this verse that way the peace of God which passes all that your mind can do, will guard your heart and your mind in Christ Jesus so that you have a guard for your heart and a guard for your mind.
[00:12:36] Can you think of it this like little invisible soldier who's walking like the guys in front of Buckingham palace, you know, kind of sitting there in the guard room, standing at attention, pacing back and forth on guard duty, making sure that nothing can get in there and get into your heart and your mind protecting it. And what is that little guard?
[00:13:01] The peace of God.
[00:13:04] The peace of God which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus so that God's peace, His forgiveness, his mercy, his kindness is like a shield that protects the heart and the mind.
[00:13:23] Okay, a little bit on the Gospel because it kind of dials us back a little bit into Luke 7, 18, 28, and John who's in prison over in Not. Oh, what's the name of the town starts with the M. It's on the east side of the Dead Sea. It's one of the palaces of Herod, who's probably back from raiding in Iraq. And he's won a couple of battles and now he's. He's back home and he's in his castle, and he has John the Baptist in the dungeon down there. And John is being cared for by his disciples, and he sends them over to find Jesus and says, hey, well, here's the question. Are you the one who wants to come, or shall we look for another?
[00:14:05] And Jesus is healing people, and then he says, go and tell John what you've seen and what you've heard. The blind receive their sight. The lame walk. Lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised up. The poor have the good news, preach to them. Blessed is the one who's not offended by me. Now that's from Isaiah 61. And let me give you another. Hold on, I gotta look this up. Give me a second. I say, give me a second. It doesn't take a second at all. I just pause it. You guys are.
[00:14:33] Takes me a few seconds. Anyway, it's Isaiah 35 and Isaiah 61 that's being quoted here. Now let me read Isaiah 61.
[00:14:42] And this is one of these servant songs that's there at the end of Isaiah, talking about the Messiah. The spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor.
[00:14:56] He sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to those who are bound. To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord and the day of vengeance of our God. To comfort those who mourn, to console those who mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for, oh, boy, this is great. To give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy, in place of mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, that they may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified, and they shall rebuild the old ruins. Oh, boy, this whole thing is great. Anyway, you think John. So this is what I think. John is there meditating on this, on the promise that the Messiah, Jesus, his cousin, is going to set the captive free.
[00:15:48] And so he sends his disciples to Jesus saying, hey, are you. This one.
[00:15:53] This breaking people out of bondage? Are you going to do the.
[00:15:59] Are you going to do the Isaiah 61:1 stuff for me? Proclaim liberty. The campus opening of the prison to those who were bound. And Jesus sends the disciples back, quoting Isaiah 35 Mostly, the lame will leap and the blind will see and the deaf will hear, and the poor have the good news to them. That's Isaiah 61. In other words, Jesus says, I know what you're talking about, but I'm the one. But I'm not going to set you free from prison.
[00:16:27] It's a different kind of prison that I'm here to set people free from. And you are going to have to stay because you are John, are going to be the last of the prophets.
[00:16:38] And the Old Testament is going to close before. And the page is going to turn after you die so that you are not. You will, John, you will join all the prophets who were looking to see these things happen, but who didn't get to see them. I think that's why John is the greatest and the in the history of all people born of woman, but least in the kingdom of heaven. Because the Lord Jesus let John taste death before he did before his crucifixion, so that the least in the kingdom of heaven knows he suffered under Pontius Pilate, knows that he was six hours on the cross, knows that he was buried and raised on the third day. We know all these things as history. John had to only see it from a distance, even though a close distance, but not get to behold it.
[00:17:32] So there's a lot going on in this particular text. Then the disciples go back to report this to John.
[00:17:41] And then Jesus starts to talk about the crowd. What did you go out into the wilderness to see?
[00:17:46] A reed shaken by the wind. What did you go out to see? A man dressed in soft clothes. The soft. No, it's a funny word in Greek.
[00:17:57] Those who are light in the loafers. That would be like the English equivalent, the dainties. No, those who are dressed in splendid clothing live in luxury in the king's courts.
[00:18:11] It's maybe even a little more vulgar than that in the Greek. What did you go out to see? A prophet. Yeah, I tell you. And more than a prophet, this is whom it is written. Behold, I send my messenger before you, who will prepare your way before you.
[00:18:24] So Jesus is extolling John, and John is busy extolling Jesus. And he'll know now that it's appointed for him to die also in this way, to be the one who makes a way for the death of the Messiah. There's a parallel here. In the preaching of John and in the preaching of Jesus, in the suffering of John and the suffering of Jesus in The death of John and the death of Jesus.
[00:18:52] And that's followed by the resurrection of Jesus. We'll sing about it in this old, old, old hymn. Hark. A thrilling voice is sounding. It looks like this text goes all the way back to. It's lost in history, somewhere between the 5th and 10th centuries. That's a pretty big target, by the way. We don't know where it comes from, but we think it's somewhere between the 5th and the 10th centuries.
[00:19:14] If you were just guessing a time between, like the invention of the language of Latin and now, you would be like 20% to guess that anyway. Hark. A thrilling voice is sounding. Christ is near. We hear it say, Cast away the works of darkness, all you children of the day.
[00:19:33] This is talking about the coming of our Lord Jesus and how John the Baptist is preparing a way. This is what we are rejoicing in in the season of Advent. That this preaching of repentance is preparing our hearts to hear the word of God and believe it and to be ready for the Lord's coming in glory. So may God grant it and may he continue to see that his word finds joyful residence in our hearts.
[00:20:00] I hope that gets you ready for church again. We'll rejoice in these baptisms. We'll be in Hebrews 13 winding down or up the book of Hebrews chapter 13 in Bible class today. We still have our midweek services. Those are, I think, one more left and then we'll be right up to the edge of Christmas. So two Christmas Eve services, 4 and 6, 30, and then Christmas Day at 10 o'clock. So I gotta think about if we're gonna do a podcast for those.
[00:20:28] I probably should.
[00:20:30] I'll let you know next week. God's peace be with you. See you soon.
