Elijah Comes!
Rev. Richard A. Bolland

Luke 3:1-6
(Dec. 7, 2003 Sermon Transcript)

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        This is the text, ladies and gentlemen. Please be seated.

        Dear children of God, fellow baptized, how many Old Testament prophets had foretold the coming of Jesus Christ? Well, just from the time of Elijah (and there were many who preceded him) all the way to the last book of the Old Testament, the book of Malachi, there are seventeen prophets who proclaimed God’s word of judgment against Israel and Judah’s godlessness, and to offer the promises of salvation and redemption that were to come, with the coming of the Messiah.

        From 875 BC until about 505 BC, for 370 years, God continued to send messenger after messenger after messenger to issue those warnings and to issue those promises.

        But then, comes John the Baptist. John’s prophecy of the imminence of the Kingdom of God signaled the immediate coming of the Messiah. Every other prophet had said, "Keep waiting, keep waiting, keep waiting!" But John finally gets to stand there and say, He is here! Oh yes, and there He is!" God in His grace and mercy sends this final Old Testament prophet, if you will, to say that God’s kingdom is truly, and finally, at hand.

        He also came baptizing. Baptizing for the forgiveness of sins. Now, of course, sins can only be forgiving through Christ, or through faith in the Christ who is to come. "Christ" is simply the Greek form of the Hebrew word, "Messiah". Both of those terms are utterly synonymous. So it is right to refer to our Lord as the Christ of God. It is, of course, that baptism that is not quite like that of the New Testament, that is, following Christ’s ascension. It is almost identical in it’s effect, in that it provides and conveys the forgiveness of sins, but it is a baptism, not done in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, not done in the name of Jesus, but very much connected to Jesus.

        That fuller formulation, the fuller revelation of baptism is the prerogative of the Messiah. It is not given to John at this time. And yet, it is for the forgiveness of sins, just as your baptism was, and was mine.

        What better way to close the door on the Old Testament era and make the announcement of the Kingdom of God, that it is now at hand, than to anticipate and to prepare by coming in a spirit of baptism. And by listening to the words of John as he declares, "Prepare the way!"

        You see, the arrival of John the Baptist should not have been any great surprise to those who understood the scriptures of the Old Testament. And indeed, many were the students of those old books, as we are yet this day, for the comfort of God’s people, Isaiah of old speaks some of the very words that John speaks. From Isaiah chapter 40, listen carefully. Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for, that she has received from the LORD's hand double for all her sins. A voice of one calling: "In the desert prepare the way for the LORD; make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God. Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain. And the glory of the LORD will be revealed, and all mankind together will see it. For the mouth of the LORD has spoken."

        It did not go without notice that John proclaims these words of the prophet Isaiah. Neither was it in any way, shape, or form, something that could have been misunderstood. Now, to be sure, the people of Israel were struggling with oppression by the Assyrian nation, that indeed, they had become a vassal state and about to be conquered militarily at that time. These words did provide comfort to them in that situation. But there is more here than hope for the immediate future. There is hope here also for a final redemption, and a final eternal kingdom. One that will not pass away. One that will not be subject to the vacuousness and vacillations of human frailty.

        Indeed, this kingdom will last forever.

        The prophet Malachi, that very last book in your Old Testament portion of the scriptures, said it quite plainly about this one who was to precede Christ. Malachi writes, "See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the LORD comes. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers; or else I will come and strike the land with a curse."

        And it is clarified again by the gospel writer Luke, as he writes in the first chapter of that gospel, Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him, (that is Zechariah) standing at the right side of the altar of incense. When Zechariah saw him, he was startled and was gripped with fear. But the angel said to him: "Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to give him the name John. He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is never to take wine or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from birth. Many of the people of Israel will he bring back to the Lord their God. And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous-- to make ready a people prepared for the Lord."

        And so we read of the character also of this forerunner, this greatest of the prophets that Jesus writes about. For the gospel of Matthew, Our Lord’s words go like this, As John's disciples were leaving, Jesus began to speak to the crowd about John: "What did you go out into the desert to see? A reed swayed by the wind? If not, what did you go out to see? A man dressed in fine clothes? No, those who wear fine clothes are in kings' palaces. Then what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is the one about whom it is written: "'I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.' I tell you the truth: Among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing, and forceful men lay hold of it. For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John. And if you are willing to accept it, he is the Elijah who was to come. He who has ears, let him hear., Jesus said.

        Dear friends in Christ, in this Advent season, in this way of coming to prepare the way of the Lord, which is good to do every year until His final return, many times the people of God are simply called to speak the truth. And as we read about John, we find that indeed he did. And he did so at great personal risk indeed, finally resulting in his own execution at the hands of Herod the Tetrarch. I pray the Lord will grant us the courage in these last days to grant us the courage in these lasts days, in courage and faithfulness, to reflect the courage of that great prophet John the Baptist, as we seek to bring God’s truth to a religiously indifferent culture, and world.

        When John came baptizing for the forgiveness of sins, he prepared the people for the Lord’s arrival, and that Lord will come to deal with our brokenness and sin. Every night now, on our TV sets when we turn on the news, we see reports of war. And it is the nature of war that usually those reports are not very pleasant. And we begin to understand that war is a terrible thing, and indeed it is. It is perhaps the most quintessential measurement of man’s sinfulness, even if it is sometimes, tragically, necessary. And now we think war is the great evil. But it is not. It is only a symptom of a far greater evil.

        So often, when we look at our sins, and the sins of others, we usually prefer the latter to the former, we begin to think of the sin itself as the problem, but it is not! Sin is caused by something. And everything that comes from sin is caused by something. And that something is the sin of mankind himself, the fallen estate of humankind, our innate, unnatural fall into sin, that now we say is, "Well, it’s just the natural way of things". It is not. It was never intended by God to be this way.

        But rather, we must remember that the root cause of every evil we observe, the root cause of every trouble with every relationship, whether personal or global, is man’s rebellion against God, and the death which results from it. The cause of sin is our own selfishness.

        Therefore John the Baptist tells us that repentance is the way to prepare for the advance of God’s kingdom, and indeed, that is exactly right.

        For indeed, God is coming. And as we explained to the girls up front just a few moments ago, God is coming for a visit. And He came, and the only way we can properly prepare for it, is to be grievously sorry for our sin, and to admit it. A truly repentant heart is required. Not just the image of repentance, not just the words of repentance, for indeed, hear the words of John the Baptist as he saw people were coming to him who were not there in their hearts, and yet wanted to be baptized. He writes, But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptizing, he said to them: "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not think you can say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father.' I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.

        I would suspect that the uttering of those words, those harsh, politically incorrect, unrelenting, pounding words, that the Sadducees and the Pharisees physically drew back, and were astounded that they should be spoken to in such a way. Astounded that somehow their bloodline lineage to Father Abraham was not adequate in the eyes of God to make them one of God’s chosen people after all. But rather, as was later explained, it was the faith that Abraham held that was reckoned as righteousness, not only for Abraham, but for all that are related to him, and all who are grafted in as gentile believers.

        No, the bloodlines were not going to help. And so the people heard what he said, and they came. They came by the thousands. Indeed, we read that all of Judea came out to listen to this man in the desert, telling them, "Prepare the way for the Lord, and do so through repentance."

        And the first sign of that repentance was a sincere heart, willing to submit to His baptism. Leave your good works at home, for they will not be acceptable to God. Forget your personal commitment to God, and remember that He is the one who is committed to you. And if we have a commitment, He is the one who gives us the ability to be committed.

        Abandon your good intentions, for our good intentions are always flawed and imperfect. And just come with sorrow for sin, and trust in the one who brings forgiveness. There is nothing else, you see, that we can bring. There is nothing else to which we may claim access to God, except through a repentant heart. It’s not what we bring, you see, that’s important. It’s what Christ brings that is critical.

        Jesus, the Christ of God, brings His own righteousness to cover the rags of our poor attempts at good works, our poor intentions which we pass off as good intentions, our broken commitments that He does not accept, but rather, accepts His own commitment to destroy our sin. He comes in His righteousness because there is no sin in this man. He will break no law of God. He will give to those who trust in Him, His own righteousness. Not our poor, broken, flawed pack of half-done, unacceptable good deeds.

        Jesus the Christ of God brings the only acceptable payment for sin that can be offered. That of His own life. That of His own suffering. That which alone provides that which will cover our lawlessness. For He applies His law-keeping to our lawlessness, and our lawbreaking. It is the innocence of His death which permits Him to bear our sin. And to bear the load of it, to bear the punishment for it, so that we may be excused in the sight of God.

        It is payment rendered that simply cannot be rendered again. It cannot be rendered by any amount of our good deeds or good intentions or good commitments or promises that we make, and break. Rather, it is only that which has been rendered once, the sacrifice that cannot be repeated, which is our hope. And it is Jesus, the Christ of God, who brings us the final victory over sin, over death, and over the grave, and that is the only one that can be found among men. There is no other solution to the problem of lawlessness and sin. For the grave cannot hold this sinless man, nor can it hold those whose trust is in Christ alone, who has risen from the dead. For in Him we have died to sin. And in Him we rise to life from that sin, and from that grave.

        Yes, good friends, John the Baptist gives the greatest of news to a long-waiting world. The kingdom of God is at hand. The Messiah is at the door. Prepare for the way, and make straight paths for His way. This greatest of the Elijah’s is the herald of the world’s hope.

        We too have received the baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. We too have received every blessing that those who stood in the Jordan River with John and received that blessing received. There is no difference. We have been prepared by Jesus the Lord Himself for His coming. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.