“The Lord is Coming Again” Jeremiah 33.14-16, Dec. 2nd, 2012, 1st Sunday in Advent, Series C

1.      Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Amen.  Today we begin the Season of Advent and a new Church Year.  Advent is a season of contrition, sorrow over our sins, and hopeful waiting. It invites us to reflect on the frailty of our fallen nature as we prepare to behold the mystery and wonder of God becoming flesh for us.  Today we’re looking at the Lord’s words to the Prophet Jeremiah in Jeremiah 33:14-16, which says,  “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. ¹⁵ In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David, and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. ¹⁶ In those days Judah will be saved, and Jerusalem will dwell securely. And this is the name by which it will be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness.’  The message is entitled, “The Lord is Coming Again,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.   

2.      So, it begins.  Another Church Year, another Advent, another Christmas shopping season, another winter … another time of waiting.  Waiting for the Lord Jesus who has promised to come again to judge the living and the dead. Waiting through the dark days of early winter is an ideal time to turn to the prophet Jeremiah. The man knew something about waiting.  God had called Jeremiah to his ministry as a Prophet in the 13th year of King Josiah. And Jeremiah had a long career. It lasted through the destruction of the city of Jerusalem and the exile of Jeremiah’s people to Babylon.  Jeremiah remained in Palestine after the deportation. Although he was a prophet to the nations, his primary focus was the Southern Kingdom of Judah. These were times of catastrophe for Judah. Israel had already been swallowed up by the nation of Assyria. Babylon had taken her place, and God used her, just as he had used Assyria, to bring judgment upon his unfaithful people.

3.      Imagine if you were Jeremiah for a moment.  The land lies in waste and the city streets of Jerusalem are deserted.  The dust swirls in the city square and there’s no one to draw water from the well.  It’s like Armageddon, the End of Days has taken place, which is so popular in movies right now.  Rubble chokes the way and debris is piled upon the walks of Jerusalem.  Jerusalem and the Temple of the Lord is no more and the people dwell there no more.  And amidst all this lamenting and crying Jeremiah longs for the Lord to come, to come and restore Jerusalem and the temple to its glory once again.  The Lord does promise here in Jeremiah 33 these things He says, “Call to Me and I will answer you (vs. 3), I have hidden My face from this city because of all their evil.  Behold, I will bring to it health and healing (vs. 5-6).  I will forgive all the guilt of their sin and rebellion against Me.  And this city shall be to Me a name of joy, a praise and a glory before all the nations (vs. 8-9).  Even in the midst of the rubble there is hope!  Jeremiah looks to the promise that the Lord is coming to save His people.

4.      Our Lord Jesus is coming and we have hope.  But, how often do the streets of our lives lie waste under the rubble of despair?  How often do we look to the right and to the left and see nothing but darkness and ruin?  How often do we mourn and cry out in anguish at the wreck of our lives because of our own sinfulness?  We have sinned and it has brought us to the abandoned streets of hopelessness.  We’ve piled up sin and its rubble has weighed us down.  The enemies of sin, death, and the devil have overrun us and we’ve been separated from our holy God and His Holy City—Jerusalem.

5.      We cry out in our sin and we weep in the darkness.  We have dealt with the consequences of our sin:  divorce, living together with someone outside of marriage, addiction to drugs and alcohol, friendships that have been ruined because of the wrong thing that we said, or a failure to help our friend out when they needed us.  Our sin to worship the Lord and serve Him only and to remember His day of worship and keep it holy.  We say those swear words we shouldn’t and so defile the name of the Lord we have been given in our baptism.  We covet and desire those possessions that don’t belong to us.  Where is our hope?  The prophet Jeremiah tells us, Behold the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise…In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David.” (Jer. 33:14-15).  The Righteous Branch is our hope!  Jesus is our hope!   

6.       The Righteous Branch has sprung forth from the stump of Jesse.  Jesus our New David has come and ushered us into a new kingdom and a new era.  Jesus, our Messiah, has appeared in our midst, bringing us health and healing to the disease of sin in our world.  Jesus has carried the burden of our sin to the cross.  He has taken the wreck of our lives and applied the healing balm of His precious blood.  Jesus is our righteousness.  He has even given us His righteous robe through the sacrament of Holy Baptism that makes us holy in God the Father’s sight.  He has redeemed us His people through His death and resurrection and made us His own.  Jesus our Messiah and Savior has come to save us!

7.      But, this reading from the prophet Jeremiah in chapter 33 also points us as Christians to the future and reminds us that “the days” are coming when Jesus will return.  Jeremiah 33:16 tells us that we as the Lord’s church will bear the name “The Lord Our Righteousness.” This name applies to us today because of Christ’s imputed righteousness that you and I have received in and through our baptisms. Jeremiah’s words remind us that the days are still coming. We still are looking for our righteousness that will appear in all its brilliance on the Last Day when Jesus promises to return in glory to judge the living and the dead.

8.       Living in these days of economic and moral decline in the United States and the Christian Church in America beginning to lose its influence we can relate to Jeremiah. But maybe we shouldn’t, or at least maybe we shouldn’t relate quite so easily. We are, after all, living in the days that Jeremiah longed to see—the days that were the object of his hope. Jeremiah longed for the days when God’s plan of salvation in Jesus would move forward, the promise would be kept, and Judah would be saved. All of that has happened. The “righteous Branch of David” sprang forth and Jesus executed justice and righteousness on the earth. Following a plan that few could have imagined, the fulfillment came precisely when the world rejected and executed our Lord Jesus, who had come to do justice and righteousness. It‘s been accomplished.  Our salvation has been accomplished through Jesus. “Those days that are coming”—the very thought of which that encouraged Jeremiah—are now. Today is one of those days … not a day of waiting, or dreary routine, or painful endurance, but a day of living in the reality of the promise fulfilled. We aren’t waiting for God to do something. He’s already done it for you in Jesus through His death and resurrection. And He promises to bring your salvation to its final completion when he comes again in glory on the Last Day.

9.      So, while we know what it is to wait through Advent and winter and life.  We must also learn the habits of living in the reality that our Lord Jesus has already come to save us through His death and resurrection.  And He promises to come again to take us to our heavenly home. If we’re only waiting for God to do something else, only waiting for those better days to come, then we’re failing to live faithfully in the present reality of now—a reality that would have delighted and maybe even brought a smile to the hardened face of Jeremiah the weeping prophet.  Our Lord Jesus is coming again and we look forward to it.  Amen.