1.
Grace, mercy, and
peace to you from God our Heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus
Christ. Amen. Everybody has Christmas lists. Before the
internet, the most waited-for item in the mailbox every fall was the Sears
Roebuck Christmas catalog. My, how kids looked for it! Maybe you were one
of them. In some houses, the arrival of the toy catalog meant a riot. Brothers
and sisters would fight over it. The first one to get his hands on it would
take it into the bathroom, lock the door, and devour the pages. As much as children would beg their parents
for all those Sears catalog toys, for countless centuries God’s people prayed
for the coming of their Savior. And for more than a thousand years since the
Savior, has come, Christians have sung a similar prayer. We know and love it as,
“O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.” “O
come, O come, Emmanuel, And ransom captive Israel, That mourns in lonely exile
here Until the Son of God appear. Rejoice!
Rejoice! Emmanuel, Shall come to thee, O Israel!” (LSB 357:2)
2.
The hymn is very
old, maybe written in the days of Charlemagne, the 800s, well over a thousand
years ago and revised from time to time over the centuries. But, the version
we’re singing is the one translated beginning in 1851 by Rev. John Mason Neale,
an Anglican clergyman. He tweaked the song a bit, till in 1857 it became the
version many people love today. How we
got the song isn’t the most important thing, the prayer in each stanza is. It’s
these important prayers that really ought to be on our Christmas wish list,
such as the prayer of stanza 2: “O come, Thou Wisdom from on high, Who
ord’rest all things mightily; To us the path of knowledge show, And teach us in
her ways to go. Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel Shall come to thee, O Israel!” (LSB 357:2) I don’t remember as a child praying for
wisdom, (I think my parents would have wanted me to though). But that’s what we
sing for tonight: O Come, Thou Wisdom from on High.
3.
What you and I
really need for Christmas isn’t something from the toy catalog or the
electronics store or “my two front teeth”
or even “the doggie in the window.” What
we need is “Wisdom from on high.”
When we think of wisdom, most of us think in terms of making right decisions or
being able to know right from wrong. And, that’s part of what wisdom is about. In his epistle, James encourages those who
lack wisdom to pray for it, but to pray in faith. James goes on to say that
every good and perfect gift, such as wisdom, “is from above, coming down from the Father of lights” (1:17). But, Scripture also speaks of wisdom as
though it were a person. In Solomon’s Book of Proverbs, wisdom is
personified as the Lord’s master builder, with him marking out the foundations
of the earth, and as the one who gives enduring wealth and righteousness better
than gold (Prov 8:12–31).
4.
Ch 11 of Isaiah
gives rise to much of what we find in “O
Come, O Come, Emmanuel.” According to Isaiah, the promised Messiah comes
from the family of Jesse, father of David, and is anointed by the “Spirit of wisdom and understanding” (11:2). So what do we make of this? When we put these
lessons together, we learn that true wisdom is inseparable from the person
Jesus Christ. When someone knows Jesus by faith, he’s found wisdom. Jesus,
John tells us, is the very Word of God through whom all things were made (Jn
1:1–3). Jesus is the divine Wisdom through whom God made, sustains, and saves
his creation.
5.
This Wisdom from
God, Jesus Christ, is the Messiah the people of God in times past always longed
for, whom the prophets foretold. He’s the descendant of David, the son of
Jesse, the promised King. But the royal family tree of Jesse became a stump
when Assyria and Babylon conquered Israel and Judah. The sons of the last king
were killed and the people exiled. How could a new king sprout from a dead
royal stump? God would make it happen, the prophets promised. And God did, when Jesus was born to Mary in
Bethlehem, into the house of David, being the adopted Son of Joseph, a member
of the royal family! But how would the world know Jesus was the heir, the
promised shoot growing from the stump? “The
Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon
him, the Spirit of wisdom and
understanding” (Is 11:2).
6.
And that happened
too. When? At Jesus’ Baptism! At the
Jordan River, as John baptized Jesus, the Bible tells us the Spirit of God
descended like a dove upon him, and a voice came from heaven saying, “This is my beloved Son” (Mt 3:17). “O
Come, O Come, Emmanuel,” stanza 2, prays for wisdom. But, it turns out that
the wisdom God wants to give us isn’t just the ability to make good decisions
or know right from wrong. Instead, it’s a person, Jesus, the Wisdom of God. So
when we pray for wisdom, God answers that prayer by sending us Jesus. He’s
the Wisdom we need.
7.
Have you seen the
billboards along the highway that say “Jesus
is the answer”? It’s true. The answer to our prayer for wisdom is Jesus.
But, how can he be the answer to prayer? What if my life is a mess? What if my
personal relationships are getting me into trouble? What if I can’t figure out my
priorities? What if I can’t sort out right from wrong? Sometimes things aren’t that
clear. What then? What if I need a job and I’m blessed with more than one
opportunity? What if I’m tempted to do wrong in order to pay the bills? What if
I’m tempted to do wrong just because I think it’ll be fun? How is Jesus the
answer?
8.
It may seem that
we need specific wisdom for each of these situations. But not really. All we
need is the wisdom that is Jesus, God’s perfect gift. When we’re joined to
Jesus through faith, when we’re buried with him through Baptism into his death,
burial, and resurrection, when through Baptism we’re covered with the
righteousness of Christ and filled with his Spirit, we have all the Wisdom we
need. How can that be? The hymn tells
us. It says Jesus Christ, “ord’rest all
things mightily.” Faith in Jesus sees the divine order of things the song
speaks of and knows what to think and do. Our world and life aren’t just a
confused mess when we realize that everything is ordered by God’s Wisdom.
Somehow, everything fits into the wise plan of God, who works all things out
for the good of everyone who loves him (Rom 8:28).
9.
The hymn would
have us pray, “To us the path of
knowledge show.” How does Jesus show us the path of knowledge? Through the
Word of God. Proverbs is a great place to start finding that path! But
even more than in Proverbs, we see God’s Wisdom in the Gospels. In them
Jesus shows us the path of knowledge through his words, life, his saving work
on the cross, and the empty tomb. In Jesus, God reveals his priorities, how to
distinguish right from wrong, good from evil, true from false. And God’s
priority is that he’s at peace with you. That’s what Jesus’ death on the cross
and his resurrection achieved. Your sin, which disordered everything and threw
God’s perfect creation and our relationship with him into chaos, has been
forgiven, so that we’re once again with him. All is once again right with the
world. Jesus is God’s Wisdom with flesh
on it, Wisdom we could have seen and touched had we been at the manger in
Bethlehem, Wisdom we can taste in the Lord’s Supper.
10.But,
God’s Wisdom from on high is more than having your heart and mind filled with
the knowledge of Jesus. Most people
forget that Advent isn’t just about the coming of Jesus as a baby in Bethlehem.
It’s only been in recent centuries that we’ve focused on that. Historically, Advent was about preparing for
the coming of God’s Son in judgment on the Last Day. Advent used to be a darker
season for contemplation of the wrath of God, a season for repentance from sin
and for fasting. Christmas and Epiphany have always been the bright, happy
seasons, not Advent. So praying for the coming of God’s Wisdom from on high
isn’t just about welcoming a baby, but it’s about welcoming the Judge of the
world who comes to destroy evil and make his creation new again.
11.Praying
for God’s Wisdom to come from on high is to pray that we’ll be ready like the
wise virgins in a story Jesus tells. You remember that story in Mt 25, don’t
you? Ten virgins are waiting with lamps to meet the bridegroom. Soon he’ll be
passing by in a joyful wedding procession that they hope to join. Five of the
virgins are foolish, and five are wise, we’re told. The foolish
virgins bring their lamps but no oil. The ones with wisdom, the wise virgins,
bring both. The bridegroom’s procession
is delayed and the virgins fall asleep. Finally, the cry comes at midnight, “Here’s the bridegroom! Come out to meet him”
(25:6). There’s a crisis. Of the ten virgins, only the five wise ones have oil
to light their path and join the procession. “Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out” (25:8), the
foolish virgins beg the wise. But the wise virgins refuse, saying if
they do, they won’t have enough for themselves.
So the foolish virgins go shopping for oil at midnight. Meanwhile the
bridegroom and the procession pass by, the wise virgins join in, and they all
enter the wedding hall for the feast. Everyone, except those five who lacked
wisdom. Showing up late, they find themselves locked out. “Lord, lord, open to us” (25:11), they plead, but the door is shut.
“Truly, I say to you, I do not know you”
(25:12), the bridegroom says from the other side.
12.What
does this mean for us? What wisdom
are we to gain from it? Jesus tells us: “Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour”
(25:13). What is Jesus talking about? The day and hour he returns, the day he
comes to condemn the unprepared foolish but to welcome the faithful wise into
his eternal kingdom. You, my friends, are those wise to enter heaven, for you
have Jesus, God’s Wisdom from on high, who by his death on the cross has
reordered all things for your eternity with him. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!
(Rev 22:20).
13.
Please pray with
me. Gracious
Father in heaven, teach us to know that true Wisdom is your Son, Jesus Christ,
who comes to us from on high. By your Word and Spirit, enable us to welcome him
by faith on the day he comes in power and glory, that we might be received into
your eternal kingdom. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
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