Sunday, December 1, 2024, First Sunday in Advent
“Stand Up and Lift Up Your Heads”
Psalm 25:1-10; Jeremiah 33:14-16; 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13; Luke 21:25-36
Divine Service III with Holy Communion
Hymns: #349 “Hark, the Glad Sound”; #350 “Come, Thou Precious Ransom, Come”;
#348 “The King Shall Come When Morning Dawns”
Dear Friends in Christ,
Grace, mercy, and peace to you, from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus. Amen.
“He was a stand-up guy.” What a thing that would be to have on my tombstone! What a thing that would be to be remembered for, once I leave this world. I want to be a “stand-up guy”, I really do. A stand-up guy is someone you can count on. A stand-up guy is someone who will be there for you when you need them. A stand-up guy is someone you can count on to man the barricades with you, to stand up and fight with you, if it should ever come down to that. A stand-up guy is a person with standards they won’t back down from, a person with integrity, a person you can always count on to tell you the truth straight up. (Ladies, you can be stand-up guys, too!) “He’s a stand-up guy” would be the greatest compliment a person could ever receive; no bull, no lies, no half-truths, no broken promises, no saying you’ll do something and then not following through. Not a perfect person by any means; none of us are perfect. But a stand-up guy will admit it when he’s wrong and apologize for it, and do whatever he has to do to make it right. A stand-up guy is someone you can trust, someone who lives and acts by what’s right, and not by what’s expedient, convenient, popular, or profitable. A stand-up guy is someone who keeps his promises, someone who really means it when he raises his right hand and says, “I swear to God”
Being a “stand-up guy” becomes all the more important as we “see the day of Christ approaching,” as St. Paul says. Talking about these times we’re living in, our Lord Jesus says, “On My account you will stand before governors and kings” and “He who stands firm to the end will be saved” and “Stand firm and you will win life.” St. Paul says we have “…access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.” He writes about “…the Gospel on which you have taken your stand.” He says, “Stand firm in the faith, be courageous, and be strong” and “Put on the full armor of God, so you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes.” What we need in these days is another Martin Luther (who was a stand-up guy if there ever was one). In fact, we’re in need of many Martin Luther’s – men and women who are willing to say, “Here I stand, I can do no other, so help me God.”
Jesus lays out for us in our Gospel what we’re going to have to go through to get to where we’re going: “There will be signs in the sun, moon, and stars, and the nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea.” And then, “Men will faint from terror for fear of the things that are coming on the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken.” He’s talking about the shaking of the natural processes that hold the world together, God showing the world that “settled science” isn’t really settled at all, and that the “laws of nature” we’ve all been taught to rely on are in fact the Lord’s laws, and are His to repeal. In the shaking of those things will be the testing of our faith.
The mark of a stand-up person is how they stand up to their troubles. You’ll see it in any disaster zone, whenever the world gets turned upside-down by a fire, a flood, or a storm. The difference in people begins to show right away. What’s in your heart, says Jesus, will show through in what you do, especially in troubled times like. Some people will only think about saving themselves. They’ll hoard and fight, loot, and steal, and the “selfish bone” in them will show through soon enough. The veneer of civilization is very thin. But God’s people, the good people, the stand-up people? Those are the ones you’ll find clearing the roads, clearing debris, and mucking out basements, and offering encouragement and praying for their neighbors while lending them aid. It doesn’t take long at all to see who’s who.
When Jesus comes again, what will He find us doing? “At that time,” says Jesus, “they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.” (‘They’ is everyone, all mankind, without exception). When the whole world is shaking and everything is falling down around our ears, what will our Master find His servants being about? How will He find us behaving when He comes? Jesus asks at one point, “When the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?”
To stand, biblically speaking, is to stand on to your faith. It’s to stubbornly keep doing what we Christians are called to do, no matter what the world around us is saying or doing. It’s to keep loving and serving our neighbors, even the ornery ones, to show them that the love of God is still real, even in some awful disaster zone. It’s also to stand with our neighbors in those tragedies and personal disasters that happen in their lives. When these things begin to take place, says Jesus, what should we do? Shrink back? Stay safe? Avoid trouble? Try to hide? No, it’s the rest of the world that will be doing that – shaking their fists at God or trying to hide from Him. But you and me? “Stand up and lift up your heads,” Jesus says, “because your redemption is drawing near.” This calls for more faith on our part, not less. This calls for more expressions of faith, more calling out, more going public and faithfully confessing Jesus, even if the whole world is playing the part of Job’s wife and saying, “Curse God and die.” Job answered his wife, “Shall we accept only good from God and not trouble?” And a little later he says, “I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end He will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see Him with my own eyes- I, and not another.” (Job was another stand-up guy).
That parable about the fig trees Jesus tells in our Gospel is about being able to read the signs of the times. You’ll find stand-up people (the Christian ones, at least) taking good care to do that. Being a stand-up Christian means – it must mean - being in God’s Word, and being well-informed by Scripture about what’s happening in the world and what’s going to happen next. I keep myself awake, and I read myself awake, because I love all of you, and I love my neighbors, and I don’t want any of you to be taken by surprise. The kingdom of God is near; God’s good Book says so. Heaven and earth as we know them are going to pass away, one day soon; Jesus and all the signs of the times say so. But “the Word of the Lord stands forever.” How could I be a stand-up guy if I didn’t keep telling you so?
“Be careful,” Jesus says, “take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be burdened and weighed down with dissipation” – that is, with carousing and drunkenness and all that awful, distracting, brain-clouding, soul-numbing stuff. And don’t get so caught up in the anxieties and cares and worries of life that you spend all your time looking down at the ground and forget to look up. I know, I know - those worries, cares, and anxieties of life happen to everyone, and nobody on earth is immune from storms and disasters and such. “But” says the book of Hebrews, “we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved. “Be always on the watch,” says Jesus, “and pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen, that you may be able…” – able to do what? “To stand before the Son of Man.” “And when everything is said and done, to stand,” St. Paul says.
Folks, our Lord Jesus is the ultimate stand-up guy, our heavenly pattern to follow. He does what He says. He makes His promises, and He keeps them. He, above all other things in heaven or on earth, is reliable, trustworthy, and true. “The days are coming,” declares the Lord in Jeremiah, “when I will fulfill the gracious promise I made to the house of Israel and to the house of Judah. In those days and at that time I will make a righteous Branch sprout from David’s line; he will do what is just and right in the land. In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. This is the name by which it will be called: The Lord Our Righteousness.”
A stand-up guy. A stand-up Savior. He made a promise to save us from our sins, and that promise has now been kept. Today is the beginning of Advent, when we begin to tell once again the beautiful and holy story about how God sent His Son into the world to save us from our sin. We’ll tell Christmas story in just a few weeks, as God’s promise kept, and the Savior of the world lies helpless in a bed of straw. The story will go on from there to show us the child now grown, and standing up to all the hate and evil and sin in the world with love, grace, and truth. And for that the sinful world will hate Him. And we’ll see Him stand up to it all until His knees give way beneath the weight of His cross, and beneath the weight of our sin, and they hang Him up on that cross to die. The story doesn’t end there, though, as He stands up again, raised up from death and forever alive – another stand-up promise kept. And as He was able to stand up again, so also will we. “Because I live, you also will live,” Jesus says. “I am with you always, to the very end of the age,” says Jesus. Now that’s a stand-up guy.
I really do want to be a stand-up guy; to stand up for what’s good and right and true in the world – like Job and Jeremiah, like St. Paul, and Martin Luther, and like Jesus Christ Himself. I know I’m not there yet; I’m a long way from it, in fact. I’m not giving up, though, because I know that my Redeemer lives, and I know what forgiveness is for, and where to come to find it. It’s in the Word of faith and truth that we’ve just heard. It’s in the body and blood of Jesus that we’re about to receive. It’s in this grace in which we now stand. Stand up and lift up your heads, Church! Your redemption is drawing near!
Now may the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as my love does for you. May he strengthen your hearts so that you will be found blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones. In Jesus’ name; Amen.