The Righteous Savior Advent 2024 - Week 1
Advent 2024 - Week 1
December 1, 2024
I want you to imagine in your mind a beautiful spring day after a long and brutal winter. We can all think and maybe even feel in your soul how good, how encouraging, how heart-warming those days are. There is nothing better than that day in March or April when the sun shines with all of its brightness and glory and the freezing temperatures melt away.
There was such a day after a hard winter that inspired a man named George to skip some meetings at the office to travel about 30 miles to visit his friend Eric. Eric lived in the countryside and so the two friends strolled around his yard, enjoying the Sunshine and thawing from the cold. And as they walked around talking and catching up, some words, some lyrics, popped into George’s mind – followed by a tune to go with them.
The simple lyrics and tune became one of the most popular songs in history.
Let’s just listen to the opening riff.
On that day in the spring of 1969, George Harrison left the hustle and bustle of London and skipped important business meetings at Apple Records to visit the home of his friend Eric Clapton in the countryside. And, walking around Clapton’s gardens with a guitar, Harrison wrote this song that would take the world by storm when it was recorded just a couple of months later.
Here comes the sun. Little darling, it’s been a long, cold, lonely winter. Here comes the sun. And I say, It’s all right.
You can thank me later for the fact that you’ll be singing that song all day.
But one of the reasons that it has remained such a popular song for 55 years is that it is an expression of something that we all long for.
Many of us go through seasons of life that can seem like long, cold, harsh winters. You watch the news and it’s the crisis du jour. Whether it’s medical concerns, addiction, family tensions, financial hardship, mental illness, wayward children, career trouble, or whatever else you and your neighbors might be going through today, there is no shortage of darkness, sadness, and fear.
And if you’re not feeling any of that today, then pause to give thanks to the Lord for this time of respite, because it’ll come someday.
Today we are beginning our sermon series for Advent that I’m naming after this classic song – but with a little different twist. Advent is the time of year that we reserve to shine the light of hope and anticipation into the darkness of this world.
Each week has ever-increasing light as we look forward to our Christmas celebration. But, of course, we don’t simply look forward to our cultural celebrations, but to the meaning of it all.
We might think of Advent as being a three-fold in which we behold – we look – we see – we notice three things:
We look around - to observe the darkness of this world. To notice how desperate this world is to be redeemed. How everything around us is aching for redemption. We stare into the darkness for a bit to remind us of why we need light. We take inventory of the current situation so that we are ready for what is coming.
But we don’t only look around – we also look back. For Christians, this is seen most clearly in our Christmas Eve and Christmas Day celebrations. We look back and commemorate the Christ Child. The son of God who took on flesh and was born to the virgin Mary.
But another big part of the Advent season is looking forward. We anticipate the reality that God isn’t finished. That there is much more coming. That Jesus promised to return and finish what he started. He is coming to judge the living and the dead, to make all things new, to wipe every tear from every eye, and to make all of the sad things come untrue.
Advent is a time of re-orientation. When we look around, we look back, and we focus our eyes ahead. We anticipate his coming:
O come, O come, Immanuel,
and ransom captive Israel
that mourns in lonely exile here
until the Son of God appear.
We look forward with anticipation – reiterating the final words of Holy Scripture in Revelation 22 - When Jesus declares “Yes, I am coming soon.” And we reply, “Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.”
We look around, we look back, and we look forward with anticipation that the Son is coming. The sentiment and mystical feeling that George Harrison used to captivate listeners is but a shadow of the true and better son who will come in fulfillment of the promises of God.
I invite you to stand as we read our sermon text for today from Jeremiah 33.
Jeremiah 33:14-16
14 “‘The days are coming,’ declares the Lord, ‘when I will fulfill the good promise I made to the people of Israel and Judah.
15 “‘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.
16 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 Righteous Savior.’
God, we confess that your word is true. True for Judah and Israel millennia ago, and true for us today. So, may the words of my mouth and the mediation of our hearts be pleasing in your sight oh Lord our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
In many ways, our text today is a summary of what has come before it. It takes multiple chapters from earlier in Jeremiah and consolidates them into a few verses. And in these three verses, we see the gospel. The Good news. The promise of God spoken into darkness and despair.
When Jeremiah wrote these words, he had been arrested by the Babylonians and knew he probably wouldn’t ever see freedom again. Nebuchadnezzar’s army surrounded God’s people. Solomon’s temple will soon be destroyed. Everything was falling apart.
Does God care? Does God even exist?
And it’s into those dark days that God speaks through the prophet. And he speaks good news. He makes promises to his people.
And these words are even MORE relevant to us today than they were to God’s people 2600 years ago – because we have seen with clarity what God meant when he made these promises. We look back on the historical reality of Jesus born as infant-king in the city of David, dying on a Roman cross, rising again to conquer death and grave, and promising to come again.
And so today as we begin this season of advent – a season of expectation and anticipation and preparation for light to come into the darkness – let’s look at three parts of this good promise that comes to us from Jeremiah.
First, God promises a king who will rule with justice and righteousness.
V. 15 - 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.
Here Jeremiah reiterates what God had promised in Jeremiah chapter 23 – that a new king would spring up from King David’s line and rule on David’s throne with justice and righteousness.
Now, it’s helpful for us to keep in mind that this was taking place about 400 years after David’s death – and nearly 6 centuries before Christ’s birth. That is really important for us to consider.
We are an instant gratification world. But God promised a king sometime in the future. And his promises are always on a different timeline than we are. Time is different from a divine perspective. The people who received these promises of God through Jeremiah were as far removed from Christ’s birth as we are from Joan of Arc and the invention of the printing press.
They would wait a long time for this king to spring up and rule on David’s throne. And this is helpful for us. We grow tired of waiting and hoping. But God always follows through on his promises, even if it isn’t in the time frame that we want or expect.
And this king that God promises would rule with Justice AND righteousness.
This is a pairing of words that occurs elsewhere in scripture as well to refer to the way that God rules as king. These two words are intended to be a clear contrast with the way that the rules of this world operate.
Our world is well-known for rampant INJUSTICE and UNRIGHTEOUSNESS.
Justice constitutes an element of fairness – of things being done in the right and proper way that ensures that everyone is treated fairly. It means that decisions are made in accordance with an objective standard.
And righteousness means that things are done right. It indicates the absence of sin or corruption.
And so the Lord declares that this king who comes will rule with justice and righteousness, unlike any human ruler.
Second, God promises salvation.
V. 16 - “In those days Judah will be saved
and Jerusalem will live in safety.”
God promises to save both Judah and Jerusalem. Judah is the name given to the southern kingdom after the nation was divided. And Jerusalem is the symbolic capital of that southern kingdom.
But more important than the names, notice the two-fold sense emphasis of the salvation that will come from this king from David’s line: Not only will there be salvation, but also safe-dwelling.
In other words, God promises that he will send Jesus to save, but also that this salvation won’t merely be a past historical event, but a present reality.
This is worth your time to consider and wrestle with today and throughout this Advent season. We don’t merely celebrate Christmas which marks a past event when Christ was born. We recognize the ongoing nature of salvation.
Your salvation is not just a one-time, historical event in which you asked Jesus into your heart. Salvation is also the promise of God to keep us – to continue his good work. To protect us. To sustain us.
For the initial audience of Jeremiah’s oracle, this was about hope after the Babylonian crisis. It was about the restoration of the lives they once knew. And ultimately it was about the true and better king who would come.
And for us, part of our Advent journey is anticipating that great day when everything is brought to completion and fullness. There Christ comes and his eternal rule is a present reality forever.
God promises a king who will rule with justice and righteousness.
God promises salvation.
And then there is one more aspect of this good news that we get from Jeremiah.
Third, God calls his people by his name.
V. 16 - “This is the name by which it will be called:
The Lord Our Righteous Savior.”
The grammatical question here is, “What is the ‘it’ that our verse speaks of?” when it says, “IT will be called.”
And here the “it” is pretty clearly referring to Jerusalem. Jerusalem is the center of God’s redemptive story. The epicenter of God’s plan to save the world from sin and death. And Jerusalem is also representative of the center of worship. It was the spiritual center of the worship of God’s people for generations. It was the location of the temple where sacrifices were made and offerings were given.
And what God says here through Jeremiah is amazing. Because of this king from David’s line, this righteous branch – all who take refuge in him – all who dwell in the safety he provides – will be given his name – “The Lord, our righteous savior.”
God says all who receive the salvation that this king brings will receive his name. The name might be translated, as “The Lord our righteous savior” or simply, “The Lord is our righteousness.”
This is the very name of God. Yahweh, our righteous savior.
Jesus would make this text come to life when he instructed and commanded us to baptize. Into what are we to baptize? Matthew 28:19 says, “baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit…”
In other words, in Christ, God’s name is placed upon Jerusalem, and ultimately upon all who believe and are baptized.
The righteous king and savior comes, and he redeems his people, he pays for the sin of the world, and he satisfies the wrath of God against sin. And he says, from now on you will be known by my name. You will be affiliated with me.
Jesus is the truly righteous savior who came and did everything necessary so that his righteousness can be given, imputed, and credited to us.
You cannot be forgiven of sin because of your name, but because of his. You cannot be declared righteous because of your name, but because of his. You cannot be assured of eternal life according to your name, but because of his. He is the righteous one, and he has given you his name. His credentials. His benefits.
This is the good news – this is the gospel – that you come with your sin and your mess and your certain death – and he exchanges that for his perfect righteousness and promises you that even when you die, you will truly live.
You are his forever. And this changes the way we see our world. It changes the way we deal with the darkness around us. Because we know that the promises of God never fail.
The ironic thing about George Harrison’s song is that it’s merely aspirational. It ends on a note of false confidence, with the words, “It’s alright.” And this is ironic because, of course, everything wasn’t “alright.” And everything isn’t “alright.” So long as we evaluate things from the perspective of this world, nothing is truly “alright.” The best that we can do as humans is to distract ourselves from the realities that we face. To numb the pain or to ignore the certainty of decay.
But when this good news comes to us from the outside. The good news of God’s promises for all to believe. The good news that Immanuel, God with us, is coming again. When this good news comes, we can look at earthly realities and say, with great confidence, “It’s alright.” We can stare into the darkness of this world with hope because the righteous savior – the one who makes all things truly “alright” is coming again to do just that.
And so we do not despair. And we don’t pretend. We call a thing what it is. And then we cling to the promises of Jesus – to the good news that he is coming again to make everything alright.
So today, and throughout this Advent season, may we look around at the darkness, look back to Christ’s first advent, and look forward to his return. And may we be encouraged by the simple reminder: Here comes the Son. It’s alright. Amen.
This sermon is offered as a resource by Living Word Lutheran Brethren Fellowship in Dickinson, North Dakota. It has been lightly edited for the website, but the original tone remains unchanged, and no grammatical revisions or style adjustments have been made.