Category Archives: Augustine
The Experiences of Advent Week: 1 Experience Great Joy! A sermon on 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13
The Experiences of Advent Week 1
Experience Great Joy!
1 Thessalonians 3:9-13
† I.H.S. †
May the grace and peace of God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ help you to experience joy as we enter His presence!
The Experiences of Advent.
In Matthew 13, Jesus describes the Kingdom of God with parables comparing the Kingdom to the great harvest. The first to be gathered up are the wicked, to be gathered and tossed into the fire. Then the good are gathered up, and enter into God’s presence!
Right in the middle of those parables, Jesus says this, “17 I tell you the truth, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see, but they didn’t see it. And they longed to hear what you hear, but they didn’t hear it.” Matthew 13:17 (NLT2) It echoes the thoughts of Jesus regarding Abraham, “56 Your father Abraham rejoiced that he was to see the time of my coming; he saw it and was glad.” John 8:56 (TEV)
You think of all who waited, from Adam and Even to Abraham, to Moses and Johus who knew the promised land wasn’t real estate but a home with God; to David—whose psalms looked forward to His Lord coming, and all the prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, who warned taught people to prepare and long for the coming of the Messiah-Savior, to Mary and Joseph, and finally the shepherds, the first to leave everything behind them to see Jesus. And finally, we hear the words of Paul today,
“Because of you we have great joy as we enter God’s presence.”
What incredible joy they had, as they considered the coming of Jesus, of seeing people come into the presence of Jesus!
Hmmm, did anyone catch what I did there?
When would Paul enter the presence of Jesus?
So, what in the world does that have to do with preparing for Jesus’ coming to His people in Advent?
Simple, the joy of knowing you are coming into the presence of God.
Think back to the quote from Augustine…we started with…
“Let us love him, for he made these things and he is not far off,44 for he did not make them and then go away: they are from him but also in him. You know where he is, because you know where truth tastes sweet. He is most intimately present to the human heart, but the heart has strayed from him. Return to your heart, then, you wrongdoers, and hold fast to him who made you. Stand with him and you will stand firm, rest in him and you will find peace.”[1]
What were they experiencing prior?
I want to take a moment to think about these people who longed for and looked forward to Christ’s coming, before hearing the good news of being in the presence of a loving, merciful God.
Abraham was a businessman from Ur. Moses was a foreigner, a man wanted as a criminal, an alien who worked in the fields of his father-in-law, tending his animals. David was pretty much written off by his family, given the most menial and meaningless job in the family. We can go through them all, servants and lesser priests. This is especially true after the destruction of the Temple and the removal of the Ark of the Covenant from the people of God.
They had one thing in common: they didn’t have a hope in the world beyond the next day.
What sense does life, suffering, and brokenness make if we don’t know what comes later? How do we deal with broken sin, both your sin and your brother’s sin, if you don’t have the encouragement and comfort that comes from knowing God’s mercy and comfort?
So what were they thinking? How in despair could they have been, or what were they ignoring in their life?
Just like the world, when they are stressed and overwhelmed, dealing with guilt and sin and resentment, with anxiety. Haunted by the past, anxious about the future, unable to find peace….
Wait- that sounds like some of us, as we forget the blessings we have in Christ…
Being reminded of them is the purpose of Advent – to remind us of life before Jesus entered our lives and cause us to rejoice as we look forward to the day Advent prefigures.
What were Paul, Mary and the Shepherds thinking.. “on the way”.
The Advent journey isn’t about the time before we knew about Jesus. It’s about the time we find out about Him and are driven by the Holy Spirit into His presence. It’s the reaction of the Shepherds when the angels told them the Messiah was born.
It’s the same reaction that Paul had, as he thought of the people of the church in Thessalonika… whom the Spirit was driving into the arms of Jesus. Hear his prayer for them, which has been our benediction for the last year,
“May the Lord make your love for one another and for all people grow and overflow, just as our love for you overflows. 13 May he, as a result, make your hearts strong, blameless, and holy as you stand before God our Father when our Lord Jesus comes again with all his holy people. Amen!
This is the effect of the work of Jesus, as the Holy Spirit prepares us to appear before the Father on the judgment day. It is the work we refer to as Salvation, as deliverance, a work driven by love and compassion, a work that knows what it means to come into the presence of God.
It is why Paul knew he would enter God’s presence with great joy, because of the work he witnessed in the lives of people, as He spoke and wrote to them—telling them about how God would cause them to love each other, strengthen our faith, set us apart as His kids—all looking to the day that Christ rejoiced He would bring about, as He died on the cross – to make sure it happens…
And this is the source of our joy – as we gather together to share in the laughter and tears that come along the way.
Enjoy the journey, and the knowledge that God will sustain you until that day…. And rejoice in His work in your life.
AMEN!
44 See Ps 99(100):3; Acts 17:27.
[1] Saint Augustine. (2012). The Confessions, Part I (J. E. Rotelle, Ed.; M. Boulding, Trans.; Second Edition, Vol. 1, p. 104). New City Press.
Augustine, Luther, Vatican I and the Purpose and Mission of God’s People.
Thoughts which carry me to Jesus, and to the cross:
“ And as they came down the hill-side, he warned them not to tell anybody what they had seen till “the Son of Man should have risen again from the dead”. They treasured this remark and tried to puzzle out among themselves what “rising from the dead” could mean. (Mark 9, Phillips)
Have you never read this scripture— The stone which the builders rejected, The same was made the head of the corner; This was from the Lord, And it is marvellous in our eyes?” ” (Mark 12 Phillips)
[1]Let us love him, for he made these things and he is not far off,44 for he did not make them and then go away: they are from him but also in him. You know where he is, because you know where truth tastes sweet. He is most intimately present to the human heart, but the heart has strayed from him. Return to your heart, then, you wrongdoers, and hold fast to him who made you. Stand with him and you will stand firm, rest in him and you will find peace.
Concerning the use of sacraments it is taught that the sacraments are instituted not only to be signs by which people may recognize Christians outwardly, but also as signs and testimonies of God’s will toward us in order thereby to awaken and strengthen our faith. [2] That is why they also require faith and are rightly used when received in faith for the strengthening of faith.
…so the Church, constituted by GOD the mother and teacher of all nations, knows its own office as debtor to all, and is ever ready and watchful to raise the fallen, to support those who are falling, to embrace those who return, to confirm the good and to carry them on to better things. Hence it can never forbear from witnessing to and proclaiming the truth of GOD, which heals all things, knowing the words addressed to it: “My Spirit that is in thee, and My words that I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, from henceforth and for ever.”*
Today is the last day of the Liturgical year. Not a big deal to some, but to me, it has some significant meaning.
It lies between the Sunday of the CHirst the King – the Sunday that celebrates His victory for us, which we know is coming, and the beginning of Advent, a season of repentant waiting for Jesus to become Immanuel, that is, God with us! (Note the exclamation point; it is there for a reason.)
Like the disciples after the transfiguration, I have questions about the cross. Not about the necessity, but the fact that Jesus volunteered for it with joy, to save you and me. We so desperately need not just a Savior, but a brother, who leads us back to the Father. It is truly a marvelous mystery to treasure, this grace that unites us to God.
We get to know this through the sacraments, those moments when God draws us near and unites us to Himself. As He originally cleanses us, cutting away our stone-hard hearts, and replacing them with His Heart, His Spirit (see Ezekiel 36:25) He then cleanses us of not only all sin, but all unrighteousness–all injustice. All the damage done to us by our sin, the sin of the world, both present and in the past. And of course, the incredible feast where Jesus feeds us with His body and blood. The Lutheran Augsburg Confession nails the purpose: not to define us to the world, but to strengthen our faith, to lay the foundation and build our lives on Jesus.
This is why Augustine talks of such an intimate relationship with God. It is of the most incredible value, so much so that He begs us to return to our heart, for that is Jesus, our Heart. He recognized, the hard way, that there is no option, no other name in which to find comfort, hope, and a relationship that heals.
This is what the world needs to know!
Vatican I sees this clearly! It is the purpose of the church, the purpose behind preaching, catechizing, teaching, and distributing the sacraments. Not just to indoctrinate people. Not to receive their tithes and offerings, and building artistic edifices. This is what ministry is! This is why we are here! This is the very thing at the heart of the Reformation (at least Luther/Melanchthon’s portion of it), and for some, the Counter-Reformation.
It is who we are, and I pray all the church, Lutheran, Catholic, Orthodox, and others, return to this ministry in the next year…AMEN!
Saint Augustine. (2012). The Confessions, Part I (J. E. Rotelle, Ed.; M. Boulding, Trans.; Second Edition, Vol. 1, p. 104). New City Press.
Kolb, R., Wengert, T. J., & Arand, C. P. (2000). The Book of Concord: the confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church (p. 46). Fortress Press.
McNabb, V., ed. (1907). The Decrees of the Vatican Council (pp. 17–18). Benziger Brothers.
