[AI translation] My Christian Brothers and Sisters! Advent, the happy, mysterious time of waiting for the coming of Jesus, has quietly, imperceptibly come to us. The happiest time in the life of a small child is that half hour or an hour when he is trembling with excitement, waiting for the arrival of the Christmas angel, his soul filled with a mysterious expectation, an exciting hope of what he will find under the Christmas tree. He may not even know exactly what he is waiting for, but he feels that something great, great joy is coming to him, great, great happiness is waiting for him. When the door finally opens, it is almost impossible to know which is shining more, the earthen Christmas tree or the laughing child's eyes.Happy is the adult who can live the mysterious time of Advent with such a childlike spirit, with such enthusiastic, happy excitement. A bride who lived far from her fiancé once told me that she looked forward to his visit weeks in advance. One must prepare for the real joy in advance. What greater joy can there be in the life of a man, a society, a humanity, a world, than the coming of Jesus Christ? The joy of Christmas depends to a great extent on the anticipation and preparation for Advent. The reason why so many Christmases disappear from our souls without a trace is mainly because we have not prepared enough.
This recurring Advent has a recurring figure who appears in the Christian pulpits and teaches people again and again how to wait for the coming Saviour, how to prepare the way for him, and what to do to enter the kingdom of God to come. John the Baptist, the great Advent prophet, is the bridge between the Old and New Testaments. Now too, his giant figure looms large in the story we read, and we see in it the meaning of Advent expectation. Before we waste time on how to prepare the way for the coming Messiah, what to do and how to wait for Him, we must ask the big question: is there any point in waiting for Him, is it worth making spiritual preparations for Christmas? These questions are answered in the story we read, if we look at it from two perspectives, namely John the Baptist's question and Jesus' answer.
1) John the Baptist's question to Jesus was, "Are you the one who is to come, or shall we wait for another?" From this question comes a voice of doubt, even disappointment. How could it be that even John the Baptist's soul was gripped by doubt? After all, prophets are God's special men, with whom God has had a personal conversation, and John the Baptist was the foremost and most perfect of all the prophets. Jesus himself once testified to his spiritual greatness when he said that of all those born of women, none was a greater prophet than John the Baptist. This testimony places him high above even the greatest scholars and the most serious heroes of the faith. Even this great man had a weak moment in his life when he looked upon the figure of Jesus with disappointment and doubt.
We know that John was imprisoned by the immoral King Herod for daring to speak out against the sins of the royal court. But the news of Jesus' emergence and the beginning of his redemptive work also reached him through the thick walls of his prison. John is happy to listen to everything he is told about Jesus, he doesn't care if he is languishing in prison, all that matters is that Jesus grows.
John has two expectations of the Messiah in his soul: on the one hand he expects a merciful Messiah, on the other a punishing Messiah. He preached of Christ as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world on the one hand, and as the eternal Judge of the world who has a handkerchief in his hand, who cleanses the serpent's mouth, and who will bring eternal judgment on the ungodly. John's semi-Old Testament soul did not know that the coming Messiah would not bring both mercy and judgment, did not know that the Saviour would come to this earth twice, once to seek sinners and die for them, and secondly to judge sinners who did not believe in his first coming. John did not know that thousands of years, an entire age, would pass between the two comings of the Saviour. So what he heard about Jesus did not satisfy his soul - slowly, slowly, he became more and more doubtful, because he was disappointed: this was not the Messiah he expected, who would always proclaim mercy but never exercise his judicial power.
In this Christ, of whom he is told in the prison, there is nothing of the power of the all-destroying tempest, of the earthquake that shatters the rocks, of the fiery lightning that strikes down in destruction, but this Christ is meek and humble - and it is this that strikes the Baptist as a stone of stumbling. This Jesus is not what he imagines, what he expects and desires, for behold, he hides his power and mission to judge the world. He cannot stand it any longer, he sends his disciples to him to ask him, "Are you the one to come, or shall we expect another?"
John the Baptist is at his most human in this scene. If at other times we feel his powerful figure high above us, here we see him as we are: a disappointed, doubting, grey man. Let me say now, brothers and sisters, that this doubting is part of the joyful time of waiting and preparation for Advent. In the days of Advent, we especially need to give ourselves an account of what Jesus Christ means to the world. This world often doubts and is disappointed in Christ and sees Christ as a stone of stumbling.
For twenty centuries, the Word of Christ, the gospel of Christ, has been heard on this earth. Many thousands of times have his servants proclaimed that Christ is King, who reigns over all creation. The trouble is that sadly little of this kingdom of Christ has been realized on earth. In contrast, the reign of sin is inexpressibly great. Satan shapes people's worldviews, dictates the morality of society, and dominates political, scientific and artistic life. What does Jesus oppose to Satan's rule over the world? Weak congregations that make little difference in the world's great turmoil. But even these weak little congregations, even their members, often serve Satan as much as they serve Christ. There may be mission among the Gentiles, but what Jesus gains among the Gentiles, He loses at least as much among Christians, who are falling further and further back into the arms of modern paganism.
When we see that there are blatant wealth disparities between people, that there is rampant immorality in our society, that some powerful people are preventing not only individuals but whole regions and peoples from asserting their just rights, when we see men deliberately conspiring to destroy the faith in God, when we see human madness seeking to erect a statue on the banks of the Volga of Judas as the greatest benefactor of mankind, - it is no wonder that one stands before Christ and asks: how can the Jesus who, at the slightest movement of His hand, could put all things right and transform everything on earth, put up with all this? If we look around us, we see very little of His all-conquering power and all-judging glory.
If Jesus once made His voice heard like thunder, if He once sent forth a devouring fire, if He once blinded the unbelievers and scoffers with the beam of His glory - then we would rest easy, then we would look to no one and nothing but Him for the solution to our troubles. But so doubt often arises in our own circles, and we too, with John, ask in disappointment, "Are you the one to come, or shall we wait for another?"
2) When Jesus hears this question from John the Baptist, He does not enter into a long debate, does not try to prove Himself right, that He is the Saviour of whom the prophets prophesied, does not take out the Scriptures and lecture the disciples, does not preach to them. He simply refers to his deeds: tell John what you have seen and heard, Jesus said, that "the blind receive sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have the gospel preached to them." He adds this exhortation, "and blessed is he that shall not be offended in me." Well, my brothers and sisters, Christ is not a helpless spectator of world events, even if he does not yet appear in all the splendour of his glory. To abolish all might and power, to subdue all His enemies, to judge the living and the dead, He will come to this earth later, at His second coming. So that will not be delayed either, but the time is not yet. For the time being He is quietly gathering His own.
His work, since two thousand years, has consisted to this day in the blind taking the world of their eyes and seeing into their own souls, seeing all the filthiness of their lives, seeing their Saviour who died for them on the cross, and even going beyond the bounds of this earth, for they see into the glory of heaven. They see the life that begins beyond the grave.
The work of Jesus today is that the lame walk, no longer powerless to do good, to love God and man, but through Jesus they are able to walk freely and consciously for a lifetime in the law of God.
The wonderful work of Jesus today is that the lepers are cleansed, those suffering from the deadly disease of sin are healed, people are cleansed from their tormenting passions, unclean lives are cleansed, human lives, unbearable natures are changed.
The work of Jesus is that the deaf hear, that some wonderful inner ear mechanism opens up in man, and at the same time man hears the word of God and hears the pleading voice of men. He now hears voices that he had passed unnoticed before, that had never reached his ears before.
The work of Jesus today is to raise the dead, to raise the morally dead to new life, to raise the dead members of the churches to a new life of work and service.
The work of Jesus today is to preach the gospel to the poor, "Come unto me, all of you, and I will give you rest". Mt11,28 The poor mourners, the desperate, the oppressed, the suffering, find comfort and peace in Him alone.
The Gospel story does not tell us whether John was satisfied with Jesus' answer. But I think it very likely that when the messengers returned to the prison and told the Baptist that they had seen blind men whose eyes had been opened, lame men who had become walkers, dead men who had been raised, John's soul was at rest in the happy assurance that the Saviour who was to come had finally arrived, and that there was nothing more to look forward to.
My brethren, I am convinced that all scorn, doubt, and disappointment in Christ would cease if there were lives among us that bore witness to the power of Christ. Our Christianity today is like that street vendor who once shouted with a full throat in the street that he had invented a great cough suppressant, but could hardly utter his sentence because of his choking coughing fits. Of course, people didn't believe him and didn't buy the 'miracle cure', but looked for another remedy.
The vast majority of people don't need Christ as the solution to their lives because those who preach it, that is us Christians, are not living Christ. If we could say, "Look, this man was blind and now he sees, this man was dead and now he lives, this man was a helpless cripple and now he walks, look, there was nothing here before and now the kingdom of God has come," then it is quite certain that people would expect nothing else but Jesus alone. For everywhere there are blind, lame, deaf, and dead. Oh, how good it would be if they could become sighted, walking, clean and alive! Oh, that Jesus had such power today, but that so many would flock to him, but that they would be gladly preparing for his coming!" many think.
Well, my brothers and sisters, let me bear witness to what I, too, by the grace of God, have seen and heard: I have seen helpless sinners working for the kingdom of God, I have seen men cleansed from the spiritual constipation of the passions, I have seen and heard a wealthy banker read the Bible and pray in his open iron closets, I have seen a communist agitator rise from spiritual death to new life, and I have heard him preach with unspeakable power about the regenerating power of Jesus Christ. Since I have seen these testimonies, I have known that Jesus is the Christ, our Saviour, the Son of the living God, who is as powerful in the world today as he was two millennia ago. It is He, therefore, who is to come, for whom we wait, and no one else.
Wherever He walks, a life is quietly but visibly changed, a life begins to resemble Him. The greatest joy and happiness is to experience this in our own lives. Only in this way can the doubts of Advent become the happy certainty of Christmas. It is not in the life of the world that I must see the work of Christ, but in my own life. If Christ could become real in other people's lives, why not in mine? I too need him, I too hope, I too pray: come, Lord Jesus Christ!
Amen.
Date: 27 November 1938 (Advent)
Lesson
Lk 7,18-23