December 7, 2022 Pastor Timothy J. Spaude Text: 1 Chronicles 22: 5, 14-16; 2 Chronicles 6:13-14 “ANTICIPATING CHRIST’S ADVENT IN WORD AND SACRAMENT

 

MIDWEEK ADVENT 2

December 7, 2022

Pastor Timothy J. Spaude

Text: 1 Chronicles 22: 5, 14-16; 2 Chronicles 6:13-14

 

“ANTICIPATING CHRIST’S ADVENT IN WORD AND SACRAMENT

 

          Anticipation. It’s a looking forward to something. Something good. Sometimes it includes preparations. Thanksgiving dinner. You look forward to it. That morning cup of coffee that gets you going. You look forward to it as you roll out of bed. Speaking of bed…an afternoon nap on a cold dark day. Bedtime itself. These are things you anticipate, look forward to when your body and brain are tired.

          This year for our midweek Advent services we are anticipating Christ’s various advents or arrivals in our lives. Last week we were reminded to anticipate celebrating the birth of the right King, Jesus. Christmas is His birthday. He deserves our best attention. Today we anticipate the way Jesus comes to us more frequently in His word and sacrament. To help us do that we look at some Old Testament anticipation. It has always been important for God’s people to have a place to gather where God would come to them in a special way. King David recognized that and wanted to build a temple for God. God told him No. But David anticipated how God would come to His people. He was excited for it. This is what he said,

 

1 Chronicles 22:5 (EHV) “David said, “My son Solomon is young and inexperienced. The house to be built for the Lord will make his name very great and give him glory in all the lands. Therefore, I will make preparations for it.” So David completed many of the preparations before his death.”

 

Then David handed things over to his son Solomon. When he did he told him,

 

1 Chronicles 22:14-16 (EHV) “Look! With great effort I have provided one hundred thousand talents of gold for the House of the Lord, a million talents of silver, and too much bronze and iron to be weighed. I have provided lumber and stones. You may add to what I have provided. ¹⁵ There are plenty of laborers available to you, namely, stonecutters, masons, and wood workers, and those capable in all kinds of crafts, ¹⁶ also workers with gold, silver, bronze, and iron, too many to count. Get up and do it. The Lord will be with you.”

 

And oh what a mass of gold, silver, bronze, iron, lumber and stones that was. The nearest estimate I found to build this temple in today’s dollars was 220 billion. 220 billion dollars. One building. It took seven years to build the Temple. And it wasn’t really all that big. Here is a picture of what it might have looked like. Then came the day of dedication. This is what happened.

 

2 Chronicles 5:13-14 (EHV) “The trumpeters and the singers joined together as one to praise and give thanks to the Lord. As they raised their voices to praise the Lord, accompanied by trumpets, cymbals, and other musical instruments, they sang: Truly, he is good, because his mercy endures forever. Then the sanctuary of the House of the Lord was filled with a cloud. ¹⁴ The priests were not able to take their positions to minister because of the presence of the cloud, because the Glory of the Lord had filled the House of God.”

 

Can you just imagine what it was like being there? If you lived in Jerusalem you have been watching the Temple construction for the past 7 years until finally it was done. But never before have you seen it put to use for its purpose. A place where God advents. He comes to be with His people. The Glory of the Lord, the way God chose to appear to His Old Testament, people filled the Temple. This Glory of the Lord has been described as a bright shining cloud or a cloud on fire. You can’t miss it. It is dazzling. Wow! I can imagine the people coming faithfully Sabbath after Sabbath. They knew that when they went to Temple to worship God came to be with them.

          Sadly the history of God’s Old Testament people reveals that they gradually despised the way God chose to come to them. He did not appear in the cloud all the time. He wanted His people to live by faith and not by sight. Even if He had continued to come in that visible way it’s likely the same thing would have happened. God’s people take Him for granted. Over time the way God’s people despised the way He came to them led to neglect of worship, then to worshipping false gods instead of the only true one. This led to God turning over Old Testament Israel to her enemies and this temple was destroyed by around 580 BC by the Babylonians. A much lesser replacement Temple was rebuilt around 510 BC and it stood in Jerusalem until about 70 AD. But this time there was a new reason for the Temple to be gone. Jesus. Jesus had come. Now God would come to His people in Jesus. It’s all about Jesus.

          And today Jesus advents or comes to His people in word and Sacrament. When Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper He told His disciples, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you.” And then He gave the meal that was to be repeated where He would come to believers, “This is my body. This is my blood.” Jesus gave this promise about our worship. “Where two or three come together in my name there am I in the midst of them.” He advents. He comes to be with us.

          Do we anticipate that and by that I mean do we look forward to being in worship and partaking of the Lord’s Supper? When you are blessed with Christ in your life for a long time sinful attitudes can crop up just like they did with God’s Old Testament people. What is special, God coming to be with his people, becomes routine, maybe even looked at as an obligation as though God needs us. Check your attitude. Is public worship a have to for you, something else to check off on the “To do list?” Danger! Are the first and third weekends of each month starred, circled, highlighted on your calendar or planner? Jesus will come to us! Or do we drag our obligated bodies through the church doors, see the altar prepared for Communion and groan, “Ugh, going to be a longer service.” Is it possible that today God’s people are anticipating the sacramental food of a secular Christmas, eggnog and cookies, more than the bread and wine which bring to us the presence of Christ Himself? Is it possible that the parents God has entrusted with His little lambs are more eager to bring their children to sit on Santa’s lap than to bring them to sit at the feet of Jesus who said, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them for the kingdom of God belongs to these?”

          And yet still Jesus comes to us. He has not removed Himself from our country or our daily lives. Instead He has made His word, the one thing needful, available in many ways. You know that morning coffee you anticipate to wake up your body and your brain? Why not drink it while you spend some time with a devotion or reading God’s word. Jesus will come to you and as coffee perks up your physical body Jesus will give energy to your spiritual one. Or that sleep and rest that you anticipate for your body? You need it to function the next day. So also the rest for your soul that your faith needs to function happens when Christ comes to you in the word and Sacrament of worship. Never has it been that God came to His people because He needed to. Always when Christ comes it’s because we need Him to.

          And we need Him to regularly. Even on our best behavior our valuing of God falls short of His glory. Even when we fight sin the hardest our righteousness is as filthy rags. Only Christ cleans us up. Only Jesus makes us right in God’s eyes. So He comes in word and Sacrament. He comes as 2 or 3 of us gather together. He comes, bringing forgiveness and faith. That’s something to look forward to. Amen.