Beginning with End

As I mentioned before the service, today in the first day of the Christian Year; our New Year’s Day. As Christians we begin our journey through the Year in much the same way that we begin our week. We begin each week with the Lord’s Day, or Day of the Lord, in recognition of the coming of Christ to visit us with His salvation in Word and Sacrament. Likewise we begin each year with Advent season in recognition of the coming of Christ to visit us with His salvation as the Word made flesh for the life of the world. And just as His visitation on the Lord’s Day meant judgment for some in the Corinthian church who failed receive Word and Sacrament rightly, even so His first Advent meant judgment for some among His people who failed to receive the Word made flesh rightly. We’ll consider that latter judgment this morning in our Gospel lesson. But why do we begin the year in this way? We begin the year in this way because for us time is eschatological; which is simply to say time and history are moving towards an appointed end with the coming of Christ to judge the quick and the dead and usher in the new heavens and the new earth. And this appointed end is to inform your celebration of the coming of Christ in the flesh. That is why we have the four weeks of Advent season leading up to the twelve days of Christmas. Our culture, of course, gets this all backwards and has Christmas at the front end for two months and then it’s all over in an hour or two on Christmas morning. But there is wisdom in the church’s ordering of time. We need time to reflect upon the significance of the coming of Christ in the flesh and this must always be viewed in the context of His coming again at the Last Day. The baby pictured in our Christmas cards is the same one who used the Roman armies to destroy Jerusalem in AD 70 and who will one day return to judge the world in righteousness. Advent season keeps us from domesticating Jesus, turning Him into a harmless baby, or a Jeanie in a bottle. The baby in the manger is the Lord of heaven and earth. And even this Day He summons you to worship Him in the beauty of holiness!