Third Sunday in Advent, 2009

Texts: 1 Cor. 4:1-5; St. Matt. 11:2-11

The Rev. Jerry Kistler

St. Stephen’s Reformed Episcopal Church

Montrose, Colorado

“Prepared by the Ministers and Stewards of Christ”

“Behold, I send My messenger before Your face, who will prepare Your way before You. The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.’”

We all have high aspirations for our children. Just the other night Danielle and I were musing over all the possibilities of what our children might want to be when they grow up. Some of the possibilities were more exciting than others. I think she was contemplating how nice it would be if Katherine or Elizabeth turned out to be a doctor or a lawyer she could support us in our old age. I was thinking how cool it would be if Andrew turned out to be a NASCAR driver, because then I might finally get my ride! We have high aspirations for our children, but we love them no matter what vocation they choose. We just pray they choose good ones.

But when Zacharias the priest entered in the Holy Place of the temple to perform, for the first and probably the last time in his life, the sacred service of offering incense upon the golden altar, the last thing he ever expected was to get a job-description for his yet unborn son. Out of the smoky darkness of the temple the angel Gabriel suddenly appeared in all his radiance and beauty at the right side of the altar, and announced to Zacharias that Elizabeth his wife would bear a son, and that they would call his name John. And he said,

“You will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth. For he will be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink. He will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb. And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God. He will also go before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, ‘to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children,’ and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”

What a lofty job-description! We have high aspirations for our children, but I doubt Zacharias’ aspirations were ever that high.

When John grew up his job would be to prepare a people for the coming of Christ – to make men and women ready to receive, and be received by, their Savior-King. That was the divinely inspired job-description the angel Gabriel came to deliver to Zacharias even before John was conceived.

But, as you may have already noticed, our collect for today takes Gabriel’s words about John and applies them to our Christians ministers and pastors. With typical mastery of the English language, Cranmer weaves together, from the two strands of our Epistle and Gospel lessons, the one theme of the duty of Christ’s called and ordained servants to prepare you His people for His coming again – to make you ready to receive Him and to be received by Him when He comes: that as, “at thy first coming thou didst send thy messenger to prepare thy way before thee.. [so] the ministers and stewards of thy mysteries may likewise so prepare and make ready thy way, by turning the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, that at thy second coming to judge the world we may be found an acceptable people in thy sight.”

What we’re supposed to see from our lessons this morning is the way in which John the Baptist fulfills his role in preparing a people for Christ’s first coming as a kind of foreshadowing of the way our Christian bishops and pastors are to prepare us for His second coming – how they are to prepare us ultimately for His second coming, but how they are also to prepare us for His sacramental coming each Sunday, and for His coming to each one of us at the end of our lives. John’s role foreshadows the role of our Christian pastors.

I think we’re all pretty familiar with John’s role as a prophet. He was “the voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Repent for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand.’” He dressed like a prophet. He wore the hairy camel skin and leather belt just like the prophet Elijah. He come in the spirit and the power of Elijah. Jesus said John was the greatest of all the prophets, and, “if you can hear it, he was the Elijah to come” – the messenger that would prepare the way for the coming of the Messiah. As a prophet, John was no mere prognosticator – somebody who simply could foretell the future. His primary duty was to forth-tell what the will of God was for the people – to preach God’s holy Law and to call people to repent for the continual missing of the mark, and in that way to prepare them to receive the coming of Christ as coming in mercy and forgiveness, not as a coming in judgment.

In that way we see how the ministry of John foreshadows the primary way the Christian pastor is to prepare you for Christ’s coming: by preaching the Law and the Gospel, by forth-telling God’s holy will and commandments, and by calling you to repent of your continual missing of the mark, and then by declaring to you that, if you return to the Lord in faith, Christ will come to you in grace and mercy, and will speak His comfortable words of absolution and forgiveness. You see, John’s role as a prophet foreshadows the prophetic, forth-telling role of our Christian ministers.

But John was more than a prophet; he was also a Levite, and a member of a priestly family. Not only was his father a priest, as we’ve already seen, but His mother, Elizabeth, was also one of the “daughters of Aaron” – in other words, a daughter of a priest. And so, in addition to functioning in the role of a prophet, John also functioned in the role of a priest. What do we know him best for? For baptizing people in the Jordan river. For baptizing repenting sinners for the washing-away of their sins. But baptism wasn’t a new thing. It wasn’t something John created. The priests administered baptisms for the cleansing of the ritually unclean so they could have sanctuary access – so they could enter the temple and offer their sacrifices. And John baptized for the same reason. But he baptized for the cleansing of the heart so that the people would be prepared to enter the true sanctuary, the true temple – the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, the One in whom all the fullness of deity dwelt in bodily form. Jesus said, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up again.” But he was speaking about the temple of His body. That’s the temple John was baptizing people to be able to enter.

And so again we see how the ministry of John foreshadows the ministry of our Christian pastors. Because what is another of the primary duties of the pastor? – to baptize sinners into Jesus Christ, to bury them through baptism into the death of Christ for the washing away of their sins, and to raise them up through baptism into then new resurrected life of Christ – the new life of sanctuary access: access to God’s heavenly throne of grace in the temple of Christ’s body. So like John, pastors prepare sinful men and women for Christ’s coming by baptizing them.

But another way John performed a priestly function was by pointing people to the sacrifice of Christ. You see, once a man was given access into the temple, he would bring his animal sacrifice before the priest – usually a lamb or a goat. And then he would lay his hands upon the head of the animal and confess his sins over it, symbolically transferring his guilt to the victim. And then the man himself, not the priest, would cut the throat of the animal, and the priest would take it and offer it upon the altar. But none of these animal sacrifices could truly atone for sin. For, as it says in Hebrews, “it is impossible for the blood bulls and goats to take away sins.” When a priest offered a person’s sacrifice on the altar, all he could really do was to point to the one perfect sacrifice for sins that was to come. So when that perfect sacrifice for sin had finally come, John pointed sinners to Him and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takest away the sins of the world.” “Here He is. Here the One all those sacrifices pointed forward to. Receive Him in faith, and let Him take your guilt upon Him as He is offered on the altar of the cross for your forgiveness.”

Well, that’s the priestly job of the pastor, as well, isn’t it? – to continually point you to the sacrifice of Christ, and to say to you, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away your sins. Behold Him by faith. Behold Him in the preaching of His Word – the preaching of Christ crucified. Behold Him wash your filthy garments and make them white in the blood of the Lamb in your baptism. Behold Him on the cross taking away yours sins in the word of absolution. Behold Him continually propitiating the Father by His once offered sacrifice, as we offer the memorial of that sacrifice here upon our altar. Behold the Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world.”

John’s job was to prepare a people for the coming of Christ though his prophetic and priestly ministry, and that’s the job of our Christian pastors as well: to prepare you, Christ’s people, for His coming here today, and for His coming to receive you into His presence at the end of your lives, and ultimately for His coming at the end of time to judge the quick and the dead.

But have you ever wondered why God chose fallible, sinful men do to such an important job? I mean, look at John, himself. He stood before the people and the leaders of Israel and boldly proclaimed Jesus as the Christ. But then, when things suddenly weren’t going so well, when he’d been sitting in prison for a couple of months and was assailed by doubts, he sent some of his followers to Jesus to ask Him: “Are you really the coming One, or should we look for another?” John was a weak, fallible man. And yet God had chosen him to prepare a remnant to receive the Messiah.

Your pastors are no different. We’re often assailed by doubts. We often don’t know the right thing to do or say. And yet God has entrusted us with the solemn duty of keeping you for the coming of the Great Day.

We heard St. Paul say: “Let a man so regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.” “Servants of Christ.” The Greek word is huperetes. It literally means an “under-rower.” It refers to someone who rowed on a slave-ship at the very bottom tier – the slaves down in the lowest portion of the ship. That’s how we pastors are to be regarded, says Paul – as “under-rowers,” as galley slaves. But you know, the implicit ideas is: without us galley slaves down below doing the rowing, none of you way up on the top deck would be able to make any forward progress. And therefore, you’re not to have too high or too low an estimate of your pastors.

Pastors have also been ordained as “stewards of the mysteries of God.” The “mysteries of God” refer to the means of grace – the Word and the Sacraments, the means by which we pastors, as the called servants of Christ, are to feed and nourish you with spiritual food – the spiritual food of Christ Himself.

Paul says faithfulness is required of God’s stewards. In one of His parables Jesus said,

“Who then is a faithful and wise servant [or steward], whom his master made ruler [or rector] over his household to give them food in due season? Blessed is that servant whom his master, when he comes, will find so doing. Assuredly, I say to you that he will make him ruler of over all his goods. But if that evil servant says in his heart, ‘My master is delaying his coming,’ and begins to beat his fellow servants, and to drink with the drunkards, the master of that servant will come on a day when he is not looking for him and at an hour that he is not aware of, and will cut him in two and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Mt. 24:45-51).

And you don’t think being a pastor is a heavy burden? When hands are laid on our heads in ordinations they are heavy hands, because the burden of responsibility is so great. And we’re given a solemn charge to conduct our ministry with faithfulness to Christ’s calling upon us to feed you His sheep – faithfulness, not infallibility.

So what is your responsibility towards your pastors in light of the job God has called them to do? Number one, attend to their ministry. If God has ordained them to be stewards over His house to give you your food in due season, then it’s God will for you to attend to the things they try to do for you to feed you. It’s God will for you that you attend to their teaching and preaching, to their administration of the sacraments, to their godly counsel and admonition, because these are the means He has ordained for your spiritual growth and care. Don’t try to by-pass them.

Second, of course pray for your pastors. In many of his epistles Paul asks – almost begs – the churches to pray for him, that he may continue with boldness to minister the mysteries of Christ. We pastors covet your prayers. As a matter of fact, we can’t do our ministry without your faithful prayers. Ministry is a two-way street. We minister grace to each other, and together we’re built up unto one mature man, unto the fullness of the stature of Christ, says the apostle. Pray for your bishops and priests and deacons.

And third, expect faithfulness of your pastors, not infallibility. It is precisely because they bear such a heavy responsibility towards us that we owe our pastors forbearance for their foibles and missteps and fears and doubts, and a host of other weaknesses. Put yourself in their shoes. How would you deal with Christ’s threat of being cut in two and given your portion with the hypocrites if you were unfaithful in your stewardship? I guarantee those words make every conscientious pastor shake in his boots. So we need your forbearance. Expect faithfulness, not infallibility.

God ordained John the Baptist to prepare and make ready a people for the coming of Christ. May we recognize and properly regard our Christians pastors as having been ordained of God to do the same for us. +