Blessed Are We
Matthew 11:2-10
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Dear fellow redeemed in Christ our Lord… Every year we are reminded more and more how offensive the Name of the Lord is. The month of December has now become a month where people buy presents, attend parties, and celebrate a general holiday season rather than the holy days of Christmas. Traditionally, Christmas has never begun before sundown on December 24, and then it goes for twelve days until Epiphany. Where else but here will you hear that?
This general holiday season has become nothing more than a season of sentimentality. We remember the days long ago, days when families actually celebrated the holy day of Christmas. We got cool presents: an electric train set or slot cars, a Spirograph, some ribbon candy, and fruit and nuts in our stockings. We visited family we loved or, in some cases, barely tolerated. We hung tinsel on the tree one strand at a time. More than likely, we carved out a couple of hours to go to church to celebrate the birth of Jesus according to the flesh.
As we grow older, the holy day of Christmas begins to turn into this general holiday season. Christmas is more about children, decorations, presents, and gaining ten pounds rather than being about Jesus. Any mention of the Savior’s birth or attending Divine Service to celebrate Christ’s birth, let alone extolling the joy of celebrating Advent, makes people wonder about our sanity. Perhaps they think it’s nice that someone still cares about those old traditions we once celebrated. But Jesus is too divisive in these enlightened days. So, we wrap up the holy day of Christmas in the swaddling cloths of sentimentality and the soothing sound of sleigh bells ringing while we listen, and while the snow is glistening.
But if you stop to think about it, the same general thing was happening in the Holy Land nearly two thousand years ago. Jesus and His apostles went from place-to-place preaching and performing miracles the likes of which we don’t see in the church today. We see in the Gospels that the Pharisees, the scribes, the high priests, the Levites, and all who held themselves in high esteem considered Christ a betrayer and His teachings heretical.
It came to the point that John the Baptist and his disciples wondered whether Jesus was the Coming One. Perhaps John knew something his disciples didn’t know. Perhaps John had a crisis of faith. Jesus gets to the heart of the matter when He tells John’s disciples: blessed is he who is not offended because of Me.
It is clear that Jesus’ preaching was offensive. Our Lord and His disciples were accused of violating Sabbath laws. They were accused of befriending tax collectors and sinners. Jesus’ accusers were always looking for the right moment to catch Him in His speech or catch Him in the act of doing something that could be deemed offensive to the Jewish way of life. And for all those actions, we don’t like those who accuse Jesus of anything.
But here’s the rub: are you offended when you see the day of the Lord’s nativity turned into a way to end a calendar year on a happy note? Do you laugh when you hear a congregation’s Nativity set is missing its Baby Jesus figure? Do you put more attention on how many houses you have to visit on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day rather than visiting God’s House for Divine Service either or both days? Do you spend so much time making this Christmas better than Martha Stewart’s Christmas that you forget to prepare the royal highway through repentance toward the forgiveness of sins so the King of Kings can make His home among you? Repent.
“What did you go out into the wilderness to see?” Jesus asks the right question. If we prepare to celebrate Christmas in the true spirit of Advent, it seems we are in a lonely wilderness compared to the rest of the world. No one wants to hear about penitence and preparation when everyone else is in full-on Christmas mode. We enjoy being shaken by the wind of culture. We enjoy wearing the soft garments of self-righteousness. There is no time to pay attention to some whacky crackpot of a prophet preparing the way of the Lord.
There is no time like the present to prepare the way of the Lord. What is offensive to the world is Good News of great joy to you, dear Christian. Everyone expects the hero of a story to broadcast every important moment to the world, letting the world know that this is someone to whom we need to pay attention. Jesus fits the bill of a hero…and then some.
A prophet whose father is struck mute by an angel was born at his mother’s advanced age. This same prophet grew up to wear wild looking clothes and preached an unpopular message in the middle of nowhere. Before this prophet was born, another angel visited a woman named Mary to announce she would give birth miraculously to the Savior. When Mary went to visit her relative Elisabeth, the prophet John leaped for joy in his mother’s womb. The Savior of the Nations had come, just as the prophets of old had promised!
When the Child Jesus was born, angels announced His birth to shepherds. A star shined over the place where He was born. Our Lord’s birth according to the flesh was surrounded by all kinds of strange and miraculous events. Everyone should have looked at these events and known something was up.
But this Hero did not come with a sword in His hand. His plan and purpose was not to make war against the princes of man. This Hero, Jesus, came to die on a cross. He came to bear the sins of the world upon His beaten and bloodied Body. Where the Jews could not see the promised Savior, the Roman centurion could, when he declared, “Truly this Man was the Son of God” (Mt 27:54).
This Jesus Who was born to die for the sins of all mankind is offensive. Whoever thought of God becoming man only to die a criminal’s death then come back to life only to ascend into heaven so His Spirit could descend upon twelve men sent to preach, teach, and baptize? Not only is this offensive, but it is also nonsensical.
Yet our Lord’s Words to His disciples, and to you and me, still stand: “Blessed is he who is not offended because of Me.” Blessed are we, for Jesus restores our sight after sin blinds us. Blessed are we, for Jesus heals our diseased bodies through His Word of forgiveness. Blessed are we, for Jesus cures the leprosy of our sin with water and the Word of God in Holy Baptism. We are no longer cast out into darkness but called into His marvelous light.
Blessed are we, for our ears are opened through the preaching of Law and Gospel to hear the Savior’s mighty deeds on our behalf. Blessed are we, for our dead bodies are not really dead but sleeping. Jesus will call us from the grave on Judgment Day. He will change our sinful, earthly bodies into sinless, heavenly bodies, and He will take us with Him to Paradise. Blessed are we, even if we are poor in earthly things. We have a treasure that has no price because we have His Body and Blood under bread and wine in the Lord’s Supper.
Advent is offensive. Christmas is offensive. Jesus is offensive. As this world draws closer to its end, we Christians will have to get used to the fact that Christ will continue to disappear from the month of December. But Jesus will never disappear from His Church. Were there but two or three gathered to hear His Good News, Jesus will be there, offending the world while comforting the faithful who are not offended by the Savior Who comes to rule heaven and earth with peace, joy, love, and forgiveness. In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.