All Flesh Shall See the Salvation of God
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| "John the Baptist Preaching" by Paolo Veronese |
And [John] went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make His paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall become straight, and the rough places shall become level ways, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God’” (Luke 3:3-7).
Grace to you and peace
from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ!
“All flesh shall see
the salvation of God.” It is the last line in a string of Isaiah’s greatest
hits in our reading from Luke 3. “After drawing from Isaiah 40, 57, 49, 42, and
45, Luke concludes by recalling a promise of God from Isaiah 52.”[i] “All flesh shall see the
salvation of God.” The day will come when, as St. Paul writes to the
Philippians, “At the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on
earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:10-11).
It is true. “All
flesh shall see the salvation of God”—despite what we see here and now.
What we see now is
more like Luke’s list at the beginning of our reading. Tiberius Caesar, Pontius
Pilate, Herod the Tetrarch, and his brother Philip, Lysanias, Annas, and
Caiaphas, these were the power brokers, the political leaders, the movers and
shakers. “They were in charge in John’s day. It did not look like God was
running things.”[ii]
It didn’t look like the Kingdom of God was dawning. Indeed, the imprisonment of
John the Baptist mentioned in verse 20 raised significant questions about who
was really in charge.
Most of these names
mean little to us today. Today we have our own power brokers. There are
political leaders such as Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, Donald Trump, and Mitch
McConnell, who wield power affecting all parts of our life. There are the titans
of technology and commerce like Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Jack
Dorsey, and Jeff Bezos who exert influence through their financial resources
and social media influence. The political pundits like Sean Hannity, Ben
Shapiro, Tucker Carlson, Rachel Maddow, Don Lemon, and Joy Reid seek to shape opinions and dominate the news cycle. You
can see who is in charge, and what you see often has little to do with the
salvation of God. In fact, it’s frequently in direction opposition to the
Gospel of Jesus Christ.
The world’s power
brokers promise safety and security, prosperity and peace. Instead, they
deliver political spin and sound bites, censorship, mandates, fear, abuse of
power, cancel culture. The world’s power brokers will never be able to deliver
the utopia they are promising because they fail to realize we are all fallen
people who live in a fallen world. The world’s power brokers have little time
for your expressions of your faith and opinions because they don’t fit their
narrative.
So, you need to look
beyond what you see and experience here and now. Direct your gaze to the day
when God’s reign will usher in a life of perfect peace and harmony and joy.
“All flesh shall see the salvation of God”—and we have already gotten a
glimpse.
The glimpse is Jesus, of course. He is our strength and our salvation. He
is born in a manger and visited by shepherds and magi. He preaches the truth
and heals the sick. He comes to the world and turns it upside down by calling
everyone to repent and by offering forgiveness to all who believe.[iii] Isaiah foretold His
coming, as did John the Baptist. They were all looking forward to the day when
“all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”
We, in contrast, look back. We look back to Jesus. We look back to His Incarnation.
It is Advent, after all. But we also look back to His life and ministry. We
look back to His suffering and rejection. We look back to His shame and His
death. But we do not stop there. We look back, above all, to His resurrection
from the dead, and we see His vindication and restoration. When we look back at
His resurrection, He directs our eyes toward the future and His promised
return. Like Isaiah and John, we look forward to that great and glorious day,
trusting the resurrected One will return as He promised. This promise sustains
our faith and shapes our lives as we have seen a glimpse of the salvation of
God by faith.
“All flesh shall see the salvation of God”—and it is beginning to show in
our lives.
The crowds of verse 10 of our Gospel ask John what they should be doing considering
the coming of Christ. How should they prepare? All of Israel should be asking
this urgent question in view of John’s ministry, especially the Pharisees and
the religious establishment of Jerusalem. But the crowds, tax collectors, and
soldiers are the only ones to come asking, “What then shall we do?” (Luke 3:10)
showing that they are willing to demonstrate repentance by doing what John asks
of them. The first sign of repentance is submission to John’s preaching, turning
in repentance, and submitting to baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
John is concrete and
direct. He gives directions appropriate for their context and vocations
outlining how repentance will express itself in daily life. Each instruction has
to do with attachment to things of this world. For the crowds, there is a
general exhortation to perform deeds of mercy by stripping down the excess of
one’s clothing and food and sharing it with others. For the tax collector this
means not taking more than their allotted share. For the soldiers it means not
using the power of their office for extortion or violence. Such deeds in daily
life are “fruits in keeping with repentance.”
The temptation for
those who live by the promises of God’s coming salvation is to look past the
mundane and the ordinary in anticipation for the joy to come.[iv] But those who believe in
Jesus, who look forward to seeing the salvation of God on that last day, busy
themselves by serving others in common and daily ways. They fulfill their
vocations with faithfulness and (when possible) joy, knowing their labor in the
Lord is not in vain.
What would fruits in keeping with repentance
look like in your life? It means different things for different people, depending
on who you are and where you are in life. Only you can determine the specifics
for your situation and vocations.
But
there is some helpful general advice for all of us to be found in the Ten
Commandments, as you seek to love the Lord your God with all your heart and all
your strength and all your mind and to love your neighbor as yourself. This
especially true of the positive encouragements of the explanation to each
commandment in Luther’s Small Catechism.
How
will we bear fruits in keeping with repentance? We will fear, love, and trust
in God above all things. We will call upon God’s name in every trouble, pray,
praise, and give thanks. We will hold God’s Word and the preaching of it sacred
and gladly hear and learn it. We will honor our parents and other authorities,
serve and obey them, love and cherish them. We will help and support our
neighbor in every physical need. We will lead sexually pure and decent lives in
what we say and do. We will help our neighbor to improve and protect his
possessions and income. We will defend our neighbor’s reputation, speak well of
him, and explain all his words and actions in the kindest way. We will be
content with the people, goods, and gifts God gives us.
I can’t
tell you what it specifically means for you to do. But I can tell you how this
is done: by the grace of God, that’s how. For you cannot do any of these things
on your own. So, the Holy Spirit calls you by the Gospel, enlightens you with His
gifts, sanctifies and keeps you in the true faith. The Holy Spirit who brought
you to faith in Jesus Christ, sanctifies you by strengthening your faith and
increasing its fruit within your life. He gives you new holy desires so you can
strive to overcome sin and do good works.
Living
in your Baptism through daily contrition and repentance, you put to death that old
Adam with all sins and evil desires, so that a new man should daily emerge and
arise to live before God in righteousness and purity forever. In the waters of
Baptism, you have been buried and raised with Christ. Therefore, you should
continually resist every impulse of the old Adam until he is drowned once and
for all when you die. At the same time, you should continually give free rein
to the new man until he rises in final victory on the Last Day.
In
individual Confession, the Lord gives you have a safe place to name your sins
so that they are no longer carried alone. The Absolution is spoken specifically
to you and your sins are removed as far away as the east is from the west.
There can be no mistaking to whom these words of Jesus are addressed: “I
forgive you all your sins.”
Based
on the word of forgiveness, the pastor may give you counsel and help in the struggle
against temptation and enslavement to sin. Thus, private Confession and
Absolution equips you to stand firm against “false belief, despair, and other
great shame and vice” (Sixth Petition). This is a natural part of “producing
fruits in keeping with repentance. Luther writes in the Brief Exhortation to
Confession, “When I urge you to go to Confession, I am doing nothing else
than urging you to be a Christian” (BEC 32).
In
the Sacrament of the Altar, you receive the very body and blood of Jesus Christ
in, with, and under the bread and the wine, given and shed for you for the
forgiveness of your sins and the strengthening of your faith. As Christ gives
Himself to you so completely with His body and blood, so, too, the Sacrament
strengthens you to give yourself in sacrificial love and service to your
neighbor.
Paul’s prayer in our epistle reading is appropriate
for you, too: “And
it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all
discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and
blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that
comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God” (Philippians
1:9-11).
Go
in the peace of the Lord and serve your neighbor with joy. You are forgiven for
all your sins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from the Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
[i] Gospel: Luke 3:1-20 (Advent 2: Series C) | 1517, https://www.1517.org/articles/gospel-luke-31-20-advent-2-series-c-1.
[ii] Gospel: Luke 3:1-20 (Advent 2: Series C) | 1517, https://www.1517.org/articles/gospel-luke-31-20-advent-2-series-c-1.
[iii] Gospel: Luke 3:1-20
(Advent 2: Series C) | 1517, https://www.1517.org/articles/gospel-luke-31-20-advent-2-series-c-1.
[iv] Gospel: Luke 3:1-20
(Advent 2: Series C) | 1517, https://www.1517.org/articles/gospel-luke-31-20-advent-2-series-c-1.
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