Rend the Heavens

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Sometimes, people are not grateful when you do something nice for them. Of course, there are the tongue-in-cheek anecdotes about the New York City greeting being an expletive. But sometimes it is more clear even than that.

Have you ever changed a baby's poopy diaper? You walk into the nursery to find a child screaming for attention, and you pick him up, and the odor coming from his backside is unmistakeable. So you set him down on the changing table, undo his clothes, and he starts squirming. You undo his diaper and he starts crying. You start wiping away the muck, and he tries to crawl away, jump off the table, or anything other than lie there and let you clean his bottom. Then, when you have him cleaned up, re-diapered, and re-dressed, he screams because you changed him instead of feeding him.

This is the way the sinful human nature is. Your heart and mind are on the lookout for what comes easiest and best to you, what is most expedient and exciting, what is most pleasurable and promising for your wants and desires. You are looking for the nearest breast to nurse, and the condition of your pants is of no account. You are looking for the easiest way to wealth and prosperity, to the family size you desire, to the picture of health and happiness you imagine best. What you are not looking for is the awesome deeds of God, the righteousness and peace of Christ, or the coming of the Lord in any way, shape, or form.

Today, at the beginning of the Church Year, at the start of the season of Advent, the Church prays with Isaiah: “Oh, that You would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains might quake at Your presence – as when fire kindles brushwood and the fire causes water to boil – to make Your name known to Your adversaries, and that the nations might tremble at Your presence!” And it is good, right, and salutary that we should indeed pray for this – that the Lord would indeed break down the barrier between heaven and earth and come down to His people, that the nations might tremble.

But the trouble is, do you really want the Lord to rend the heavens and come down? If He did, what would you want Him to do when He got here? It is easy enough to wish for the end of the world when you look at the evil erupting hither and yon, and to wish for the judgment of those evildoers in that other place. It is easy enough to condemn the ISIS terrorists in the Middle East, or the rioters in Ferguson, or the abortionists in DC, or whomever else. It feels good to pray for the end of the world when you look at such violence and bloodshed.

And indeed, the Lord commands you to pray that He would come quickly to His people. This is what you pray in the Second Petition of the Lord's Prayer: “Thy Kingdom come.” We pray that the Lord would come among us with His Word and Spirit, that His reign be extended, and that the dominion of the devil be destroyed. We pray that the will of God would be done everywhere, always, and by all creation.

So, too, do you pray the Seventh Petition: “But deliver us from evil.” You pray in this petition that our Lord would rescue you, and all His people from every evil of body and soul, possessions and reputation. You pray that He would preserve you from discord and strife, violence and bloodshed. You pray that He would drive far from you the devil's temptations and assaults, and that He would save you from sudden and evil death.

But what if He did? What if the Lord rent the heavens today and came down among His people? What would He find? Would He find you anxiously waiting for His appearing?

No, He would not. Isaiah confesses that the Lord has been doing awesome works in the sight of His people for a very long time, and His people did not look for them, nor did they see them. From of old, no one has been looking for the coming of the Lord or preparing for His appearing, save a few old prophets who yell down from their tower prison cells.

Advent is a bridge in time within the yearly life of the Church. The past few weeks, you have been hearing about the end of the world and the final Judgment. In a few weeks, you will hear about the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ according to the flesh. And now, sandwiched in the middle, is the season of Advent, when you do well to contemplate all the ways in which the Lord comes and is present with His people.

He is present with His people always and forever as the Lord God of Hosts, the King of the Universe. In this way, God was with Adam and Eve in the Garden, with Moses and the Children of Israel in the Red Sea, and with Joshua and the Israelites at the Jordan River. He is present always as the God of creation. He has promised that He will be with you in this way, and He is present, even among the heathens and ungodly of this world. Some call this providence; one might do better to call it mercy – He gives and preserves His gifts to all people, even to all evil people, without thought or care for whether they will give thanks for them.

But in this way, the people of this world did not look for the Lord to come. They took what was in front of them and gave back nothing. Even His own people forgot the manifold blessings they received from the hand of their Lord. They whored after other gods rather than worshiping the true God, the God who brought them out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. They trusted in princes, and not in the Son of Man.

Because of this, in this Adventide, we remember that our Lord comes now, in the present, to be with His people. For those who prayed with Isaiah for so long that He would rend the heavens and come down, He has done just that. He has rent the barrier between heaven and earth, between God and Man. He has come down and become God in Flesh, the true Son of Man, born of the Blessed Virgin Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit.

When His people were not looking for Him, when the world in solemn stillness lay, in the fullness of time, the Lord long awaited appeared among His people in the flesh. God became man to deliver mankind. The everlasting Son of the Father became the son of Mary in the flesh, so that He might bear our flesh and blood, take upon Himself our sins, and die our death. Our Lord Christ has died your death in your flesh to take away your sins, so that you might live His life in His Kingdom and eat at His Table.

Talk about unsought wonders! Herod sought to slaughter the infant Christ. Satan sought to entrap the fledgling preacher. Caiaphas sought to destroy the Teacher of Israel. God did one of the greatest wonders of all time and space in being made man, and this Jesus, our God and Lord, you crucified by the hands of sinful men.

But rejoice with the Prophet that God will “meet him who joyfully works righteousness, those who remember You in Your ways.” That is, He meets you through the waters of your Baptism. He meets you through His Word, which bespeaks you righteous because of the sacrifice of Christ. He meets with you in His Body and Blood, broken and pierced for you upon the cross and presented and offered to you here on His Altar for you, O Christians, to eat and to drink for the forgiveness of your sins.

Because the Lord meets you in this way, you can answer with a resounding “YES!” Isaiah's question: “In our sins we have been a long time, and shall we be saved?”

Shall you be saved? Yes! Your answer is no timid “I hope so” or agnostic “I think so”. Your answer is YES! Because your God is with you. There may be no one among the people of this world who calls upon the Name of the Lord, but He has called you by name and you are His. And He is with you, not in judgment, but in blessing. He is with you in the ongoing feast, in the Lord's Supper, in the marriage feast of the Lamb in His kingdom which has no end.

Therefore, we plead with God just as Isaiah did: “Be not so terribly angry, O LORD, and remember not iniquity forever. Behold, please look, we are all Your people.” We plead with God that He put away His anger and forget our iniquities. And guess what – He has done just that! He has put away His anger by pouring it out upon Jesus instead of you. He has forgotten your iniquities because the record of them is expunged by the blood of Christ. You are the people of God, washed by His hand, made clean by His blood, fed with His Body, and kept in His Church by His Word. He indeed looks upon you, and He looks upon you with favor. He makes His face to shine upon you with His grace, and He lifts up His countenance upon you to give you His peace.

Changing diapers is no fun, neither for the parent nor the child. But thank you to all parents who faithfully change the diapers of your children. And thanks be to God that He waged war against your sinful nature and cleansed you from your filth and death and has made you clean and pure, and has clothed you in garments of salvation. Even though you did not look for his grace and blessings, He has given them to you. Now He looks upon you with favor as His beloved child, holy and perfect. This is an awesome deed, and praise be to Him who works it!

In the Name of Jesus. Amen.