Redeemer Lutheran Church

Dear Friends in Christ,

Imagine for a few moments this morning that you are the prophet Jeremiah on the day our text was written. It was almost 600 years before the birth of Jesus. You are walking through the temple grounds in Jerusalem, with its massive structures and protective walls, the emblem of God dwelling among His people. But as you walk to the eastern edge of the wall and look over, you see the advancing enemy soldiers sitting on the mount of Olives, just waiting to capture the city. God is about to judge His people for their continuing rebellion and disobedience. As you look out across the Kidron valley, you notice that all the trees around the city are being cut down to the ground — to be used against you. An eerie picture is developing. There are no trees, even as God decreed in Jeremiah, chapter 6, verse 6: “This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘Cut down the trees and build siege ramps against Jerusalem. This city must be punished; it is filled with oppression.’”

And because there are no trees there, the birds are gone, too, as Jeremiah says in chapter 4, verse 25: “I looked and...every bird in the sky had flown away”. There is no wind blowing gently through the leaves because there are no leaves. It is the quiet before the storm. The trees on the hillside are already gone and now God is poised to cut down His family tree, Israel, and He will do it under the axe of the great Babylonian army.

Looking back, we can see that God had intended His family tree to be a great and significant tree in all the world. Choosing Abraham, God called this patriarch to leave his father’s home and family. Abraham was to leave behind the false gods worshipped by his ancestors and all the people around him and follow the one true God, the Creator of all things in heaven and on earth. God promised to bless Abraham and to make from him and his wife Sarah, a great family line through whom all the nations of the world would one day be blessed. “Blessed to be a blessing”, as you may have learned in the Bethel Series.

God kept his promise to Abraham when, as an old man, he became the father of Isaac. Isaac became the father of Jacob who, in turn, became the father of twelve sons. From these humble beginnings, God would establish His family tree. Israel, herself, was to be like a tree planted near the streams of living water. The tree was to be alive and flourishing under God’s blessing. Nourished by God’s living Word and obedient to His commands, Israel would be a blessing to all the nations. Birds from all nations would come and find rest and refreshment in her branches. Such were the divine hopes and intentions for God’s family tree. “Blessed is the man (or nation) who trusts in the Lord”, Jeremiah says in chapter 17. “He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes. Its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.” Such were God’s intentions and plans for His chosen people.

But tragically, those hopes and intentions were not realized. For a disease began to affect God’s family tree. Gradually it loses its leaves and is sapped of its strength. The sap seems to run dry. The branches are to be stripped off: “Strip off her branches, for these people do not belong to the Lord. The house of Israel and the house of Judah have been utterly unfaithful to me”, declares the Lord. Sin and rebellion have coiled themselves around the roots of the tree and choked off the life-giving water.

Jeremiah, God’s prophet, is called to proclaim to Israel that due to her constant rebellion and chasing after false gods, He will use the foreign nation of Babylon as a rod of punishment. Jeremiah 7 lists the sins of Israel: “If you really change your ways and your actions and deal with each other justly, if you do not oppress the alien, the fatherless or the widow and do not shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not follow other gods to your own harm, then I will let you live in this place, in the land I gave your forefathers forever and ever. But look, you are trusting in deceptive words that are worthless. Will you steal and murder, commit adultery and perjury, burn incense to Baal and follow other gods you have not known, and then come and stand before me in this house, which bears my Name, and say, ‘We are safe’ — safe to do all these detestable things? Has this house, which bears my Name, become a den of robbers to you? But I have been watching! declares the Lord.” (Jeremiah 7:5-11)

While other prophets preached a false sense of peace, Jeremiah proclaimed the truth of God’s judgment. Part of the Church’s message is to proclaim this reality. Christ will return in judgement against all who reject His love, spurn his commands, and despise His ways. Eternal suffering in hell awaits all who persist in disobedience and sin.

But here, in our text, Jeremiah has the opportunity to proclaim God’s continuing love as well. Even as the soldiers are cutting the trees, God has not forgotten His love for Israel. He has not forgotten his promise. A righteous Branch will sprout from David’s lineage, or from the “Root of Jesse”, David’s father. “The stump of Jesse a Righteous Branch will grow, Who will bring peace from the Father to His children here below”. The family tree would find a new start in the birth of the coming Messiah.

The Good News of the New Testament is that Jesus Christ is that new shoot of life that comes from the tree of David’s line. St. Paul, introducing himself to the Christians at Rome, also introduces Jesus Christ. He is the One, Paul writes “who according to his human nature was a descendant of David, and who through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead.”

This Advent season is all about that hope and expectation we have in Jesus Christ, the son of David, who will make all things new. It was the conviction of the Evangelists and Apostles that in Jesus Christ God had, in fact, raised up a righteous Branch for David — the One who fulfilled in His own life all the hopes and dreams God had for His family, Israel — the One through whom all the world would receive its blessing of redemption, life and salvation. This Savior would, as Isaiah prophesied, “grow up like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground”, but he would also be “cut off from the land of the living for the transgressions of my people.” This Righteous Branch would enter Jerusalem, as we saw in today’s Gospel lesson, for this very purpose. He would be nailed to the tree of the cross to atone not only for the sins of Israel, but for the sins of the whole world. Where earlier God had cut off His own people for their rebellion and disobedience, now for their sake and for the sake of all people He would cut off His own Son, giving His life as a ransom for sin.

The Good News for you and me on this first Sunday in Advent is that God has not cut us off from His love and mercy. That is what we have deserved because of our sin. And often that is how we feel. Where are you on this first Sunday in Advent? Does your present situation make you want to cry out the plea of our Advent liturgy “Lord, have mercy”? Lord, come and rescue and deliver me from the problems of my life. Lord, come to my aid in my distress. Lord, when I look at all the things that are pressuring my life and stacked up against me, I can sometimes get as frightened as the citizens of Jerusalem watching all their trees being cut down to be used against them. And I fear that I, too, will be cut down because I have not always been faithful, I have not always loved you with my whole heart, and I have frequently done the things you have forbidden.

It’s true. Sometimes the Lord permits adversity in order to test our faith – to call us to repentance. In fact, we DESERVE to be stripped off, torn down and thrown into the fire of His wrath. But He will never cut us off from His love. That’s because by Faith you also have become a part of God’s family tree. In Holy Baptism you were adopted as His own, grafted into Christ, the vine. You are the new Israel who are rooted and established in His Word and are fed and nourished by His Sacrament of the Altar. These means of Grace are essential for our own healthy growing and for our branching out in love to others.

That’s the nature of a tree, isn’t it? To branch out — to grow and spread its branches. Where are you branching out by telling the good news about Jesus? What new “birds” have come to find shelter here in our assembly because of your invitation and encouragement? Our church is firmly grounded in the truth of God’s Word. And as long as it remains so grounded, it won’t be blown away or uprooted. Even the gates of hell will not prevail against it, Jesus promised. Knowing that we are built upon the foundation of the Prophets and Apostles with Jesus Christ Himself as our chief cornerstone, we can be confident and bold in our witness. Let us be courageous in calling and inviting and telling the good news about Jesus and the Advent hope He offers. “Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord.” In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.