Lift Up Your Heads

Second Sunday of Advent

December 10, 2017

Luke 21:28

Lift Up Your Heads

In the name of the Father

and of the + Son

and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Our Lord commands us to do several things in today’s Gospel:

lift up your heads;

know that the kingdom of God is near;

watch yourselves;

stay alert.

LUKE 21:28,31,34,36 EHV

Jesus' commands all revolve around seeing and believing and correctly understanding what is happening.

We are expected to be able to see the distress of nations, the decline of civilization, and the degradation that comes with fear as clearly as signs in sun and moon and stars. Yet we are told not to run and hide, but to pray and to straighten up and lift our heads.

These horrors are to be interpreted like buds on a fig tree. It is not winter that is coming, it is summer. It is not destruction and desolation and famine that is coming.

The fig tree is budding.

Your redemption draws near.

The devil, the world, and our fallen flesh are thrashing about in death throes. It is horrific, terrifying, devastating. But they will pass away. Thanks be to God: they will pass away, but the Word of the Lord will not pass away.

So watch yourselves, says the Lord, so that you don't think that the worst thing that can happen in this life is physical death. Watch yourselves so that your second worst fear is unhappiness.

But everything is going to be okay, because Christ has died for you.

And now our redemption draws near.

If they must, then let the seas rise and the poles melt and the earth itself burn.

Our redemption draws near.

Take they goods, fame, child, and wife, take they food, music, and laughter: they yet have nothing won. The Kingdom ours remaineth.

Our redemption draws near.

So straighten up. Raise your heads. Look not to the things of this world or to politicians or to movements or even to the doctor’s sad news. Look not to Facebook or Instagram.

Our redemption is drawing near.

It is not just Christmas that is coming. The Last Day, the time when heaven and earth pass away, when horrors and terror will be on every hand, that is coming.

But it will not be a horror for the Baptized who are now trapped in prison, caught in the web of our sins, waiting for our redemption to draw near. Soon we will rejoice and exult and lift up our heads.

And it isn’t just the Last Day that is coming, even now, right now, the Lord Himself comes. He comes here, now, into the midst of our guilt, our fears and our sorrows.

Lift up your heads.

Your redemption draws near now, here, in this place. He speaks in His Word. His Spirit stirs your heart and you believe. His Absolution presents you to His Father as His own dear, immaculate and holy bride.

He comes now, in His Flesh, and enters into you with His risen Body and Blood consummating the marriage, strengthening your faith, and forgiving your sins.

Echoing the Lord’s words from today’s Gospel the pastor turns to us each Sunday and commands “Lift up your hearts” and we say: “We lift them up to the Lord.” What we mean by this is that we want to stop thinking about other stuff. However inattentive we’ve been to this point in the Service, whatever grudges we might have been holding, whatever lusts or fantasies we might have been indulging, let us forsake all sin now.

Let us repent and come before the Lord’s risen Body and Blood with awe and joy and thanksgiving.

We lift our hearts up to the Lord where they belong, not high in heaven, but we lift them up to the Altar, not to be sacrificed, but we lift up them to the altar where He promises to be for us in order to receive the benefit and blessing of the One who Sacrificed Himself for us on the Holy Cross. We lift them up there, now, here, to receive Him as worthily as we might, that is with faith and confidence that His Word is true, that His invitation is valid and makes us worthy, and that He is here for us and truly forgives our sins.

This is your redemption, your Christ, who draws near. The one who died for you and has declared you righteous before His Father comes now in Word and Sacrament to bless you and encourage you. Soon He will also come in glory. He will finish the good work He has begun in you.

In Jesus' Name. Amen.

God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Thanks be to God!