4TH SUNDAY IN ADVENT

Grace be with you, mercy, and peace, from God the Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love. Amen.

Dear friends in the Lord Jesus!

Jesus Christ never did need man's witness in order to prove that he actually was God's Son and man's Savior. That he was this, he himself could bear witness with divine certainty; and this he did by his words as well as by his deeds. When he spoke, he spoke with authority and not as the scribes; by his words he revealed not only what still lay .in the future, not only the secret counsels of human heart but also the hidden eternal decree of the invisible and inscrutable God, which had never even entered man's heart nor that of an angel; he speaks of that, "We speak that we do know, and testify that, we have seen." Jn 3:11. Christ did not sit in school at the feet of the wise but grew up in humble quiet and yet preached a wisdom which the wise of all times, even though they do not believe it, have admired and gazed at in astonishment, Christ himself thus proves that he is the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father.

His divine miracles also gave a similar irrefutable witness; when he was asked, "Art thou he that should come?" he could without further ado reply, "The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the Gospel preached to them." Mtll:4,5, "I have," he could say, "a greater witness than that of John; for the works which the Father hath given me to finish, the same works bear witness of me." Jn 5:36.

However, the greatest of all witness about Jesus, at which unbelief must blush, yet upon which faith can be immovably founded, is the witness which God himself has given of his Son. The Evangelist Matthew writes, "And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water; and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him; and lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." Mt 3:16,17. What further need have we of witness?

Though it is certain that he who received a witness from heaven does not need nor had ever needed such a witness from earth, we would err greatly if we supposed that we would not need a human witness about Jesus and that it is not Christ's will that we confess him. No, my friends, God did not only institute the office, of the ministry and entrust it to men that through this office a lasting witness of men should be given about Christ; nor should anyone think that it is enough to have faith in Christ in his heart; those who wish to be Christians must also be "lights in the Lord" who enlighten many; they are to be

cities built upon a high mountain and remain hidden from no one. "If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation." Rom 10:9,10, And Jesus Christ himself says to us, "Whosoever shall confess me before men, him will I confess before my Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven." Mt 10:32,33

You perceive from this my dear hearers, how necessary it is that everyone of us give a good witness of Jesus Christ, for unless we give it we cannot be his disciples nor inherit eternal life.

Yet not every witness of Christ is correct; it is very easy to be deceived; not everyone who says, "Lord! Lord!" is also a true confessor of the name of Jesus Christ; an earnest examination is necessary. Now since our today's Gospel gives us the opportunity for such an examination, let us in the fear of God institute such an examination concerning witnessing correctly to Christ.

(It is the more natural today to bear witness of my faith to you, the assembled congregation, since as you know I came to this holy place to do that.)

But first let us beseech God for his gracious assistance in silent prayer after we have sung hymn 225, 9 (Dresden hymnal).

The text. John 1:19-28.

My friends, the time had come when, according to the predictions of the prophets, the Messiah was to appear; for a long time the people, groaning under the yoke of the Roman government, had waited for the Promised One with great longing. Then it was that John the Baptist appeared among the Jews in a way most thought very puzzling: clothed in a garment of camel's hair, a leathern girdle about his loins, eating locust and wild honey, he baptized and preached in the wilderness, and often declared, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!" There went out to him "Jerusalem, and all Judea, and all the region round about Jordan;" Mt 3:5; they hear his powerful admonitions to repent, they are baptized of him, and confess their sins. So little by little the people began to muse in their hearts "whether John were the Christ or not."

All this and especially concern about this opinion of the people about John soon caught the attention of the Sanhedrin at Jerusalem; they had to pass judgment in matters of religion. It was therefore decided to send a delegation to John, a delegation of preachers and Levites, who belonged to the Pharisees, a sect highly regarded by the people. They were to examine the call and the real office of John and demand that he give a public explanation of himself. That took place; - and our today's Gospel gives us the result of this meeting. Turning all thoughts away from himself, John in our text bears glorious witness to Jesus Christ; it certainly can serve as an example worthy of our imitation. Permit me under the guidance of our text to present to you

THE REAL NATURE OF OUR WITNESS ABOUT JESUS CHRIST

We seek

I. The CONTENT of our Witness, and then,

II. The MANNER in Which we are to Witness.

Lord Jesus Christ, you are our merciful High Priest and Intercessor for us with your Father, when our sins come to him accusing us; we beseech you, teach us how even we can bear witness of you and thus confess you, so. that it may be to your honor and our neighbor's salvation. You must teach us, we do not know how; teach us from your Word and graciously make me today the voice through whom you speak to us, oh great Preacher, and turn all these hearers into living and blessed witnesses of your glory and grace by their words and deeds. Oh, Lord, hear us for your own sake. Amen.

I.

My friends, if we ask what our witness of Christ must really contain, or for whom we must confess Christ to be, then look at John the Baptist; his example shows us clearly. I call your attention to his words, when he speaks about Christ in our text, "He it is, who coming after me is preferred before me, whose shoe's latchet I am not worthy to unloose." V. 29. What words, my dear hearers! "Who coming AFTER me is preferred BEFORE me!" Do we not know that John was older than Jesus? How could he say that Jesus was before him? For the same reason that the Lord says of .himself, "Verily, verily I say unto you, before Abraham was, I am!" Jn 8:58. See in those words a glorious witness by the Baptist to the fact that Jesus Christ is not merely a creature but is the Word, who was in the beginning, who as God created heaven and earth; that he is the eternal Son of the most high God,

But John confessed further that he was the voice of that preacher in the wilderness about whom Isaiah had prophesied, "Make straight the way of the Lord!" With these words he frankly confessed that Jesus Christ is the promised Lord, or according to the original, Jehovah, who should come in the flesh, the Messiah and Savior of all the world, he "to whom all the prophets give witness, that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins." Acts 10:43. John bears a glorious two-fold witness of Christ, first, that Christ is the God-man, and secondly, that he is the promised Savior.

That is a beautiful example for all who even today wish to confess Christ. If our witness is to be correct according to its' contents, it depends chiefly upon two things: whether we testify correctly about Christ's person, and whether we testify correctly about his office.

My friends, the chief reason why we should confess Christ at all to the world is, as John says concerning the Pharisees, because the world does not know him and denies him, that Christ might be confessed and honored and, where possible, souls might be won for him. Now no one readily denies that Christ was a true man, certainly not that he was a good and wise man, a great prophet of God, who taught so perfect a doctrine that no other man ever equaled it. I say, no one readily denies that. Yet the world is offended that this Jesus, this despised Jesus, who lay In the manger, who did not have a place where to lay his head, and who finally died disgracefully and painfully on the cross, that this man should be "the Lord of glory, the true and eternal life, who is over all, God blessed forever;" that he did not come merely to teach us virtue but to redeem us from temporal and eternal death by his suffering and death; that faith in him, trust in his dearly bought merit, alone can make us righteous and save us. (My friends, Christ the crucified is even today an offense to all selfrighteous and foolishness to all worldly wise.) That, that is what the world chiefly denies; it is, therefore, that which a true Christian must confess about Jesus Christ before the world.

We must bear witness that we consider Christ more than merely a man, yes, more than all angels and archangels; we must consider him the Lord, Jehovah,

whose way John had to prepare; we must consider him eternal, existing before all those who were born in this world before he was; as the one before whom all prophets must bow, yes, even John who was more than a prophet and yet did not deem himself worthy of untying his shoestrings; as the only begotten Son of the living God.

Then we must also confess the truth of his miracles, the truth of his victorious resurrection .and ascension, the certainty of his sitting at the right hand of the Father and his coming for judgment. We must testify that we heartily believe "that there is no salvation in any other; for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved" (Acts 4:12) than the precious name of Jesus alone.

Finally, we must testify that Christ really does receive sinners, that in him we really have forgiveness of sins, the comfort of the Holy Spirit, the certainty of our salvation, true rest for our souls, yes, that in him we find everything which can give man peace, make him happy, and finally save him here in the world to come, in time, and in eternity.

If this is the content of your confession about Christ, then it is Biblical, then it is the correct one, then we can have the comforting assurance, that, having the power of God's Word, it will lead disciples to Christ and redound to his honor, then we dare also hope that he will some day confess us before his heavenly Father, Oh, what grace it is that one sinner can Say to another, Rejoice; God has become a man; he wants to be Our Savior, for whoever believes in him will be eternally saved! If a person has great earthly fortune about which he as yet knows nothing, oh, how eagerly everyone wants to be the first to bring him the good news! How happy we ought to be to spread the most joyful news of all wherever we can, that Christ has come to pardon the guilty, to rescue the lost, yes, to save all sinners!

II.

Up to now we have heard only about the correct content of our testimony about Christ; that our testimony is given in the proper way is also a part of its true nature. Let us try to recognize this from the example of John the Baptist.

"I baptize with water; but there atandeth one among you, whom ye know not." V. 26. "Whom YE know not," he says; he intends to say the opposite, but whom I do know. Yes, he knew him well, and knew him in faith. Not flesh and blood but the Father in heaven revealed to him, that Christ really was his dear Son, in whom he was well pleased, that he was the Lamb of God who carried away the sin of the world. He knew this; he had experienced it; this compelled him to confess that at all times and in all places.

He was also called to do this. He did not do this out of his own choice or because he was forward. In order to prove this John in our text defends his call; he points to the fact that he is that voice in the wilderness, of whom Isaiah has spoken. And when he was asked, "Why baptizest thou then, if thou be not that Christ, nor Elias, neither that prophet?" v.25, he replied, "I baptize with water." He means to say, "I baptize only because I was commanded to do so, not as the Lord but as the servant and forerunner of Christ; I give only water but Christ alone can by means of this water work with the gifts and grace of his Spirit."

His own experience, his living and heartfelt faith in Jesus Christ, and his definite call to testify about Christ, both worked in him the proper way of confessing Christ. He had experienced the divine majesty of his Master and his own humbleness, he knew that, like all men, even he could stand before God only

because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ; this made him, first of all, so humble that he gladly did not want to be more than what he was: merely God's voice in the wilderness who spoke through him His instrument; he did not want to be that Elijah, or that prophet who at that time was expected when Christ appeared, much less Christ himself; yes, he declared, "Whose shoe's latchet I am not worthy to unloose;" he looked on himself as a person much too low to do for Christ the work of the meanest slave. How little he must have thought of all his other good works! He had also experienced the love of Jesus Christ, and this so filled his heart that he had to confess him, so that all might come to Christ and be saved,

If John's faith in Christ gave him the correct humility and love to confess him, the call gave him such divine courage that he despised the enticements as well as the threats of the world. The nation considered him the Christ and was ready to recognize him as such and set about founding his glorious messianic kingdom; but the leaders hated his witness and plotted his ruin.

What did he do? He despised the favor of the people and bore in mind that God gave him incomparably more than all the world could offer him; as far as the hatred of the mighty was concerned, he relied upon him who had called him and stood at his side amid all persecution; and so he frankly confessed to the people, "I am not the Christ," and fearlessly added in the presence of the Pharisees, "He it is, who coming after me is preferred before me, whose shoe's latchet I am not worthy to unloose." V. 27.

My dear hearers, if you wish to apply all what you have heard here about John to yourselves, then learn the following points: Above all learn that it does not only depend on confessing Christ correctly, but that one must himself also be a true confessor. We see, that one can say many good and true things about Christ, yes, nothing but good and true things, and yet be worthy of being rejected by God together with his witness. "I believed, therefore have I spoken!" Ps 116:10; one must be able to join John in imitating King David. If anyone wishes to confess Christ before the world he must have a living faith in him. Otherwise he will be like sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal; they can make a pleasing sound but they are in themselves empty and lifeless. One would commit the folly of wanting to commend something to others which, he does not consider worth accepting himself.

But who believes in Christ? He who not only believes the evidence which we find about Christ in God's Word in the Old and New Testaments, but who also knows from experience that he is a helpless sinner who cannot redeem himself, that Jesus Christ is his Savior as Ee is the Sayior of all men, that He has carried also his sins and atoned for them on the cross, and that all his sins are forgiven him for Christ's sake. Whoever has come to know this, confessing his guilt before God, turning humbly to God desiring grace and freedom from his sins, he believes in Christ; he and only he is capable of bearing a good witness about Christ.

If we want to do this, we must examine ourselves, whether Christ has become our one and all, whether with the apostles we must actually say to Christ's föes, "We cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard" and come to know, Acts 4:20; our love to Christ and our brethren who were redeemed with us compels us to confess how good we have it with Jesus and invite them to believe and find in him that which can save them for time and for eternity. Certainly, we will then, but not from a spirit of quarrelsomeness, confess among the ignorant as well as among the mockers, him who has won us with his blood; in so doing we will" not seek out own welfare but the salvation of our neighbor.

And how humble we ought to be since, if we confess Christ the correct way,

we also admit that we have received forgiveness of sins, grace, and mercy in him! We certainly will let people see by our example that we exalt ourselves over no one but would gladly see all of them being saved when we are.

Finally, as his calling made John such a happy and fearless witness for Christ, that, conscious of being in God's service, he gladly renounced the world and was not afraid of its spite, so it must also be with us, when we confess our Lord and Savior to his foes or friends. However, we can do that only if we know: God is with us when he sends us and then the witness we bear is not really ours but God the Holy Spirit's witness in and through us. Bearing witness without being called, no matter what else it seems to be, is always without love, for love comes from him who calls; xiithout humility, for it is given in one's own power; without true courage, for one cannot rely upon the Lord of Lords: it is sacrilege. Christ indeed sent his disciples into the world; ah, sheep amongst the wolves! but they could go confidently; Christ went with them; and behold, their witness quickly filled the world and everywhere won the victory over the false gods. But we dare not for that reason out of a false zeal for confession seek out the world and impertinently mingle among the foes of Christ's cross in order to preach to and convert them; doing that we will not rescue them; we would perish amongst and with them.

To confess Christ and confess that we are his disciples with our works, by our association with true believers, by our chasteness, gentleness, humility, love - to do that at all times we all are called; and though the world may even consider it hypocrisy, this is the light we should always and joyfully let shine. Especially should the minister praise Christ to his congregation, and of course every member do that to his fellow members, the teacher to his pupils, the parents to their children, each one to his spouse, the master to his servants, friend to friend. They should all do that in their calling and do it joyfully; yes, everyone who is asked a reason for the hope which is in him or is asked about his faith - even if the answer should be connected with danger to body and life, honor and property - here is a call; in that case one should be ready at all times to answer every one; it is God who is having us questioned; he turns hearts like rivers. If it does not mean the salvation of him to whom we confess, our soul is not harmed; but if we are injured in earthly things, if they take body, goods, honor, child, and wife away - "let these all be gone," Luther calls to us, "they yet have nothing won, the Kingdom our's remaineth."

My dear hearers! The hour is coming when all of us will be gathered before the judgment throne of him of whom it now is merely said, "Behold, your King comes to you meek and humble;" alas, what terror will then seize those who will have to hear the voice of thunder saying to them, You did not confess me before the world; you denied me; you were ashamed of me; depart from me; I know you not! Oh let us all therefore now in the period of grace exhort our souls that none need be ashamed at his coming.

Oh Jesus, write what we have heard about confessing you in our hearts; by the power of your grace make us able to bear witness about you at all times by our daily life, often with our mouth, and if it should be your will, gladly with our very life, but certainly by our blessed death wherever and however it may come. Amen.