“Reconciled”
[Luke
3:1-6]
December 6, 2015 Second Reformed
Church
Have you every reconciled your
checkbook?
Have you every compared what you
have written in your checkbook – the checks, and deposits, and withdrawals, and
compared that with the statement the bank sent you and made sure that they were
in agreement with each other – that they were right with each other?
Have you every reconciled with
another person?
Have you ever been in a fight with
someone – at odds with someone – a friend or a spouse – and at some point, you
got right with each other – something happened to make you come back together
and renew your friendship or relationship?
These are both images of being
reconciled. Two people or things coming into
agreement with one another – becoming right with one another.
God tells us that we needed to be
reconciled with Him – that every human
being is unreconciled with God until he or she receives Jesus as Savior.
Paul puts it this way: “For if while we were enemies we were
reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are
reconciled, shall we be saved by his life” (Romans 5:10, ESV).
Paul tells us that we who believe in
Jesus savingly have been reconciled to God by God – reconciled in life and in
death by Jesus and what He has done in history.
And it is important that we remember
that as we look to this Gospel reading about the first coming of God in the
flesh – in the person of Jesus. The necessity
of historical facts for us to be right with God makes Christianity different
from every other religion in the world. Every
other religion in the world comes down to a person doing enough good works to
earn whatever the religion promises – but there is no need for anything they
say to be historically true. But with
Christianity – what is comes down to is that God came to earth in the person of
Jesus at a real time in history, lived a real life in history among us, died,
physically rose from the dead, and ascended back to the Father – on real
historical dates in real historical places – and if those historical facts are
not true, then Christianity is not true.
Christianity is not about a system of morals; it is about God coming in
history in the person of Jesus to do something in history to reconcile us to
God.
Luke tells his readers at the
beginning of his Gospel that he is writing in the Greek and Roman style of
history – a linear recounting of history – this happened Monday, this happened
Tuesday, etc.:
“Inasmuch as many have undertaken to
compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, just as
those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have
delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things
closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent
Theophilus, that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been
taught” (Luke 1:1-4, ESV).
So, Luke states at the beginning of
his Gospel that he is going to write in such a way as to reconcile all the
facts. He is going to name dates, and
places, and events – in chronological order, so they can be checked and
affirmed as correct and truthful facts, and his readers can be assured that
what they have been taught about Jesus and His Gospel are true.
That’s why, as Luke opens our text
this morning, he “dates” the beginning of the ministry of John the Baptist,
thusly:
“In the fifteen year of the reign of
Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch
of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and
Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, during the high priesthood of
Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the
wilderness.”
They didn’t have our modern calendar, so
Luke told his readers to find out when all of these politicians and religious
leaders were in power and cross their reigns with the fifteenth years of the
reign of Tiberius Caesar, and you will get the year that John the Baptist began
his ministry. And this is important – as
we said – because Christianity is a historical religion – if we can’t show that
these things happened historically – especially the life, death, and physical resurrection
of Jesus – followed by His Ascension, then there is no reason to believe Christianity.
So, we have a real human being, John the
Baptist, who began his ministry at a certain time in history – and this is what
he did:
“And he went into all the region around
the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”
As we see, John had been in the wilderness
– probably at the end of the Jordan River where it connects with the Dead Sea –
so, in the Southern part of Israel, but he went all along the region around the
Jordan River calling all people to be baptized – coming in repentance for their
sins.
Baptism was not new in John’s day –
baptism had been practiced as part of the ceremony to bring Gentiles – non-Jews
– into the Jewish religion. Someone who
wanted to become a Jew would repentantly confess his sins, swear not to follow
after them again, and seek to follow God in obedience – producing the fruit of
good works – and he would be baptized with water as a ritual of purification.
What was new – and scandalous – is that
John was also calling Jews to repentance for their sins. The Jews had the Day of Yom Kippur and the
whole sacrificial system – they did not think they had to repent in the way
other people did. They would have been
offended at the idea that they were to be baptized.
But the Jews also needed to be baptized
with a baptism of repentance for sin – we all do – because we are born inclined
to sin and the sacrifices and the Day of Atonement could never be enough – even
if someone died in the moment of receiving forgiveness, he or she would still
be a sinner – an enemy with God – because the sacrifices could never free us
from Original Sin – from the inclination to sin.
The repentance John was calling people to
– that we are called to – is not just to be sorrowful for our sin, but also to
break with our evil past – to stop giving in to temptation and committing those
sins, and, instead, to follow after God in joyful obedience, having believed in
the salvation – the reconciliation – that He has given us through Jesus in
history, leading us in thanksgiving to do that which is good and pleasing in
God’s sight – bearing fruit.
John, himself, was the fulfillment of
prophecy:
“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.’
Isaiah had prophesied that the Savior
would have a forerunner – someone who would call the people to repentance. And so John is called “the voice” – and so we
understand that reconciliation – becoming right with God – does not happened by
our doing something, but by our hearing the historical Gospel and receiving it
as true. Faith is by hearing – if we
hear and believeg savingly in Who Jesus is and what He has done, we shall be
saved.
And John, in the wilderness by the Jordan,
called the people to prepare the way of the Lord, to make the paths for the
Lord straight.
What does that mean?
The wilderness is symbolic of sin and our
sinful condition, so John was calling them to make a path for the Savior
through their sinful heart – to cut back the thorns and the weeds that had
grown up since the fall and to clear a straight path – to directly and
immediately call on Jesus to reconcile them to God.
That is the call before every human
throughout time and space – repent of your sin, make the way clear, receive
Jesus and what He did in history so you will be reconciled to God – made right
with God eternally – received into His Kingdom, forgiven, changed, recreated,
saved.
And that is the call that each one of us
to is to make to our friends and neighbors and family and co-workers and strangers: if they don’t believe savingly in Jesus, they
may be so lost in the wilderness that they don’t believe there is a way out –
they may not believe that it is possible for the way to be cleared that they
would receive the Savior. Tell them the
historical facts – call them to believe – tell them there is no other way – no
other hope.
Until Jesus returns, you and I are to
prepare the way and call people to receive Jesus and His salvation by presenting
the historical facts.
The prophecy of Isaiah continues:
“’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,’”
Are we to take this literally?
Will the valleys and mountains and rough places
and crooked places be physically reconciled into a smooth planet when Jesus
restores the Creation?
We don’t know.
What we can say is that there is symbolic
significance in this prophecy.
As commentators explain it (Hendriksen,
203-4):
In the reception of the Savior and His
salvation, the mountains and valleys of false humility, pride, and arrogance will
be done away with.
In the reception of the Savior and His
salvation the crooked roads of perverse and deceitful habits will be broken and
stopped.
In the reception of the Savior and His
salvation, the rough places of indifference and uncaring will become genuine
interest and care.
All we who are reconciled to God through
the historical work of the Savior will be changed – and as we are brought into
His eternal Kingdom on earth, we will be perfected and made holy. What we are now – all that has become right
in our lives in turning from sin – is only the beginning of the full reconciliation
that God is working in us.
Right now, we Christians are still
hypocrites – we still rebelliously sin when we know better and we have the way
made for us – by God – that we do not ever have to sin. But the day is coming when the fullness of
Jesus’ work will be completely applied to us and we will be forever changed and
conformed to His Image.
“‘and all flesh shall see the salvation of
God.’”
In keeping with the scandal of
John’s preaching, the prophecy says that “all flesh” – that is, every type of
flesh – every type of person – Jew and Gentile – from every tribe and nation,
will come to have true savingly faith in the Savior.
Not every person – but every type of
person – there is no type of person too sinful to be saved by God the Savior,
so we are not to look down on people for the sins they have committed, but to
call all people to repent and receive the Gospel.
And as we see in this text, by God’s
Grace, we are to remove every obstacle from the Lord entering our hearts and
lives.
We are to help others be freed from obstacles
that they may receive Jesus and His Gospel and be reconciled with God.
Will you tell others the history of
God coming to earth in the person of Jesus?
Let us pray:
Almighty God, we thank You for
sending John to prepare the way for the coming of Jesus. We thank You for clearing the way that we
would receive His Gospel. Help us to
pray for others and tell others the historical facts of Jesus, and may You be
pleased to send the Holy Spirit to open hearts and convert those we proclaim
Your Gospel to. For it is in Jesus’ Name
we pray, Amen.
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