Kallen saarnoja adventtina ja jouluna 2002

The introductory words for the lightning of the first advent candle in the beginning of this service mentioned that advent means coming. And it should be obvious for us that it means the coming of the Lord — so this holy season should not be just time of Christmas preparations, as it is in its not so holy practice. 

Today we celebrate the first Sunday of Advent, and there are three more to be celebrated before the feast of the Incarnation of our Lord. The themes and lessons of these Sundays of Advent, present different aspects, or should I say, different times and ways of the Adventus Domini, of the coming of the Lord. They together tell us that the coming of the Lord is not a simply one but a fourfold coming.

The gospel of this first Sunday of Advent tells how Jesus of Nazareth, once again, comes to Jerusalem, and people welcomed him like a king.  It is the gospel belonging to two major Sundays of preparation in the year of the Church: to this very first Sunday starting the preparations for the great feast of the incarnation, and to the Palm Sunday starting the Holy Week of suffering and crucifixion and resurrection of our Lord.

The second Sunday of Advent reminds us that our Lord has promised to come again in the glory, and on the day of his coming in the glory the era of this world will be over. The third Sunday of Advent is dedicated to the fore runner of the Lord, to John the Baptist, who already in his mother’s womb rejoiced and welcomed the Lord, and on the fourth Sunday of Advent we remember the blessed Virgin Mary, through whom our Lord came into flesh, came to be one of us.

The coming of our Lord into this reality, into this world for two thousand years ago; the coming of the Lord, welcomed like a king in the holy city of Jerusalem, and the coming of the Lord in the glory — there we have three different ways and times of his coming. But I said earlier that the coming of the Lord is a fourfold one. So, there is still one way, one time, one place missing.

From Friday evening to today noon some members of this congregation, and some other people, focussed their thoughts on the kingship of Christ, as we had a silent retreat. I would like to formulate or re-formulate the basic question, the basic challenge of the retreat like this: How does Christ reign in my life, in my heart?

And there we have the missing one, the fourth way and place and time of the coming of our Lord: our hearts. Your heart. My heart. Our lives. Your life, My life. Now. Today and every day we live on the earth.

In a way this is the most important coming of the Lord. Only when he comes into my life and when he lives in me and his Spirit works in me, only then his coming into human flesh and his coming into the holy city and his coming in the glory have meaning for me. Otherwise they are not more than history and future — or not even that valuable but like fairytales and fortune telling. But with Christ in me they are reality and they are actual. Then, now it is meaningful for me that Christ took on the human flesh and lived and acted in this world and suffered and carried the punishment of my sin and reconciled me with God the Almighty in his death and overcame the death and the grave in his resurrection and is and will be the King of all, in this world and even more in the world to come.

We spent a couple of days meditating the kingship of Christ in our lives. They were not easy days, and at least I felt I was not able to work as deeply with that as I should have done. But I think it is a task for us especially in this holy season of Advent to think and to meditate and to pray how Christ could reign in our lives. And it is not only a task, nor only a challenge, it is also a blessing: we may leave us on God’s mercy and ask him to fill us with the presence of our Lord. 

Dear sisters and brothers in Christ,

I have in my computer a file saved on Saturday December 8th 2001 at 14:20, 20 past 2 at afternoon. That means I saved it just before leaving for last year’s Christmas Carols service. The file is the first part of a sermon I was going to preach on the second Advent last year. But as those who were at the Christmas Carols remember and many know, when we had finished the service at Henrikinkirkko there was something much more actual and much more important to be discussed in the sermon on Sunday: Ingrid Hollingworth who had been very active in this congregation for several years and who had also contributed a lot for last year’s Christmas Carols, got heart attack and died at the church.

Today, exactly a year after her death, I want to pay homage to Ingrid whom I only knew for a short time of five weeks. I do it by using the sermon I was writing on the very same day she died.

In the letter to the Hebrews we read in the tenth chapter:

 So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that you when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. For in just a very little while, “He who is coming will come and not delay. But my righteous one will live by faith. And if he shrinks back, I will not be pleased with him.” But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved.

Advent, adventus Domini, the coming of the Lord. Today, on the second Sunday in Advent our theme is the coming of the Lord in the end of this time and this world. When he ascended into the heaven he promised to come back. The first Christians waited for him to come back very soon.  It is in that waiting for adventus Domini the author of the epistle to the Hebrews wrote his letter, 

In the first decades and the first centuries of Christianity many people became  Christians but some of them did not persevere in the persecutions. They kneeled before the statue of the Emperor to save their mortal lives. For me the same kind of history is more familiar from the Reformation era when some turned back from evangelic faith into the Catholic one. And we know that in the last century Christians were persecuted in many countries, also on this old Christian continent of Europe. If they wanted to have a proper education for their children and if they wanted to make a career they had to deny their faith.

We might think that we do not need a special confidence nor courage in order to live as Christians in this world. In this country it has been for centuries the normal way of living to be a Christian. But somehow it has not always been so easy to do the will of God, not even in countries nor among nations we usually regard as Christian. Christian charity might have been seen as, if not revolutionary, then at least as hostile to the lawful order of a state, for example.

But how difficult it might be to live as Christian, to follow Christ in this world, we are those God has called. God has called to do what? Not just to say “Lord, Lord”, not just to proclaim words that carry religious contents. He has called us to do his will. He has called us to honour and praise and worship him, and he has called us to bring his love into this world. The incarnation does not only mean the birth of God in human flesh for two thousand years ago, even though we might be tempted to think so in this time of Christmas preparations. The incarnation means also living faith and living love of the body of Christ in this world through all times since then. And we, who we call ourselves Christians, we are members of the body of Christ.

God has called us to please him in various ways. He wants us to live by faith and He wants us to do his will. He wants us to believe and to love, he wants us to acknowledge our dependence on Him and to bring His goodness to other people, especially to the people in need. In this hostile and sometimes even very violent reality of sin and fall He wants us to represent the other reality, His reality of goodness and love. 

And while we think of His call, there is something very important we must not forget: God is greater than all the powers of this world. They can take our property, they can even take our anyway mortal life of this reality, but it is only God who can give us life. And He has given us life everlasting in Jesus, the Christ, our Redeemer and Saviour. He has given us life everlasting through His Spirit in us.

Since we got the new agenda and lectionary for the Lutheran Church in Finland two years ago, we have the same gospel reading every year on the fourth Sunday of Advent: St. Matthew’s record on the birth of Jesus. It is also the earliest reading in the order of the New Testament texts we use. But because it is only a year ago I preached in this chapel on the today’s gospel, I would like to prepare us for Christmas, the Nativity of our Lord with the very first passage of the gospel according to St. Matthew. Because of many names I would not be able to pronounce I distributed you the text on the genealogy of Jesus.

I think genealogies are texts we very often skip while reading the Old Testament. But whoever has read the Bible systematically has noticed several genealogies in the Old Testament, and perhaps has got some idea how important they were for the Israelites. There are some pieces of evidence showing that genealogies were also kept after the Old Testament period until the fall of Jerusalem in the second half of the first century. So, for two thousand years ago it was possible to show that someone was a descendant of David, the most remarkable king of Israel who had lived thousand years earlier. This information was actually used by the Emperor Domitian who wanted to destroy all descendants of David in the end of the first century.

In the New Testament we find two genealogical list, both for Jesus: the one you have, and another one in St. Luke’s gospel. If you take your Bible and compare them, you will see many differences that are not to be harmonized. And if you compare this record of the genealogy of Jesus with the sources you can find in the Old Testament, you will also see some differences. These are not the only questions we confront with the list. There are little more than forty generations listed from Abraham to Jesus. I think that it is a small amount, because in two thousand years I would expect seventy to one hundred generations. And in the first thousand years from Abraham to David the times between generations were extraordinary long: only 14 generations in thousand years. The fathers were old men of 70 to 80 years when the sons were born. But I know that even in one family the time from generation to generation can vary a lot: I myself became father in the age of 41 years; my brother became grandfather in the age of 41 years. The genealogy presented by Matthew  bases more on men becoming fathers in their forties and fifties than those becoming grandfathers in that age. Anyway, there are questions and also doubts this genealogy gives us.

If and when so, what is then the value and the aim and the purpose of this genealogy presented by  St. Matthew? What good news does he tell with this very beginning of his gospel?

The first answers are already in the title Matthew has given to this part of his report on Jesus of Nazareth: “Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham”. He introduces Jesus as the Christ, the Anointed, the Messiah. In the main character of his book the messianic expectations of the holy  people are fulfilled. The coming Messiah was expected as the Son of David, that is as the king who sets the people free, but in some traditions he was also expected as the Son of Abraham who would fulfil the promises God gave Abraham: through Abraham’s offspring all the nations would be blessed! So Matthew, a Jew by birth, shows that Jesus is not only the Messiah who establishes the Kingdom for Jews but One who is blessing for all the nations. Jesus, the Messiah, the Christ, is the fulfilment of the kingdom promises to David and of the Gentile-blessing promises to Abraham!

Jesus, the Christ — or Jesus Christ? “Christ”, “khristos” is the Greek translation of the Hebrew “Messiah”; so it is actually an attribute, but already very early in the Christian tradition it became a noun, a name. We can see that already in the earliest Christian texts we know, in the letters of Apostle Paul. The attribute, the name shows that God has chosen this Jesus ben-Josef, this Jesus, son of Josef — and God has chosen him in a greater way than he thousand years earlier had chosen David, and still thousand years earlier had chosen Abraham.

It is not only through the titles “Son of David” and “Son of Abraham” God lets Matthew show that Jesus is the Messiah for all the nations, Jews and gentiles alike. In the twelve tribes of Israel David belonged to the tribe of Judah, and so it would have been sufficient to say that Jacob was the father of Judah. But Matthew says more: Jacob, the father of Judah and his brothers. So the coming kingdom covers all the tribes of Israel, and that is enough for the Son of David. 

But then Matthew mentions four women: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and Solomons mother, who “had been Uriah’s wife”. What they have in common is that they all were gentiles, aliens either by birth — Tamar, Rahab and Ruth — or through the former marriage: Uriah was Hittite, so his wife Bathesda could also have been counted as gentile, although she was Israelite by birth. Already in the genealogy of the Christ there are gentiles. He is the Christ for gentiles, too. He is Son of Abraham, through him all the nations would be blessed.

I have already earlier made a remark on the number of generations in those two millenniums from Abraham to Jesus. The exact number Matthew gives in the last sentence of this passage is three times fourteen. That brings us into the world of numbers. Certain numbers have been and are seen as of special value, when not even as holy numbers. Among those special numbers are three and seven. Here we have a list of three periods, each of them including two times seven generations. But we can see it even in a more obvious way: In Hebrew like in many other languages letters have also numeric value. In Hebrew D is 4, and V is 6. And in Hebrew there are no vocals. You can write 14 with 4, 6, and once more 4, that is with D, V, and D again. You have then 14 or you have the name David. 

The first set of 14 generations leads from people in exile to the most remarkable and most important king of the nation. It is a way upwards. The second set goes to another direction: they kings, but son was usually worse than father, they were less and less keen on keeping the covenant with God, and so God led them into exile. And the third set: little, if nothing is known of them. Descendants of kings but now ordinary men. Still this is a way upwards, and this way leads higher than the way from Abraham to David, how was the king of a nation. This way leads to the King of all the nations, to the Christ, in whom all the nations are blessed!

Today we celebrate Christmas. But why do we celebrate Christmas? Because we commemorate and celebrate the birth of Christ Jesus, our Saviour, our Redeemer, for two thousand years ago. But why do we do that? What was the reason for good news that John says so shortly: “And the Word became flesh”? Why did the Word become flesh? The Word who was eternal. The Word who lived in the glory of God. The Word, “eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father; through whom all things were made” — why did he become flesh?

When God the Almighty created the human race through his own Word, He meant that we, men and women created in his image, would live in with him, that we would obey his will. But through the first man, Adam, the sin came into the world and ruined our lives. Adam lost the union with God for all generations, and since then we, corrupted men and women, live in a corrupted and imperfect world. The fall of Adam caused a huge gap between God and us, and because of that we do not even recognize  our Creator any more. We lost a big part of our identity as we, in the fall of Adam, lost the knowledge of God.

God knows how limited we are, we who belong to the creation once so perfect, then so corrupted through the sin. And He does not want us to stay without knowledge of Him and His eternal and glorious reality. So He gave thousands of years ago three ways, three possibilities to learn to know Him. We could look at the limitless skies and meditate the harmony of creation and so reach the Ruler of the creation, Father’s Word. But should that not work, should we not be capable for that, we could discuss with holy men and in those discussions we could learn to know God. But should that not work either, we could more and more obey the laws God has given u and begin tho lead a better life. In this third way the Law and prophets are the school for the knowledge of God.

And God had a look on his creation and He saw that the human race and the whole creation was corrupt. Death and corruption held us more and more strongly in their hands, and the human race was about to be vanished totally. Should God not interfere, the image of God, meant to reflect His love, would disappear. God’s work would vanish, His love would be in vain.

God saw how all kind of evil was raising against us. He saw that we would not be able to save ourselves from death. He saw that we are not able to build any bridge over the gap of sin that separates us from God. God’s Word understood that the corruption could  be overcome through death only, through His death. But He, the Word, the immortal Son of the Father could not die! He loves us, but he in order to realize his love and save us he should be mortal, he should be able to die. In his death everyone and everything would die, and the death would be overcome. His death would set people free from death.

And the Word became flesh, God was born into human nature, in order to be able to die for all and save the human race through the resurrection. For us, because of his love for us, the Word became flesh, and the death lost its power.

God wanted and wants us, corrupted people by our nature, to be born into a new life, and he enables that rebirth by overcoming the corruption and the death; then he renews us in His image. That is why the Word became flesh. The Word came into this world, and in Him the perfect image of God was shown. He made his dwelling among us, and through him people learned, we learn to know the Father, the Creator.

So, why did the Word became flesh, why was God born into human nature? The great creed, the Nicene creed states: “For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven, / was incarnate from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary / and was made man.” Because of his love the Word became flesh, because of his love God was born into human nature. And having become flesh, mortal, he set us free from death and sin and renewed us. He, the invisible, became visible and revealed himself as Father’s Word, as the Ruler and King over the whole creation.

So, this is why we celebrate Christmas: for us and for our salvation the Word became flesh, the Love of God took on our nature and came into the world. For us and for our salvation, because of God’s love for us we celebrate Christmas.