Come to Save Us
Psalm 80:1-7
Christmas time is
a time of traditions. The songs of the
Christmas season bring back memories of Christmas celebrations often when we
were children. The tradition of giving
presents reminds of the great gift that we have through the gift of the Christ
Child. We are also reminded of the gifts
that were brought by the Wise Men to the young child Jesus. Of course, one of the great traditions of
Christmas time is the food that is prepared from recipes that are passed down
from generation to generation.
One woman told
her pastor as she was leaving church on the First Sunday in Advent that when
she hears the words of the Collect for that Sunday, which begins with the words
of our text, “Stir up your might, O Lord and come,” she knows that it is time
to start baking her Christmas cookies.
The pastor looked a bit confused so she explained that when you say,
“Stir up,” it’s time for me to stir up my ingredients.
All of the
Christmas traditions help us to remember Christmas celebrations of the past and
they tie us to the generations that have gone before us. They also have special meaning because they
generally have some connection to the real meaning of this time of the
year. We are starting a new church year
and we are focusing on the birth of the Christ Child. This was the fulfillment of the prophecies
about the coming of the One who would bring salvation to the world. To really appreciate the significance of the
coming of the Son of God into the world, you have to look at what the people of
the Old Testament thought about God’s promise of a Savior. It was something that God’s people had been
looking forward to for centuries so a passage like the Psalm that we read
together this evening helps us to see what they thought. It shows us how God was preparing their
hearts for the time when the Savior would come.
As we consider these words for a few moments tonight, may we come away
with a better understanding of what the coming of Jesus meant for the people of
ancient times but also what His coming means for us today as well.
Back to the
words, “Stir up your might (or power) and come to save us.” This was the cry of the people of Israel to be
saved. At first that might sound strange
to us when we think of the children of Israel as God’s chosen people. Why would they need to be saved? The truth was that even though they were
God’s chosen people, their hearts were far from the Lord. They had fallen away from Him. They had adopted the pagan worship of their
neighbors. They were a rebellious
people. In order to bring them back to
their senses and to the worship of the true God, they were punished as God sent
foreign powers like the Assyrians to conquer their land. The Psalm mentioned the tribes of Ephraim,
Benjamin and Manasseh. These made up the
Northern Kingdom of Israel and they were the ones who were conquered
first. Some of the people had fled south
to Jerusalem
and it is thought that this Psalm came from that time period. They were asking God to stir up his might and
come to save them. It is a fitting
passage for the Advent season because it calls upon God to come and save
us. The coming of the Lord is what the
Advent season is all about. We celebrate
the coming of the Savior with repentant and joyful hearts because we know that
His coming meant that God’s plan for our salvation had been carried out when
His only Son came down from heaven to save us.
Our Christmas joy is meaningless if it is not grounded in the fact that
God heard the prayers of His people and sent His only Son in power and might to
defeat sin, death and the power of the devil.
This 80th
Psalm is still an appropriate Psalm for the people of God to use as a
prayer. Even though you might consider yourself
part of God’s chosen people by virtue of
your Baptism, you still may find yourself in situations where you need God’s
help. You still may find yourself
straying from the truth of God’s Word in favor of the philosophies and
practices of the world around you. Isn’t
it interesting how in every age, the ways of the world seem so attractive to
God’s people that they are tempted to follow after them. That’s how the devil works. For the children of Israel , it was
the practices of the pagans who lived around them that seemed like so much more
fun than the constant bringing of sacrifices to make atonement for their
sins. Today, it always seems to us that
the unbelieving world has a lot more fun that those who try to follow God’s
ways. Philosophies are planted in our
head through the various worldly media that you deserve to have fun. Go to Sin City
Your only hope is
to look to God and His mercy to be saved from the downward spiral that will
eventually leave you in the deepest depths in hell. In
God’s plan for your rescue, He did send down His only Son to become like
us. He took on human form so that He
could live under the same law that God had established for His people. Because He is true God, the Son could keep
that Law perfectly for you. He endured
all of the temptations that you face. He
was tempted by the same basic temptations that come to all people. Yet He resisted them in order to do the
Father’s will. He truly did lead a
perfect life in your place. He then
allowed Himself to be brutally beaten and nailed to a cross as the punishment
for your sins. Then in His almighty
power, He rose from the grave to demonstrate that the power of the grave could
not keep Him. As a result, His victory
becomes your victory and you are saved.
You are saved
because your heavenly Father declares you righteous. You are justified by God’s grace, His
undeserved love for you. He does this
because Jesus came down and lived that perfect life and died on the cross in
your place. The blessings of all of that
become yours through faith, through believing and trusting that what Jesus did
was for you. Even the faith to believe
and trust comes from the power of the Holy Spirit. Remember the words that Martin Luther used to
start the Explanation of the Third Article of the Apostle’s Creed, “I believe that I cannot by my own reason or
strength believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to Him, but the Holy Spirit
has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept
me in the true faith.” He did stir up
His might and power and come to save you.
You also need to remember that He will come again some day in all His
power and glory and will judge the world in righteousness. He will take all believers to their heavenly
home. That is why we can still pray the
prayer in the Psalm, “Stir up your power and come to save us.”
As you prepare to
celebrate the birth of Jesus once again this year, may you keep your mind
focused on the blessings that Jesus came to bring. May you resist the temptation to let the
things of this world became so important that you forget that you are still
waiting for Jesus to come down again.
May His second coming be a time of joyful anticipation as you look
forward to the eternal peace and unending joy that will be yours in His
presence. It is all possible because of
what was accomplished for you at His first coming. That gives you hope. It gives you peace. It gives you joy as you celebrate with your
family and friends at home and in church the coming of the Lord to save. Amen.
Rev. Gerald Matzke
Zion Lutheran Church
Painesville, Ohio
December 3, 2014
Mid-Week Advent Service
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