Saint George's Anglican Church

                                                        The Sunday Next Before Advent, 2009

                        In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

We hear of a great King in this morning’s Lesson – a King Who shall “reign and prosper’; a King Who shall ‘execute judgement and justice in the earth, and Who shall gather together God’s people from all the places they had been scattered by unfaithfulness and by war. This King will be so good that he will be given the title, ‘THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS’.

There is a lot in that Name: ‘THE LORD’ means ‘the Ruler’ and the ‘One Who possesses supreme power’. The next word, although little, is very important in this King’s title – it is the word ‘OUR’. This One with all authority is for the commoner. He will do something for His people that they cannot do for themselves. The last word, ‘RIGHTEOUSNESS’ is a bit of a puzzle. What is righteousness? Well, it contains the words ‘right’ and ‘righteous’; and these speak to us about the standard and character of this King’s behavior and policy. What I mean is, that if something is ‘right’ it must be so according to a accepted standard. If someone says the right answer, it is the ‘true’ answer; it is not the wrong one. So, this King will provide His people with what is true and right – that means that He will deliver them from what is wrong.

‘THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS’…let’s go a little further with this title. There is a very important thing to be understood here. To say, ‘THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS” is like saying ‘THE LORD IS OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS’. In other words, we are only righteous through Him, or because of Him. What does that mean? It means that He has actually made me different….He has not just shown me the right way, pointed me in the right direction, and said, ‘Good luck, work hard, and stay on this good path.’ No. To say, ‘THE LORD IS OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS’ means that He has taken me out of the wrong and set me in what is right and good and holy.

As you may have guessed already, the King in today’s Lesson is a type or pre-figuring of the Lord Jesus Christ, our righteousness. So when we say that, we mean that without Him we would still be without any hope. We would be living in the darkness and despair of our selfishness. We would still be the enemies of God, estranged from Him and condemned to die eternally because of our sins. Do you see, then, the difference and the relief we have in being able to say with confidence, ‘THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS’? His righteousness brings us deliverance and salvation. And that is the point: it is HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS, not ours. Although we may strive to be good and holy and righteous; although we may want to live according to the Truth, we simply cannot without Christ. If He had not come from Heaven and made Himself our Substitute, dying in our place, and rising again for us, we could not know what is right, let alone do it. And so we say before receiving the Holy Communion: “We do not presume to come to this thy Table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in Thy manifold and great mercies.”

As you may know, all of this neatly illustrated by an old Church custom at Baptisms. It used to be, that, before the child or adult, was baptized, they would strip down to the bare necessities, and be completely immersed three times in the water. Even a baby would be fully dunked, head and feet, the Minister carefully covering the child’s nose and mouth. Then, after that, the newly baptized would be dressed in  white – in their ‘Christening dress’ as some families have. The point of that was to signify that, through this act or Sacrament, by God’s goodness, the person had been justified, or made righteous. They had been delivered from the power of darkness and sin and all the forces of hell. Now they had been made Divinely adopted and made the child of God. It was something completel;y by God’s righteousness and mercy and not because of any goodness on our part.

And how did God defeat Satan and the dark-side for us? Today’s Gospel reminds us: throughJesus,  the Lamb of God. In other words, God, in Christ, came Himself to take the consequences of all our sins. As a lamb goes to the butcher’s shop, so the Lord Jesus went to the Cross and was killed for us. He accepted a debt that would have kept us from the Kingdom of Heaven forever. He accepted it and paid it by dying for us.  And He erased that debt and its power by rising from the grave. And now through Baptism, He shares with us His victory and the new life.

Next Sunday brings to us the First Sunday in Advent, and we look further for Christ our coming King, our Righteousness. As Christians, thie Advent Season calls us to look beyond this world. As we heard last week, our citizenship is in Heaven. All around us, as comfortable and familiar as it is, is temporary. The Lord our Righteousness calls us to what is everlasting. So then, like St. Andrew, one of the two in this morning’s Gospel, let us follow Him.