09 Advent-second Sunday

FROM LUTHER’S PRAYERS: In order that your kingdom may come and increase, bring all blinded sinners and those held captive by the devil to the knowledge of true faith in Jesus Christ. Make the number of souls in Christendom great. Amen.

SECOND SUNDAY of

FROM LUTHER’S SMALL CATECHISM: The Third Petition of The Lord’s Prayer: Your will be done, on earth as in heaven. What is this? In fact, God’s good and gracious will comes about without our prayer, but we ask in this prayer that it may also come about in and among us. How does this come about? Whenever God breaks and hinders every evil scheme and will of the devil, the world, and our flesh that would not allow us to hallow God’s name and would prevent the coming of his kingdom. And God’s will comes about whenever God strengthens us and keeps us steadfast in his Word and in faith until the end of our lives. This is God’s gracious and good will.

Stir up our hearts, O Lord, to prepare the way for your only Son. By his coming give us strength in our conflicts and shed light on our path through the darkness of this world; through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with

you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. .GOSPEL: Luke 3:1-6 In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, 2 during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zachariah in the wilderness. 3 He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, 4 and as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah, “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. 5 Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways smooth, 6 and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’”

SECOND READING: Philippians 1:3-11 I thank my God every time I remember you, 4 constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you, 5 because of your sharing in the gospel from the first day until now. 6 I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ. 7 It is right for me to think this way about all of you, because you hold me in your heart, for all of you share in God’s grace with me, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. 8 For God is my witness, how I long for all of you with the compassion of Christ Jesus. 9 And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight 10 to help you to determine what is best, so that in the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless, 11 having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN ? I am confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. Philippians i. 6. Such is a Christian heart and such is its appearance and form, as St. Paul says in these words, namely, that from the bottom of his heart he is thrilled and delighted and gives thanks to God that others are coming into the fellowship of the Gospel; and he is full of confidence towards those who have begun to believe and takes their salvation to heart, and rejoices in it as much as in his own salvation and does not know how to thank God enough for it. He asks God unceasingly that he may live to see many come with him into that fellowship, and to keep in it until that day of the Lord Jesus Christ, who will perfect all things and make whole what is deficient here, and that they may remain unobjectionable in such faith and hope until they reach that selfsame joyful day. This speaks the Apostle as he pours out the bottom of his heart, filled with the rich and wondrous fruit if his spirit and faith, which is all on fire with joy and happiness when he sees that the Gospel is understood, accepted, and honored, and so filled with love for the Church that he knows of nothing higher to wish her and to ask of God than that she may increase and abide in the Gospel. He regards it as so great and precious a treasure when men can hear the Word of God and keep it. Sermon on the third Sunday after. Trinity, 1544.

W.A. 12. 35f.

Taken from the book: Day by Day We Magnify Thee Page 388

by Martin Luther