Matthew 3:1-11 (2nd Sunday in Advent)
St. John, Galveston 12/7/25
“The Lord is Nigh – 
the Kingdom of Heaven is At Hand”
 
+ In Nomine Jesu +
 
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Amen.
 
    Now the Lord is nigh, come let us adore. The voice of one crying in the wilderness prepares the way…”Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” “Prepare the way of the Lord; Make His paths straight.”  The Lord is nigh – the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. “Cleansed (then) be every life from sin; Make straight the way for God within, and let us all our hearts prepare, For Christ to come and enter there.”    
 
    While philosophers and dreamers strive to define the kingdom of heaven in their own fanciful terms, the Apostle Matthew described it in terms of Christ Jesus and His presence. That is to say, where Jesus is, there is the Kingdom of heaven, or as the Apostle’s Mark and Luke have it, where Jesus is, there is the Kingdom of God.   
 
    The finger of God is more powerful than the prince of darkness and of the demons he commands, and where Jesus is there is the Kingdom of God, there is the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus said, “anyone who does not receive the kingdom like a little child will never enter it.” And so the children sing of the heaven that their simple faith comprehends…“ Heaven is a wonderful place, filled with glory and grace. I want to see my Savior’s face because heaven is a wonderful place.” Even a child, Luther said, can comprehend the Word of God, that is the message of salvation in Christ Jesus, the promise of an eternal home where sin and sorrow, pain and grief, and yes, even death, have been swallowed up in victory.       
 
    Put aside then morbid and hopeless conceptions of the kingdom of heaven. Heaven is not the place from which “tears are falling down,” as the country song suggests. Nor is it the place from which those who have gone before us in the faith look down on us with wanting eyes, and sorrowful hearts. Heaven is the place of completeness and perfection, it is the place where sin is no more, and where sins tears and sorrow are wiped away by the hand of God, yes, even by the hand that was once pierced for those sins.  Heaven is the place where saint looks upon saint and they find their joy and their bliss to be in the presence of Christ and in an eternal union that could never take place in this life, that is, beneath this vale of tears. Heaven is the place where faith and hope prove unnecessary, and where love proves itself the greatest and the most sublime gift of God.   
 
    “Heaven,” as the children’s song says, “is a wonderful place, filled with glory and grace,” indeed, because it is filled with the glory and the grace of the crucified and risen Christ. The Apostle John wrote, “I saw the New Jerusalem (that is heaven), and I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city had no need of the sun or of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God illuminated it. The Lamb is its light.”    
 
    The Lord is nigh -- the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. Where Jesus is, there is the Kingdom of Heaven. And so, the heaven in which you shall dwell eternally is the heaven that you first entered into when Christ Jesus became the source and the hope of your life. The Kingdom of heaven is near. Though now, we see it only dimly as in a mirror, through the water of Holy Baptism our sins have been washed away through the merits of Jesus cross. Though we came to that font stained, soiled, fit for an eternal hell, we left there bearing the radiance of Jesus’ righteousness and purity. We were cleansed, such that we are now destined for a place filled with glory and grace, the place of which children sing with such joy.     
 
    The Lord is nigh – the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. We see it, again, although dimly, in the bread and the wine that touches our sin parched lips week after week. For here it is ever so much more than bread and wine that touches our lips. Where Christ Jesus is, you see, there is the Kingdom of Heaven. Here, at this altar is the Kingdom of Heaven, for here, at this altar is the King of Heaven, whose body was broken for you, and whose blood was shed for you. You Lutherans, some will say, are too dogmatic, that is, you are too insistent about the doctrines of the Christian faith, like whether or not the body and blood of Jesus are truly present in the Lord’s Supper. But, these things, my friends, are not insignificant matters, nor are they peripheral to the core of our faith. Rather, these things are of the essence of the Gospel. The Kingdom of Heaven is where Christ is. This is the Gospel of forgiveness, of hope, of life and of salvation, and we will not allow the Gospel to be taken from us, nor, by God’s grace, will we allow it to slip through our fingers.   
 
    In time, the dim vale over our eyes will be lifted and we will see, in all of its fullness, the reality of the heavenly kingdom. When our eyes close in death, and reopen, it will not be so much as in a place, but rather, before a person, the very Son of God, the crucified and risen Lord, whose glory will illuminate our eternity.  Yes, 
 
“Let at last Your angels come, 
To Abraham’s bosom bear me home, 
That I may die unfearing.
Within my earthen chamber keep
My body safe in peaceful sleep
Until Your reappearing.
And then from death awaken me
That my own eyes with joy may see,
O Son of God, Your glorious face,
My Savior and my ground of grace!
Lord Jesus Christ, Oh, hear my prayer;
Oh, hear my prayer,
Your love surround me everywhere!”
 
    Until the day that our eyes close in death, one calls out to us from the wilderness, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.” Repentance, you see, is a necessary part of our remaining within this kingdom of heaven, within this realm of Jesus and His grace. It isn’t however that our repentance is meritorious, that is, that it earns us any favor before God, rather, it is repentance that is the acknowledgement, the confession, if you will, of our utter dependence on this One who brings with Him an eternal kingdom, our eternal home.    
 
    A now sainted professor from the Fort Wayne Seminary once wrote a list of Homiletical maxims, that is, of preaching maxims, rules, I suppose you would say of good Law / Gospel, Biblical preaching. Within his list are some seemingly obvious points like “Stand up quickly, open your mouth, and quit soon.” Other points stress the absolute necessity of the Gospel of Christ in the lives of people. He draws then upon Romans 1:14 “Both to the Greeks and to the barbarians, both to the wise and the simple, I am a debtor to preach the Gospel.”   
 
    Well, sort of buried within his list of preaching maxims is this little phrase, “If you can’t preach repentance, you can preach nothing.” From the wilderness the voice still cries out “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.” Confess your sin to God, my friends, whether that sin is rooted in doubt, or in fear, or in anger, or in lust, or greed. Confess your sin to God, that is to say, claim it as your own, that as He comes to you as the Lord who is nigh, He may receive from you what is yours, that He may give to you what is His. “If you can’t preach repentance, you can preach nothing.”  Repentance is part of the heart and the voice of the child of God.
 
    But, you know, I would add to the sainted professors list of maxim’s “If you can’t preach the blood and forgiveness of Jesus, you can preach nothing.” Some of you here this morning hear the call to repentance and you struggle to get past that confession of your sins to the joy of God’s word of absolution. For sure, we not only DO wrong, but we ARE wrong at the core of our very being. And yet, there is Christ, the King of Heaven.  Come to Me, He says, and I will give you rest. Rest, my friends, in the absolution that only Christ could win…the Lord is nigh…and He says through His servant…”I forgive you all of your sins.”     
 
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus unto life everlasting.  Amen.
 
+ Soli Deo Gloria +