“Savior of the Nations, Come!”
Genesis 3:8-15

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Pastor Kevin Vogts
Trinity Lutheran Church
Paola, Kansas
Second Sunday in Advent—December 4, 2022

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.

I don’t normally reuse old sermons, but on this occasion, as we mark my retirement at the end of the year, I hope you’ll allow me to do so.  Because, today’s sermon is actually the first sermon that I ever wrote and preached, as a first-year seminarian, 40 years ago in December, 1982.   I should warn you that my homiletics professor only gave me a B+!

“The Prophets Have Foretold It” is the theme of our Advent Sermon Series this year, looking at some of the amazing Old Testament prophecies of the Messiah’s birth, including today’s Old Testament Reading, the story from Genesis of man’s fall into sin, and God’s first promise to send a Savior.

“Adam, Adam, where are you?”  With those plaintive words God called out to fallen man.  The Lord had created the heavens and the earth with the words, “Let it be. . . ” And with the words, “Let us make man in our image” he had created Adam and Eve, perfect, holy, righteous, free from sin.

“And the Lord God planted a garden in the east, in Eden.”  There Adam and Even lived in perfect harmony, with each other and with God.  He placed only one restriction on them: “You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden. . . or you will die.”

“Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made.”  “You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman.  And she and the man both ate the forbidden fruit.

“Adam, Adam, where are you?  Eve, Eve, what have you done?”  They had broken their perfect fellowship with God.  They knew they had sinned, and now for the first time they were afraid of God’s anger.  In fear they cowered in the bushes, trying to hide from the Almighty God.

And they had also broken their perfect fellowship with each other.  The human race would no longer live in harmony.  When confronted with his sin Adam replied, “The woman you put here with me, SHE gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”

Adam and Eve had died, just as God said they would if they ate of the tree.  That day they died spiritually.  Their holiness was destroyed and their perfect relation with God shattered.  Later they died physically, something that would never happen in Eden.  Adam and Eve had lost their paradise.  And not only Adam and Eve.  As one of our hymns puts it: “In Adam we have all been one, one huge rebellious man; we all have fled the voice of God that sought us as we ran.”

For, we too have heeded the words of the crafty serpent, the Devil, when he has come to us tempting, “The Lord God did not really say, ‘Thou shalt not. . . ’”  “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord, thy God, in vain; Thou shalt not commit adultery; Thou shalt not steal; Thou shalt not bear false witness; Thou shalt not covet.”

Or, when the crafty serpent has come to us tempting, “The Lord God did not really say, ‘Thou shalt. . . ’”  “Thou shalt honor thy father and thy mother; Thou shalt have no other gods before me; Thou shalt remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy.’”

We too have sinned, and in our shame we have tried to hide from God’s anger like Adam and Eve.  We do not hide in the bushes, we are too advanced for that.  We hide behind a phony smile, a more-or-less respectable life, a self-righteous shout that says, “I have done nothing wrong.”

We too try to pass our guilt onto someone else.  Adam was not the last man to say, “It’s my wife’s fault.”  We chime in with him and add: “It’s my parents’ fault, my children’s fault, my husband’s fault, society’s fault, the government’s fault—anyone’s fault, but not my fault.”  Finally, like Adam, who said to God accusingly, “The woman YOU put here with me. . .”  we likewise point our finger at God and say, “It is your fault.”

We too have died.  We are now dead spiritually, full of sin and separated from God.  And we will all die physically, something now inevitable for us all outside of paradise.  “For the wages of sin is death.”   As John the Baptist warns in today’s Gospel Reading, “The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.”

A hopeless situation it seems.  And yet God gave Adam and Eve reason to hope.  They listened in, as the Lord said to the serpent: “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all the livestock and all the wild animals!  You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life.  And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your descendants and her Descendant.  He will crush your head, and you will bruise his heel.”

In these words God proclaimed his victory over Satan.  For, here he gave to the human race the first Gospel.  He promised to send a Savior, born of woman, the mighty Messiah who would crush Satan, defeat his wicked power, destroy his cursed kingdom.  Through this Savior, God would restore the paradise that had been lost.  “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your descendants and her Descendant.  He will crush your head, and you will bruise his heel.”

In anticipation, Adam and Eve cried out, “Savior, Savior, where are you?”  They expected the Savior would come immediately.  Eve knew the Savior would be born of a woman, so when she had her first child she exclaimed, “I have gotten a man—the LORD!”  She thought that her firstborn was the promised Savior, the Lord himself coming in human flesh to save his people from their sins.

Generations later the Messiah still had not come, and the patriarch Abraham cried out, “Savior, Savior, where are you?”  God reaffirmed his promise, telling Abraham: “Through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed.”

Seven hundred years before Christ’s birth, the distressed nation of Israel longingly cried out, “Savior, Savior, where are you?”  The Lord strengthened their hope when he inspired Isaiah to prophesy: “Unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given. . . and he shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.”

Near the advent of the promised one, the expectant people cried out, “Savior, Savior, where are you?”  God had the prophet Micah write: “But you, Bethlehem Ephratah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me One who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.”

As a faithful Hebrew longing for the promised Messiah, the Virgin Mary cried out, “Savior, Savior, where are you?”  And the angel announced she herself would be the blessed woman from whom the Messiah would be born into the world: “You will be with child and give birth to a Son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”

The shepherds abiding in the fields, keeping watch over their flocks by night cried out, “Savior, Savior, where are you?”  “And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them. . .  And the angel said unto them, ‘Fear not; for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.  For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord’ . . .  And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.’”

The long-awaited Savior had come!  He would now defeat Satan.  But, as he was being crushed, the old snake would strike out, and bite, and bruise the Savior’s heel.  “He was pierced for our transgressions and wounded for our iniquities.”  The promised Savior was rejected and crucified by the very people he came to save.  But, the poison of Satan could not hold him.  Three days later the stone fell from the door of the tomb, and under its weight that old serpent the Devil was crushed.

“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.” God’s favor rests upon mankind.  Because of his Son’s life, death, and resurrection, God has forgiven us all our sins.  The long-expected Savior who was promised so long ago has come and crushed the serpent’s head.  Soon he will come again, and for us who trust in him paradise will be restored, for all eternity.

St.  Paul says in today’s Epistle Reading, “Everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.”  As we kneel at the manger this Advent, we say in the words of one of today’s Communion hymns: “What the fathers most desired, what the prophets’ heart inspired, what they longed for many a year, stands fulfilled in glory, here.”