Our Walk with God

A Sermon on Isaiah 2:1-5, Romans 13:11-14, and Matthew 21:1-11 for the First Sunday in Advent, Series A, 2022

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. “How is your walk with God?” I remember the first time I was asked this I had no clue what it meant. I mean, I recognized it as a churchy phrase. This is something Christians say. Like, “How are you?” and, “The weather is sure nice today.” It’s small talk. And probably something no one meant to be explored too deeply. How’s your walk with God? It’s good. Things are going good. Whether that’s true or not, that the answer we give.

However, the Bible talks a whole lot more about walking that we ever gave it credit for. Take our Old Testament lesson today for example. “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” Did you hear the Hebrew word for walk, ‘הלכ’ (halach) all three times? What? Only once? We end up translating the word for ‘walk’ as ‘come,’ or ‘go,’ instead, so we don’t see it like we ought. But we can get the gist of it.“All the nations shall flow to [the house of the Lord], and many peoples shall come….” “O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord.” 

But don’t forget where we walk. Again, we don’t like to use the same word in English repeatedly. So ‘דרכ’ (darach) comes over as road, or way, or path, or highway. But ‘highway’ is next week’s Gospel lesson. But when we read that we go up in order “that He may teach us His ways,” We haven’t usually understand that literally, but we should. God ways are not just how He does stuff. It’s where He walks. And He wants to show that to us. In fact, walking is so big and so everywhere in the Bible that we tend to just overlook it. Like breathing. You only think about it when you’re told. 

Yet if walking in God’s ways, God’s paths were natural to us sinful people, then Paul wouldn’t say what he does in our Epistle lesson today. “Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy.” He doesn’t say these things unless that is where our feet tend to take us. And if for any reason that list doesn’t hit you, Paul continues, “[M]ake no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.” Which is what we all spend our whole lives doing! So when we say that our walk with God is good, what we really mean behind the mask, is that we haven’t been walking with God at all. We’ve made our path in the darkness. And we don’t know how far away it will carry us. 

Our sin is a great danger to us. It is a trap. A pit in the middle of the road. But when we walk in darkness, we can’t see it. When we fall into it, we can find no way out. When that pit is our grave, only death awaits us. And where we are buried, no one would find us. Not in the darkness. And yet that is where we prefer to work. We don’t want anyone to see our sin, so it is covered. We don’t want anyone to find our shameful acts, so we remove every source of light. We do make provisions for ourselves, that we not be caught in the act. But there is nothing hidden that will not be revealed. Our Lord is light. And where He goes, all is seen. Even the things we’ve buried in the darkness. 

That is not where we should be walking! We should not be going to make ready our sin. We should not come to the place where our sin is fed. Whatever the sin we struggle with is, and you know yours, we must move ourselves away from being able to indulge in it whenever our flesh desires it. Yet, over and over, that is exactly where we find ourselves. We cannot escape it alone. We need help.

And that is where our Gospel lesson comes in. Jesus, entering triumphantly into Jerusalem. Who is walking with Jesus? His disciples certainly, including Peter who would deny Him, and Judas who would betray Him. Crowds, going before Him, and following after Him, walking. And what did they all say? Hosanna. What does ‘hosanna’ mean? It does not mean praise. It does not mean glory. It does not mean joy. It is an imperative in Hebrew. A command which they gave to Jesus. When they cried out ‘hosanna,’ they told Him, “Save us!” Save us. Save us. That’s what it means to walk with Jesus. 

Jesus tells His disciples right before going to His cross that, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Jesus is the way. Jesus is the road. Jesus is the path upon which we walk. You can’t see the pit of sin in the darkness. But the lighted path which is Jesus bridges over our sin, leading onward to eternal life. Yes, the light of Christ obliterates the darkness that hides our sin, revealing it to all. But that same light also obliterates our sin as well. The path on cloaks and palms upon which Jesus walked in our Gospel lesson is the road to His cross. Where all the sin that He collected from the world, from you and me, is crucified with Him. Dies with Him. Is buried with Him. On that tree hangs the path upon which we walk. On that tree hangs Jesus Christ, Savior of the world. He has heard our cries of ‘hosanna’ and by His blood, He has indeed saved us.

So those sins of ours which were previously hidden, sins which we gravitate towards so easily are now brought into the light of Christ. Only with Christ by our side, and by receiving forgiveness from Him are we at all able to reject the flesh and its desires. Only by the faith created in our hearts by Christ are we now able to begin to cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light, as Paul puts it. We wear Christ, we walk upon Christ. We are baptized into Christ. We now know that it is not necessary to make provisions for our the darkness, not necessary to make plans to accommodate our sins. We have someone stronger than the Old Adam who lives in us. We have Jesus, who is the Light of the world. Who is the House of the Lord, the temple of His body being raised from the dead on the third day. And He has brought us out of darkness and into His marvelous light. 

Advent is the season to celebrate Christ’s arrival, Christ’s coming to us. We will be looking at His way, His path, His walk to come to us. But because He has walked to us, we are now able to walk with Him. Give Him our sin. Let Him be our path. Let Him be our light. Because without Jesus Christ, we have none of those things. But with Him, we have all things good.

Therefore let us sing with this morning’s Psalm, “I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the LORD!” Our feet have been standing within your gates, O Jerusalem!” Let us say with the prophet Isaiah, “O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the LORD.” Let us speak with Paul, “The night is far gone; the day is at hand.” And let us shout with all those who walked with Jesus, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” For our Lord has indeed saved us by His perfect sacrifice. And because of that, we now walk with God all the days of our life. Thanks be to God.