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In Isaiah 62, verses six and following, God reminds us that in making us--and making us His--He has made us watchmen on the walls of Jerusalem. Watchmen watch.
Watch! That's the watchword for Advent, the season we will be entering anew before this month is up--if you can believe it!--entering a new church year. Watch for Advent! Watch for the agenda of Advent and Christmas services appearing elsewhere in this e-publication and soon to be published in our weekly bulletins. Watch for the theme of this year's festival services, "The Mystery Revealed".
Watch! That's what watchmen do. Watchmen watch for the King, their God and Lord, and they watch out for fellow residents.
Here Jerusalem is the Church and we're all watchmen whom the Lord has made so and placed on the Church's walls and in her ramparts and watchtowers. To this we were not so much born as reborn--in the waters of Holy Baptism, in the womb of our mother, the bride of Christ, the Church, in the baptismal font. For this we were formed--in the crucible of catechism.
To this holy vocation our Lord has both called and committed us in the Sacrament of Initiation, even as He has incorporated us as members of the very Church over which He has placed us as watchmen by way of the same sacred act.
Review with me the exhortation which the Lord of the Church addresses to all watchmen in the Rite of Holy Baptism, as it pertains both to their membership privileges and to their responsibilities to the Lord and their fellow members.
"After this child has been baptized" and thereby incorporated as a lively stone in the upbuilding of the Church whose foundation is the blessed Prophets and holy Apostles and whose Cornerstone is Christ, "you are at all times to remember him in your prayers, put him in mind of his baptism", that precious mortar which joins stone to stone and the whole sacred edifice to Christ her Head, "and as much as in you lies, give your counsel and aid, especially if he should lose his parents", God's chief building medium, "that he be brought up in the true knowledge and worship of God and be taught the Ten Commandments, the Creed, and the Lord's Prayer, and that, as he grows in years, you place in his hands the Holy Scriptures, bring him to the services of God's house, and provide for his further instruction in the Christian faith, that he come to the Sacrament of Christ's Body and Blood and thus, abiding in his baptismal grace and in communion with the Church, he may grow up to lead a godly life to the praise and honor of Jesus Christ." This, then, you intend gladly and willingly to do?
Thus God commends us watchmen--watchmen He has made such by means of this same Rite of Initiation and Sacrament of Incorporation, this blessed Baptism. Thus God commits us to our vigil, empowered with His vigilance. Prompted by His Spirit, the Initiator and Incorporator, "Yes!", we reply. Yes, this we intend gladly and willingly to do, so help us God, as God is our Witness!
Inasmuch as we're born anew in the font of Holy Baptism and formed afresh in the forge of God's Word, in the holy fires of the Catechism, reborn and reformed as God's own watchmen, we're compelled ever to watch, being ever watchful, and to never be silent but ever to sound the silent alarm that perks the hidden conscience and wakes the inner man to be alert to the King's coming and to our fellow residents' wellbeing.
This is, after all, New Jerusalem, the ever wakeful, always watchful bride of Christ, the Church! And this is why "you who put the Lord in remembrance, take no rest" (Isa 62). It is precisely by being watchful and sounding the alert that we put the Lord in remembrance as He bids us do "and give him no rest until he establishes Jerusalem".
And remember, this is the new Jerusalem, the Church Triumphant, coming down out of heaven from our heavenly Husband, our God, and rising from the ground of faith up as our God erects her, living stone upon living stone, lively stones which God makes so and which He builds up into the walls of His Church, built upon the foundation stone of the holy Prophets and the blessed Apostles, Christ Jesus Himself being the Chief Cornerstone. And upon which He mounts us watchmen not only to watch for the coming King and watch out for our fellow residents but to announce His coming and, hence, put Him in remembrance "and give him no rest until he establishes Jerusalem and makes it a praise in the earth. . . ."
Therefore, fellow watchmen, "go through, go through the gates, prepare the way for the people, build up, build up the highway, clear it of stones, lift up an ensign over the peoples." This too is watchmen's work.
To this we've been called. For this we've been posted on Zion's walls. "Behold, the Lord has proclaimed to the end of the earth: Say to the daughter of Zion, 'Behold, your salvation comes; behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense before him.' And they shall be called the holy people, the redeemed of the Lord; and you shall be called sought out, a city not forsaken." Amen.
- Pastor Erickson