The Third Sunday of Advent 2018
Jesus comes to all people, at all times, in all places, with the comforting Gospel of salvation. “Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?” Sometimes in isolation, sometimes in a frenzy, sometimes attacked by false teachers, believers in every age have asked this one basic question. We should not be surprised that they ask, for Jesus had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him (Is. 53). But the King of Grace treats all as he did John and his disciples: he asked them to review the Scriptures they had learned (Isaiah 29 and 35). He asks all believers to search the Scriptures, which testify to him. In this way he comes to us today: the good news is preached to the poor. Believe it! Jesus is your Savior.
~Bruce Backer, Lutheran Worship, 4th edition, 1988, p. 26
