Allen Lunneberg

 

 Standard Podcast: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Text: Luke 2:21

Date: Circumcision and Name of Jesus + 1/1/07

      There are two reasons we gather this day. The second reason, that is to say, the reason of least importance, is that it is New Year’s Day. Happy New Year 2007! The primary reason, of greater importance, is that it is the eighth day of the celebration of Our Lord’s human birth, the day on which he came under the knife of God’s Law and already began to shed his infant blood in the Mosaic covenant of circumcision. For our Lord took on our human flesh from his mother Mary in order that he could take away our sin by his bloody sacrifice and restore us by giving us his holiness and righteousness and deathless, resurrection life. In other words, this feast changes everything. (more…)

 

 Standard Podcast: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Text: Luke 2:33-40
Date: Christmas 2 + 12/31/06

      This text before us today—St. Luke’s account of Simeon’s blessing of Mary and Joseph after his song of praise and prophecy concerning the infant Savior in the Jerusalem temple—is a perfect text for the instruction and encouragement both of preachers of the Gospel and for hearers as well. We center on only two details: the reaction of marveling or wonder on behalf of Joseph and Mary, and the “blessing” spoken to Mary. In these two details we find encouragement for faith in the face of all false teaching and false belief, and every doubt or temptation that seeks to tear us away from true, saving, joyful, steadfast and unswerving faith. For it reveals the offense, the “cutting edge” of the Gospel, if you will, that is always there and is the cause, as Simeon says, of both “the fall and rising of many,” that is, the wakening of true faith or the hardening of disbelief in those who hear it. (more…)

Text: John 21:19-24

Date: St. John / Third Day of Christmas + 12/27/06

      On the third day of Christmas my True Love gave to me Three French Hens. According to the explanation that this song is a 16^th-century hidden catechism, this is a reference to the three theological virtues of Faith, Hope, and Love. We recall that St. Paul listed these and then added the comment, “but the greatest of these is love.” How appropriate the coincidence, then, that the third day of Christmas should also happen to be the commemoration of Saint John the Apostle and Evangelist, as he is remembered, above all the others, as the Apostle of Love. That’s the way he always referred to himself in his Gospel, “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” His famous “Gospel in a nutshell” tells what it is in God that made Him redeem and save his fallen creation: “God so loved the world.” He is the only Apostle who remained steadfast at the scene of the crucifixion where he alone was entrusted by Jesus in His dying woes to care for the blessed Mother of our Lord for her remaining days. Not only his Gospel but especially his three catholic Epistles repeat the theme of love. Symbolized by an eagle we remember the height and depth of the vision given him on the Island of Patmos in the final book of the New Testament, the Apocalypse or Revelation. (more…)

Text: John 1:5, 12-13; Isaiah 52:6-10

Date: Christmas Day X12/25/06

      Today is our dancing day, our day of great rejoicing and gladness. Let our gladness have no end, alleluia! For today we celebrate the Incarnate Word, the Creating Word, the Living Word, the Word that is the Light shining in the darkness. On the Eve of Christmas we tell the story, the history of how God, the Son of God, took our human flesh upon Himself in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary and was made man. Today we celebrate the depth and meaning of this mystery; that He was born to be our salvation, our hope, our love and our light. (more…)