Allen Lunneberg

Standard Podcast Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Text: Numbers 6:22-27
Date: Circumcision and Name of Jesus + First Sunday after Christmas + New Year’s Day + 1/1/12

We tend to hear this shortest Gospel reading of the year as a mere report of events, not unlike a short announcement in the newspaper, “just the facts:” “at the end of eight days, when he was circumcised, he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.” Period. That’s it and that takes care of that.

In a similar way every Sunday are we tempted to just let the final words of the Aaronic benediction slip by us like so many required words of legal disclosure at the end of a commercial. “The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.” “So shall they put my name upon the people of Israel, and I will bless them.” Well, that’s nice. Thank you. And that takes care of that.

Today our infant Savior is given a name, and we are given a name. But what takes care of what? Why all the hubbub over names? (more…)

Standard Podcast Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Text: Isaiah 52:7-10
Date: Christmas Day + 12/25/11

On Christmas Day we celebrate and proclaim the doctrine, the teaching, indeed the mystery that, in Jesus of Nazareth, God became man, took on our human flesh and blood, in order to redeem, to save us from sin, death and hell.

Isaiah had foretold it, even as he foretold so much about the coming Messiah. Among the prophet’s prophecies, in the fifty-second chapter he speaks of human feet and arms. (more…)

Standard Podcast Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Text: Isaiah 7:10-14
Date: Christmas Eve + 11/24/11

How many tyrants in their conquests, how many nations, how many church denominations, or how many football teams or quarterbacks have been convinced that God is on their side? At least the proper cheer would be “Deo Volente,” “God willing,” as St. James advises, “you do not know what tomorrow will bring,” so “you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that’” (James 4:14-15). So I suppose to some it would seem rather presumptuous that our Savior and God Jesus Christ would be called “Immanuel,” “God is with us.” But that is not a name we came up with on our own, the product of only of our own loyalty or enthusiasm. It is the amazing, majestic name of the Savior given by God Himself through the prophet Isaiah. “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel,” literally, “with us God,” God is with us. This is the significance of Christmas. (more…)

Standard Podcast Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Text: Luke 2:40-52
Date: Christmas II + 1/2/11
Lutheran Church of the Incarnate Word, Rochester Hills, MI

On this, the Second Sunday after Christmas, on the ninth day of Christmas, we have St. Luke’s account of Jesus the twelve-year-old boy. But it is for much more significant reasons that Luke includes this incident than merely to convey an interesting insight into the otherwise silent years of Jesus’ early days of growing from infancy to adulthood. For one thing, this account leads many to believe that Jesus’ mother, Mary, was evidently a direct source for the Evangelist in composing his Gospel.[1] Of anyone, Luke would be the most likely to research and interview if not Mary then a close relative. It is in her reminiscence of this event some twenty, thirty or so years before that Luke discovered details supporting the telling of Jesus’ mission and the Gospel of salvation. For the details point to, almost shout how this Boy is the Son of God and came to be the Suffering Servant, the promised Messiah, and that by faith in His death and resurrection salvation is brought to everyone. In reporting the account of the twelve-year-old Jesus being lost and found by Mary and Joseph, during the Passover, in the Jerusalem temple, Luke points to the divine plan of Jesus, the Son of God, come to fulfill His true Father’s will, and to be the great Passover or Paschal Lamb by whose sacrifice He takes away the sin of the world and triumphs over death for all who put their faith in Him. (more…)

Standard Podcast Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Text: Matthew 1:21
Date: Christmas Eve + 12/24/10
Lutheran Church of the Incarnate Word, Rochester Hills, MI

On this night, this holy, silent night, we gather to celebrate the birth of love, the restoration of peace. The angels proclaimed, “Glory to God in the highest, and peace to His people on earth.” So tonight we gather in awe around the tender scene of a mother and a newborn infant, A Babe of Beauty Born Today. (more…)

Text: Luke 2:40-52
Date: Christmas II + 1/3/10
Lutheran Church of the Incarnate Word, Rochester Hills, MI

I remember seeing, a long time ago, a silly spoof on TV of a 50s-style, bee-bop rock group singing really sappy words in a song called “Jesus was a teenager too.” The main message of the song, of course, was a lame and farcical attempt to get teens to believe that Jesus personally knows the stresses and struggles they are going through, I guess as an attempt to keep them in church or something. But is that why St. Luke alone includes this little incident from “when he was twelve years old,” as an attempt to “relate” to a younger audience? Or is it merely to show that our Lord had an otherwise “normal” childhood? Or surely it is not just to use Jesus’ example of submissiveness and obedience to his parents as a hammer in order to guilt our children into obeying their parents. No, the point is not to “prove” anything about Jesus real humanity. The point for Luke and anyone who reads his account is the doctrine or Biblical teaching of the two natures of Christ; that from the very beginning until now, from his incarnation throughout His earthly ministry, His death, resurrection and ascension, and to this very day on His heavenly throne, Jesus is 100% human and 100% divine. (more…)