Month: December 2006

Text: Matthew 1:18-21
Date: Vigil of Christmas / Advent 4 + 12/24/06

      I don’t know which is the greatest mystery—the cosmic transaction of holiness for sin and sin for holiness that took place in those dark hours on the cross of Calvary on Good Friday, or that God should take on our human flesh in the first place in dulci jubilo, “in the quiet joy” and incarnation of the Son of God as the Son of Mary. Indeed, you cannot have one without the other. For it was necessary that God become a Man in order to provide the one, perfect sacrifice beyond our ability, to atone for the sins of the whole world, for the life and salvation of the whole world. But to speak of our Lord’s earthly ministry as “necessary,” and to explain his sinless life, his atoning death, his resurrection triumph over the grave and ascending to the right hand of the Father—to “explain” the Gospel is not necessarily to believe it, and much less to adore it. As the hymn says it, our noblest work is to adore! [LSB 811:2] Continue reading “Et Incarnatus Est”

Text: Matthew 11:2-10

Date: Advent 3 + 12/11/05

      A news reporter is expected simply to report the news, to document the facts in an objective way. When a news reporter becomes part of the story, however, or becomes the story him or herself, the original story gets skewed or lost and news turns into editorial, opinion about the news rather than just the news itself. The news was the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The news anchor Walter Cronkite cried on camera. The news was the resignation of President Nixon. But suddenly everyone knew the names of the reporters Woodward and Bernstein.

      The Good News (the Gospel)—what I’m supposed to be telling you here—is supposed to be about Jesus Christ. But today the reporter, the one sent to prepare the way, John the Baptist, becomes the news, the focus of attention. Jesus asks the crowds, “What did you go out into the wilderness to see” when you went out to see John? He gives them two wrong answers—a reed shaken by the wind or a man dressed in soft clothing. And then he gives them the right answer: a prophet! Continue reading “A Reed? A Man? A Prophet!”

Text: Luke 21:25-33

Date: Advent 2 + 12/10/06

      Today Jesus tells us about signs appearing in the sun and moon and stars that forecast his second advent or coming on the Day of Judgment and deliverance. As the angel said, when Jesus ascended into heaven and a cloud hid him from his disciples’ sight, so he will come again as you have seen him go. Today Jesus says he will come “in a cloud with power and great glory.” In this last public discourse before his Passion, Jesus gives his disciples some final words to help us prepare “to stand in the presence of the Son of Man” on the Last Day. In fact, this is the goal of Luke’s entire gospel. The words of Jesus, which he says will not pass away, accomplish what Luke promised Theophilus in the beginning, “that you come to recognize completely the reliability concerning the words by which you have been catechized.” Continue reading “The Kingdom of God is Near”

Text: Luke 4:14-22
Date: Wednesday in Advent I + 12/6/06
Zion Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Detroit

      This week of the First Sunday in Advent Holy Church has begun again to tell the whole story of salvation. Though it takes six months from Advent through Pentecost just to sketch the details of our Lord’s earthly ministry and another six months to draw out the implications of it, there is one main theme, one fundamental truth, one purpose whether we speak of Jesus as the Babe of Bethlehem, the preacher of Galilee, the miracle-worker of Capernaum, the sacrificial Lamb of Jerusalem, the risen Lord on a road to Emmaus, the ascending King of Bethany, or the Lord of heaven and earth who will return on the Day of Judgment, and that is, as we Lutherans have said it, “the justification of the sinner by God’s grace through faith alone in Jesus Christ.” In a word, salvation—salvation from our captivity to death, the blindness of sin, the broken heart of separation from the God of life; salvation to be the people of God. This is the significance of our Lord’s first Sabbath day sermon in the synagogue of his hometown of Nazareth. When he was handed the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, he carefully turned to the place we today call chapter 61, reading it as the grand summary of everything he was about to preach, teach and perform from beginning to end. Continue reading “Today This Scripture is Fulfilled”

      Once again we are given the grace and the mercy to say “Happy New Year” as Holy Church marks the passing of days with the Divine Agenda of telling the Good News, the story of the salvation of the world, to the world in an orderly way for all to hear. From the Advent anticipation of prophesies fulfilled, to the Christmas crisis of the incarnation of the Word made flesh, to the Epiphany lightshow of our Lord’s earthly ministry, to the Lenten litany of His passion, the Easter emancipation of resurrection, and the Pentecost proclamation of the Spirit, we mean to reveal the true meaning of the passing of days. We begin again to tell the whole story, the really good story of new life even as our old, tattered 2006 calendars are nearly filled with the record of an aging year, the old story of our broken promises, devastating reverses, the dark turns of life incessantly marching to a destination we either deny or ignore. This story, God’s story, means to say that death no longer has the last word and that life has been restored. Continue reading “Hosanna!”