Month: December 2007

Text: Matthew 1:23
Date: Advent IV + 12/23/07
Lutheran Church of the Incarnate Word, Rochester Hills, MI

My only brother was born (nearly ten years before me!) on December 25. As Christmas and Birthdays are both occasions for gift giving I always wondered if as a child he ever felt short-changed because of that. Or was it I that felt a little jealous because he got the extra attention at Christmas? Honestly, I don’t remember feeling jealous. (He happened to call me this past week and so, all these years later, I asked him about that. He said, the interesting thing was that everyone was concerned that everyone else would combine Christmas and his birthday, so everyone tended to provide double gifts. It was quite a “racket”!)

I mention this to draw your attention to a similar double-celebration for your congregation, The Lutheran Church of the Incarnate Word. In Europe it is a long tradition to celebrate not only a person’s birthday but also his or her name day. The reformer Martin Luther was named Martin because he was baptized on St. Martin of Tours day, November 11. So, St. John’s Lutheran Church would celebrate their name day on December 27 for St. John, Apostle and Evangelist, Trinity Lutheran churches on the variable dates of The Holy Trinity, St. Matthew’s on September 21 and so on. So it would seem most appropriate for the Lutheran Church of the Incarnate Word to celebrate as your name day the festival of the Incarnation or Christmas! And what does the Incarnation say about a congregation called by that name? Continue reading “The Incarnate Word”

Text: Matthew 3:1-12
Date: Advent II + 12/09/07
Incarnate Word, Rochester Hills, MI

Any preacher of the Gospel (if he is really preaching the Gospel) will inevitably get himself into trouble. That is, he gets himself in trouble primarily when and because the gospel challenges peoples’ presumptions and expectations. People have all sorts of presumptions and expectations, especially at this time of year, concerning what Christmas is all about. What is most challenging for the preacher is that without an awareness of sin, our innate separation and alienation from God, there can be no Gospel, which is always and only the Good News of reconciliation with God, salvation from sin, death and the devil through the forgiveness of sin. You know the scripture that says, “the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword” (Heb. 4:12). The two edges of that sword are called Law and Gospel. The Law hurts. The Gospel heals. The Law of God comes to reveal our waywardness and sin, the cause of all separation and death, to show us our helplessness and need for a Savior. The Law says “you have sinned and your sin separates you from God; your sin is killing you; and worse than that, you are helpless to fix that, to save yourself.” Only then does the Gospel make any sense as it proclaims and gives deliverance and salvation through the forgiveness of sin all for the sake and by the power of Jesus Christ crucified and risen again.

The season of Advent should be such a challenge to our presumptions and expectations. In its hustle and bustle of Christmas shopping and decorations and traffic and mood music in December every year in our country, the world at least still acknowledges that there is some deeper, inherent religious significance to Christmas, witnessed by the broadcasting on Christmas Eve of the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols over the radio from Cambridge, England now for 78 years, and Roman Catholic masses from Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago and the Vatican in Rome; not to mention that Christmas is one of the only two times each year many people darken church doors. Many Christians like to try to remind people, “Jesus is the Reason for the Season” but even that may not grab anyone’s attention. Continue reading “Wait a Minute!”