Month: December 2008

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The Glory that Sets Us Free

Text: Luke 2:21-40
Date: Christmas I + Holy Innocents, Martyrs + 12/28/08
Lutheran Church of the Incarnate Word, Rochester Hills, MI

Did you get what you wanted for Christmas? According to a recent survey 60% of people receiving gifts at Christmas will tend to return or exchange at least one item they received. Most likely gifts to be returned are clothing. Least likely are gifts from children or family. But the long return lines at the stores in the days immediately following Christmas suggest people were somewhat disappointed and did not get what they wanted for Christmas.

The same thing seems to apply to the Church’s annual celebration of Christmas. People, many of whom possibly rarely attend worship services at all the rest of the year, still tend to come out for the annual Christmas pageant out of at least some vague hope they may discover or remember something that seems to have been missing in life lately. There are the old familiar carols and hymns and songs of Christmas that everyone has somehow been able to memorize with only once-a-year rehearsals. Nevertheless, the crowds of Christmas churchgoers seem to quickly disappear as people fail to get or discover anything new that they may have hoped for or wanted at Christmas. Did you get what you hoped for or wanted for Christmas? Continue reading “The Glory that Sets Us Free”

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This Will Be a Sign for You

Text: Luke 2:7
Date: Christmas Eve + 12/24/08

It all took place so quietly, so silently, so privately, so anonymously that it’s amazing anyone noticed anything unusual happening at all, much less that this event, this lowly, humble birth would literally change the history of the entire world, that this night as the Church and the world mark time should be so universally observed through the centuries to this day. In fact, however, it is precisely because salvation is and can be only by way of humble faith that the mighty acts of God are so hidden under the camouflage of the normal, the every-day, the dust and the sweat, the drama and the boredom of life-as-usual. Continue reading “This Will Be a Sign for You”

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Let It Be to Me

Text: Luke 1:26-38
Date: Advent IV + 12/21/08
Lutheran Church of the Incarnate Word, Rochester Hills, MI

It’s not Christmas yet. It’s still Advent. In today’s Gospel there are still nine months to go. First there is John the Baptist, then Jesus, six months apart. It is the sixth month with John the Baptist’s mother, Elizabeth, when the angel Gabriel “was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary.” Galilee, Nazareth, virgin betrothed, Joseph, house of David. Did you get all that? Are you confused yet? The angel told Mary that she has been blessed and favored by God to serve as the mother of the Messiah, the Savior, the Son of God whose name will be Jesus. Continue reading “Let It Be to Me”

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The Guide

Text: John 1:6-8, 19-28
Date: Advent III + 12/14/08
Lutheran Church of the Incarnate Word, Rochester Hills, MI

In your little catechism you learned to confess the truth, in part, in the words, “I believe that I cannot, by my own reason or strength, believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him.” You should know that not a few Christians of other denominations and certainly people in general find that a shocking statement with which they most vehemently disagree. You learned that this is because of the fallen, sinful nature of us all born into this world spiritually blind and dead. Spiritual blindness demonstrates itself in everything from the demand for some credit of cooperation of the human will to at least some extent, working your way to salvation by doing enough good works, to just complete ignorance of anything to do with God or things spiritual. Continue reading “The Guide”

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The Beginning of the Gospel

Text: Mark 1:1-8
Date: Advent II + 12/07/08
Lutheran Church of the Incarnate Word, Rochester Hills, MI

When the very first word of St. Mark’s Gospel is “Archai” (as in the word archaic), “the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ,” he means for his readers to recall the very first words of the Old Testament scriptures, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1). For what he here begins to write about is as cosmic and awesome an event as the very creation itself. For it is nothing less than the salvation and beginning of the re-creation of all things. And what Mark is here writing is as true and inspired of God as those ancient words penned by Moses in the Pentateuch.

This is the beginning of the “gospel,” the good news of God initiating the rescue and salvation of His creation enslaved as it is by sin, death and the devil. It is really good news, as Jesus said, “God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him” (John 3:17), for God is love (John 3:16; 1 John 4:8, 16). Continue reading “The Beginning of the Gospel”