Text: Ephesians 1:3-10
Date: Christmas II + 1/5/14
“Wisdom, attend!” So announces the deacon in the Greek Orthodox liturgy as he displays the book of the Gospels. It is one thing to know about God, to know about Christ, to know about the Bible and quite another thing to understand it all. In fact spiritual understanding, enlightenment, wisdom is a working and gift of God’s grace in those who belong to Him. Continue reading “Wisdom Incarnate”
Text: Galatians 4:1-7
Date: Christmas I + 12/29/13
The light of God’s Word has once again led us with angels and shepherds and, soon, wise men to the remembrance of the miracle of the arrival of the Christ, the world’s savior from sin. Some criticize all the other things and thoughts and “meanings” that have cropped up over the centuries, some which may cloud, hide or even eliminate the one, true meaning of the Christmas season. Yet there are many levels of the true joy of Christmas. Consider the birth of a brand new son, daughter, nephew, niece, grandson or granddaughter, and dare I add great-grands? The emotions of joy and thanksgiving especially for a Christian cannot and should not be ignored, denied or avoided. So our joy over especially the gift of our family complete with the almost magical joy of children amid the lights and gift giving and receiving can all be expressions of the joy of God’s gift of salvation, redemption from sin and death and adoption into the grander family of the faithful, reborn to new life in Christ. It was just plain fun watching granddaughter Annika (soon a year old) take in all the unusual activity around the Christmas tree on her first experience of Christmas Eve. Continue reading “The Fullness of Time”
Text: Matthew 1:18-25
Date: Christmas Eve + 12/24/13
It is Saint Luke that reports the detail of the Christmas Eve appearance of a heavenly host of angels singing the Gloria in Excelsis, “Glory to God in the highest.” He paints a dramatic picture of angels and shepherds responding to the birth of the Christ child. Saint Matthew, on the other hand, narrates a “quieter” scene, if you will, a relatively silent night. The glory of this night doesn’t need a multitude of colored strobe lights pulsating to a reverberating rhythm track of eighty beats per minute. In Matthew’s account is no decree of Caesar Augustus, no crowds of hometown sojourners, no innkeeper and, as we said, no angels or shepherds. Well, there was one angel! In the scriptures angels tend to show up when you need more information than you can possibly know by merely observing the situation at hand. Joseph certainly needed more information! And so do we. Continue reading “Glory Appeared”
Text: Luke 2:22-40
Date: Christmas I + The Sixth Day of Christmas X 12/30/12
Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord. Blessed is Jesus the first-born Son of Mary, consecrated and set apart to consecrate us and set us apart as the redeemed of the Lord. Continue reading “The Redeemed of the Lord”
Text: Luke 2:1-2
Date: Christmas Eve + 12/24/12
Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord. Yes, that’s right, you heard it, “King.” The little baby Jesus was born in a humble stall, not in a palace. Nevertheless, He is royalty, born to be King of a Kingdom not “of” this world though “in” it. And unlike the temporary claims of this world’s autocrats, His is the everlasting kingdom, the King-dom of God. So, blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord. Continue reading “Gift of Love”
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? Continue reading “Blessed in the Name”
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. Continue reading “His Holy Arm”
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. Continue reading “God Is With Us”
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. Continue reading “The Boy”
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. Continue reading “A Babe of Beauty Born Today”
