Category: Christmas Sermons

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. Continue reading “Searching for Jesus”

in the Temple. Sermon by Saint Louis Seminarian David Herald.

Text: Matthew 1:18-25
Date: Christmas Eve + 12/24/09
Lutheran Church of the Incarnate Word, Rochester Hills, MI

In recent years during Christmas time many churches have attempted to minister especially to those who are facing this otherwise joyous holiday after the death of a loved one or a divorce or some other life tragedy. The invention of “Blue Christmas” services seek to give people who have experienced such losses a sacred time and sacred space to meditate and to hear the Word of God in a more subdued or quiet celebration of Christmas. It is an attempt, for one thing, to play down any “forced” joyfulness so that Christmas might be less of an escape and more a solemn facing of the realities of life with the quiet, hidden joy that is, after all, the joy of faith and the peace that passes all understanding. Though I have considered designing such a service in years past it is, of course, no coincidence that this year I should be the more interested. Continue reading “A Blue Christmas?”

Text: Luke 2:40-52
Date: Christmas II + 1/4/09
Lutheran Church of the Incarnate Word, Rochester Hills, MI

Today (this year, and whenever there is a Second Sunday after Christmas [which is a little more than about half the time]) we get to hear that rare word concerning the Lord Jesus Christ when He was just twelve years old. It is rare because between the account of His conception and birth as an infant and the beginning of His active, earthly ministry when He was about thirty years old, we know nothing more about Jesus’ life as a child or a teenager or a young man than this little account. Surely St. Luke got this and probably other information directly from the Lord’s mother, Blessed Mary, an opinion inferred by many from the inclusion of the comment how Mary “treasured up all these things in her heart” (2:51). As with the practice of the Jews to this day of celebrating the Bat and Bar Mitzvah, the coming to the age of majority of a child around the age of 12 or 13, and of western Christians with the rite of confirmation at about the same age, there was probably a similar significance with Jesus’ attendance at the temple in that particular year. At least it wasn’t until that particular year that the memorable, treasured, unusual thing happened when Jesus “stayed behind in Jerusalem,” at the Temple, thus making for the three-day “Amber alert” for the missing youngster. The greatest significance of this incident for us has to do with Jesus’ identity as the Son of God the Father and as the very presence of God in His temple. Amid the amazement and astonishment and the ensuing questions and the lack of understanding, Jesus says he must be in His Father’s house and about His Father’s business. It is that divine necessity that emphasizes the Lord’s destiny, His purpose and the goal of His ministry that encourages us in the blessed destiny that is ours by faith in Him. Continue reading “My Father's House”

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”

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”

Text: Luke 2:21

Date: Circumcision and Name of Jesus + 1/1/07

      There are two reasons we gather this day. The second reason, that is to say, the reason of least importance, is that it is New Year’s Day. Happy New Year 2007! The primary reason, of greater importance, is that it is the eighth day of the celebration of Our Lord’s human birth, the day on which he came under the knife of God’s Law and already began to shed his infant blood in the Mosaic covenant of circumcision. For our Lord took on our human flesh from his mother Mary in order that he could take away our sin by his bloody sacrifice and restore us by giving us his holiness and righteousness and deathless, resurrection life. In other words, this feast changes everything. Continue reading “O Blessed Day”

Text: Luke 2:33-40
Date: Christmas 2 + 12/31/06

      This text before us today—St. Luke’s account of Simeon’s blessing of Mary and Joseph after his song of praise and prophecy concerning the infant Savior in the Jerusalem temple—is a perfect text for the instruction and encouragement both of preachers of the Gospel and for hearers as well. We center on only two details: the reaction of marveling or wonder on behalf of Joseph and Mary, and the “blessing” spoken to Mary. In these two details we find encouragement for faith in the face of all false teaching and false belief, and every doubt or temptation that seeks to tear us away from true, saving, joyful, steadfast and unswerving faith. For it reveals the offense, the “cutting edge” of the Gospel, if you will, that is always there and is the cause, as Simeon says, of both “the fall and rising of many,” that is, the wakening of true faith or the hardening of disbelief in those who hear it. Continue reading “Marvel and Be Blessed”

Text: John 21:19-24

Date: St. John / Third Day of Christmas + 12/27/06

      On the third day of Christmas my True Love gave to me Three French Hens. According to the explanation that this song is a 16^th-century hidden catechism, this is a reference to the three theological virtues of Faith, Hope, and Love. We recall that St. Paul listed these and then added the comment, “but the greatest of these is love.” How appropriate the coincidence, then, that the third day of Christmas should also happen to be the commemoration of Saint John the Apostle and Evangelist, as he is remembered, above all the others, as the Apostle of Love. That’s the way he always referred to himself in his Gospel, “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” His famous “Gospel in a nutshell” tells what it is in God that made Him redeem and save his fallen creation: “God so loved the world.” He is the only Apostle who remained steadfast at the scene of the crucifixion where he alone was entrusted by Jesus in His dying woes to care for the blessed Mother of our Lord for her remaining days. Not only his Gospel but especially his three catholic Epistles repeat the theme of love. Symbolized by an eagle we remember the height and depth of the vision given him on the Island of Patmos in the final book of the New Testament, the Apocalypse or Revelation. Continue reading “Homily for St. John, Apostle and Evangelist Day”

Text: John 1:5, 12-13; Isaiah 52:6-10

Date: Christmas Day X12/25/06

      Today is our dancing day, our day of great rejoicing and gladness. Let our gladness have no end, alleluia! For today we celebrate the Incarnate Word, the Creating Word, the Living Word, the Word that is the Light shining in the darkness. On the Eve of Christmas we tell the story, the history of how God, the Son of God, took our human flesh upon Himself in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary and was made man. Today we celebrate the depth and meaning of this mystery; that He was born to be our salvation, our hope, our love and our light. Continue reading “The Light Shines in the Darkness”