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Thy Kingdom Come: "Gift from God's Eternal Throne"

Text: John 1:1-14
Date: Christmas Day + 12/25/16

Thy Kingdom Come.
Now in the manger we may see
God’s Son from eternity,
The gift from God’s eternal throne
Here clothed in our poor flesh and bone.
Alleluia! (LSB 382:2)

In a way Mark Twain’s famous novel “The Prince and the Pauper” parallels the mystery of Christ and of Christmas. The main difference, of course, is that Twain tells of two young boys who are identical in appearance, one a pauper who lives with his abusive father and the other Prince Edward, son of King Henry VIII. In Jesus Christ, however, the two are one, He is both the King Himself from God’s Eternal throne taking on our human nature of His human mother, Mary. Continue reading “Thy Kingdom Come: "Gift from God's Eternal Throne"”

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Thy Kingdom Come: "O Noble Guest"

Text: Luke 2:1-14
Date: Christmas Midnight + 12/24/16

Thy Kingdom Come.
Welcome to earth, O noble Guest.

Politics and governmental intervention. Wherever you go you can’t get away from it. Caesar Augustus when Quirinius was governor of Syria. Mandatory registration. For what purpose? We’re not told. But tax money cannot be far from the picture. And now we ourselves have been dragged through another national election. But this time politics have divided people more than nearly any time in our history. What are the two things to avoid in family gatherings? Politics and religion, they say. Why is that? I’ll bet it’s because a person’s opinions of both are on the one hand so personally held and on the other hand seemingly without any real, objective, principled bases in reality. Mere personal opinion. Continue reading “Thy Kingdom Come: "O Noble Guest"”

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Thy Kingdom Come – Let the Earthbound Soul Arise

Text: Matthew 11:2-15
Date: Advent III + 12/11/16

The Advent call of John the Baptist begins to answer our prayer, “Thy kingdom come.” The Advent candles are a repentant purple in many churches, a hopeful blue in others, but this Sunday the hope and joy of the Gospel shines through with the pink or rose colored candle. Today’s Introit begins, “Gaudete,” “Rejoice…and I will hope continually.” Today’s Advent hymn bids us, “Let the Earthbound Soul Arise.” Continue reading “Thy Kingdom Come – Let the Earthbound Soul Arise”

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The Distinction of the Righteous

Text: Malachi 3:13-18
Date: Last Sunday of the Church Year + Proper 29 + 11/20/16

“Then once more you shall see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve him.”

This is the last Sunday of the Church Year. What have you learned since Advent 2015, how have you changed, Continue reading “The Distinction of the Righteous”

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The Day is Coming

 

Text: Malachi 4:1-6
Date: Pentecost 26 + Proper 28 + 11/13/16

The day is coming. What day? The Day of Judgment.

You know there are only two eternal alternatives, heaven or hell. The problem is we forget that. We Christians tend to forget that mainly because, though we’ve heard and believe that there is a place called hell we don’t think about it much. And that for good reason. Because we have also heard and believed in our deliverance from hell. We never hear sermons totally about judgment and hell because the point of the Christian sermon is to proclaim the answer, God’s answer to the threat of the punishment of our sins, namely, that Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world, has already endured God’s punishment of sin on behalf of the whole world, your sin, my sin, all the sins of others. He saved us from all that and has given the gift of eternal life through the forgiveness of our sins. Continue reading “The Day is Coming”

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Another Loud Voice

Text: Revelation 7:2-17
Date: All Saints Day (Observed) + 11/6/16

You can’t have All Saints Day without Reformation Day. Even though the Reformation is commemorated now for only 499 years since 1517 and All Saints was first attributed to having begun 1,643 years ago by St. Ephrem the Syrian in 373 ad, still you can’t have All Saints without Reformation. For the reality is more than a calendar issue, the celebration more than the mere commemoration, the spiritual transformation more than just signing up on the dotted line of the required document. Continue reading “Another Loud Voice”

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With a Loud Voice

Text: Revelation 14:6-7
Date: Reformation (Observed) + 10/30/16

The best comment I’ve seen about Martin Luther and the Reformation lately shows Luther hammering his 95 Theses to the Wittenberg Church door. Apparently, some men have asked him what he was doing. Luther turns and looks at them and responds, “Oh, the door is fine, I’m just fixing your theology!” It was the eve of All Saint’s Day in the year 1517, 499 years ago. It was but the beginning of fixing or reforming the Church’s theology. It was not an easy or short process. In fact, it wasn’t until another 13 years passed that the Lutheran Augsburg Confession was delivered in 1530, and yet another 63 years that the entire Book of Concord was published in 1580. Continue reading “With a Loud Voice”