John 1:14, Luke 2:13-14

✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠

    “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”  What a marvelous reality that is to ponder, and I don’t think we can ever fully grasp the wonder of it.  The Word of the Father, His mighty “Let there be. . .,” the eternally begotten Son of God, through whom all things were created, the very Logic of the universe in whom all things hold together, who exists outside of space and time–He Himself entered into space and time, took up our humanity into His divine nature, and became our flesh and blood, our fully human Brother.  That’s amazing.  “Veiled in flesh the Godhead see, Hail the incarnate Deity!  Pleased as man with man to dwell, Jesus, our Immanuel!”  

    But why did our Lord do this?  Why did He join our humanity to His divinity?  Well remember that God created us because of His nature as the One who is Love.  His desire from the beginning has been to give Himself to us and to bring us into full communion and fellowship with Him.  In the beginning God and man dwelt together in the Garden.  There was no division between heaven and earth.  But then as you well know, Adam and Eve caused a great rupture in their relationship with God.  By deciding to go their own way and rebel against God’s Word, they and all of us who have followed right in their steps have been cut off from God.  Heaven and earth were split apart.  Through our sin we distanced ourselves from God.  We created a grand canyon between us and Him that we could not cross.  And so God, in His great mercy and love, Himself crossed the canyon and came to us, that our humanity might be cleansed and that we might be restored to fellowship with Him again.  “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”  

    One way of understanding what is happening here is by paying attention to the angels.  We heard about them in last night’s familiar reading from the Gospel of St. Luke.  Because it’s familiar, though, we sometimes miss the absolutely unique marvel of that angelic appearance.

    Angels were certainly not unknown to Israel, and the entire history of Israel occurred under angelic oversight.  But nowhere in the Bible is there a cluster of angelic appearances like we find at the beginning of the Gospel account.  Gabriel appears to Zechariah to announce the birth of John, and the same angel appears again to Mary to announce the birth of Jesus.  An angel appears to Joseph to tell him to take Mary as his wife, and Joseph obeys the angel’s instructions.  An unnamed angel announces the birth of the Christ to the shepherds, and then that angel is suddenly joined by the heavenly host praising God for the birth of Jesus.  Angels appear again to instruct Joseph to flee from Israel to escape from Herod and then to tell him to go home from Egypt back to Israel.  Why are angels suddenly making such frequent appearances?  What do these angelic appearances have to teach us about the meaning of the incarnation?

    Angels live in heaven, in the presence of the Lord. They surround Him as His “hosts” or “armies” according to the Psalms, standing at the ready to be deployed to do the Lord’s bidding.  They continuously worship the Lord in heaven.  Whenever an angel appears on earth, he arrives from heaven.  So when angels appear at the birth of Jesus, then, they’re bringing heaven to earth.  Note what they sing to the shepherds, “Glory to God in the Highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men.”  Jesus is heaven on earth, heaven become flesh, and so it is fitting that He should be surrounded, as His Father is, by angelic hosts.

    We are so familiar with this Christmas scene that we don’t recognize just how unique it is.  Nowhere else in Scripture do angelic choirs sing on earth.  Nowhere.  This is an absolutely unique inbreaking from Heaven to Earth.  Heaven and earth, which are often referred to separately throughout the Gospels, are being brought back together in Christ.  All authority in heaven and earth has been given to Him.  Jesus is restoring proper order within the creation.  

    “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”  Because of mankind’s fall, heaven and earth are out of sync, estranged, at war.  Earth goes its own way, ignoring heaven and defying the God of heaven.  There’s no longer harmony between the different zones of creation.  But through Jesus the Last Adam, God establishes an outpost of heaven on earth.  Because heaven comes to earth, earth will be brought back into harmony with heaven.  Because of Jesus, heaven is exerting its power on earth again, and bringing earth back into the heavenly order.  Because of Jesus, God’s will is going to be done on earth as it is in heaven.  Because all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Jesus, what the church binds on earth will be bound in heaven.  For far too long there has been dissonance between heaven and earth.  Earth was out of tune and didn’t keep in step with the rhythms of heaven.  But all this changes at Christmas.  When Jesus comes as Heaven on earth, He brings the heavenly hosts with Him, so that earth is full of the music of heaven, so that earth’s music will harmonize with that of heaven.

    The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.  Think of what tremendous good news this is!  Think of the great honor that is given to mankind and how this elevates us all.  Through Jesus, the Word, we share the same nature with God.  And the holy angels rejoice at this.  It has been said that the angels were created to train human beings to rule the earth.  And so man is, for a little while, lower than the angels. But with the coming of the Son of God in human flesh, the work of the angels is nearly done.  They appear in large numbers at the conception and birth of Jesus because this is the time when they turn their authority over to man in Jesus Christ.  One by one, the angels of Christmas throw their crowns down before the Lamb.  And as they cast their crowns before the incarnate Son, they cast them also before us, so that we can take our royal place beside the enthroned Son of David.

    Isn’t that wonderful?  It is not our goal to try to escape this created world and our bodily existence.  For the Son of God has come to redeem this world and our bodily existence by sharing in our flesh and blood, body and soul.  He bears the curse, shedding His holy blood for us on the cross to fully redeem us.  And He carries us through the curse of death to the resurrection of the body and the life of the new creation to come.  Your human life has been greatly exalted by the fact that the Son of God shares in your nature.  No matter how ordinary or humdrum your life may feel, no matter how pointless it all may seem sometimes, Christmas means that your lives in the flesh are worth living, and the world in which you live is worth saving.

    For heaven and earth are coming together; the incarnation and birth of our Lord is the guarantee of that.  We see it here today in the Christ Mass.  Heaven and earth are joined on the altar as the body and blood of our Lord Jesus, true God and true Man, are given to you for the forgiveness of your sins.  Here you get to be like the shepherds and join with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven in glorifying God.  For in the Sacrament of our Lord Jesus we behold His heavenly glory by faith, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.  

    And we set our hearts on the Last Day when all of this will come to its goal and fulfilment, as it is written in Revelation, “I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, ‘Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.’”  “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”  And heaven and nature sing.

✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠

(With thanks to Peter Leithart)

Luke 2:1-20

In the name of the Father and of the ✠ Son and of the Holy Spirit

    Usually, birthday celebrations are for the person whose birth we are recognizing.  The gifts are for them.  However, Christmas is a birthday unlike any other.  According to the angel, this celebration is for you; you’re the one who gets the gifts.  What did the angel say?  “To you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”  What causes rejoicing at Christmas is that the birth of the Son of God is for you to save you from your sins and restore you to peace with God.  We are gathered here this evening to open the empty hands of faith and receive the real Christmas present, the Christ-child Himself, wrapped in swaddling cloths.

    This self-giving of God is where we find the true meaning of Christmas.  God joined our humanity to His own divine nature in Jesus, and in so doing He sanctified our human nature and made us holy in Christ, the Son of God.  That is the mystery we revel in each year.  God and sinful mankind are reconciled and brought back together, because God and man have literally come together in this Christ-child.  It’s truly a mind-boggling thing to consider.  The One through whom all things were created, Mary’s maker, now willingly lies weak and helpless in her arms.  This Jesus is true God, begotten of the Father from all eternity, and also true man, born of the Virgin Mary.  

    The theological word we use to describe this is “incarnation.”  The “carne” in that word means “meat” or “flesh.”  And that helps us to get at what’s going at Christmas.  The eternal Son of God has been “carne-d”; He’s got meat on Him.  He was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary, enfleshed in her womb and given birth in Bethlehem.  The Son of God took up your flesh and blood so that He might die in the flesh and shed His blood for the forgiveness of all of your sins.  As a true human being like you, He is your substitute under the Law; He can take your place and suffer the judgment against sin on your behalf.  And as true God His sacrificial death is limitless, sufficient to cover the sins of the whole world–mercy abounding and running over.  This everlasting, divine love is here for you in the flesh.

    To you who are weary and worn-out, to you who feel the burden of your sins: To you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who Himself will become weary, who will bear your heavy load to set you free.
    To you who are broken-hearted, to you who feel forgotten or taken advantage of: To you is born this day in the city of David of Savior, who is near to those who are crushed in spirit, whose heart will be pierced for you on the cross to mend you.

    To you who are fearful, burdened by the darkness of doubt, to you who are struggling with bodily pains and chronic ailments: To you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who will go through the valley of the shadow of death for you to bring you through it all into the light of the resurrection of the body.

    And to you who have wandered from the Lord, disregarding His preaching and His Supper, to you who have squandered the Lord’s gifts or ignored His words: To you, too, is born this day in the city of David a Savior, the Shepherd who came to restore your soul, to bring you back to the flock with penitent faith, so that you may dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

    The reality is that we are all in the midst of a fight, a battle for our lives against sin and death and the devil.  But here is the good news: the Son of God has become your blood brother in the human family, which means that your enemies are now His enemies.  By uniting your humanity with His divinity, God has made your cause His own in Christ, and He has the power to do something about it.  Whatever the devil did to us, He has now done it to the Son of God, too; and that just isn’t going to stand.  Jesus is your elder Brother who defends you against the bullying of the evil one.  He stands in for you and fights for you so that sin and Satan and the grave are finally conquered.

    We see already here in the Christmas narrative that the way He wins this victory is not through an elite display of power but through enduring circumstances that are rather mundane and even lowly–circumstances that involve a little bit of the chaos of family life and family gatherings.  Remember that while many English translations give the impression that a pregnant Mary and Joseph were turned away from all the local hotels, that isn’t what happened.  It’s not “there was no room for them in the inn,” but more accurately, “there was no space for them in the guest room” as you heard earlier.  Joseph and Mary were staying with family.  The place was already full to the brim with other relatives who arrived before Joseph and Mary did.  So they had to sleep in a makeshift space downstairs where all the day to day work was done, somewhere back near where animals were kept penned indoors for the night—or perhaps in a structure or shelter for animals right next to the house--which is what we have depicted in most of our nativity scenes.  Putting it in contemporary terms, they had to set up their bedding in the garage.  Luke says that “while they were there” in Bethlehem, the days were completed for her to be delivered.

    So consider the scene: in a house filled with sleeping relatives there is a first time mother in labor–no real privacy, right in the middle of the clutter and chaos of life.  And she gave birth to her firstborn, a Son, our Lord Jesus, and wrapped Him in strips of cloth as was the custom, and laid Him in the nearby manger, a feeding trough full of soft hay.  

    What an unexpected way for the King of kings to be born!  But what a marvelous message it sends to us.  For it shows us that our Lord Jesus truly is Emmanuel, God with us–right in the middle of the messiness of our lives.  He’s not a royal elitist carefully avoiding the life of the common folk.  He doesn’t keep a safe, antiseptic distance from us. He’s with us right in the middle of our untidy existence and our less-than-perfect families and our strained relationships and our anxiety and fear and sin and brokenness.  He humbles Himself to share fully in your human life so that through faith in Him you may share fully in His divine life forever.

    That’s the glory of the incarnation; that’s the heart of Christmas that we celebrate today.  Jesus lies down with the animals in order to rescue us from our beastly sin and to restore our humanity.  Among the animals we see Jesus as the new Adam.  Though in Adam all die, those who are in Christ shall be made alive and born again.

    So hear the message of the angel once more in all its beautiful clarity and take it to heart: “To you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”  You will find Him wrapped no longer in swaddling cloths but in bread and wine, and lying on the altar.  Bethlehem, the house of bread, is here.  The Savior is humbly mangered for you in the Sacrament to bring you forgiveness and new life.  Together with Mary, let us treasure these holy mysteries in our hearts.  And together with the shepherds, let us glorify and praise God for all of the things that we have heard and seen, just as it has been told to us.

In the name of the Father and of the ✠ Son and of the Holy Spirit

Luke 1:39-56
Advent 4

✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠

    Some of the most important women in the Old Testament are ones who were barren or infertile or beyond the age of childbearing–and yet beyond all expectation, God granted them to be mothers.  This is what we’ve been focusing on in our midweek Advent services–people like Sarah, the mother of Samson, and Hannah.  They are pictures of how our God is One who creates out of nothing.  The closed, infertile womb is the most fertile ground for God’s saving work.  For it shows how God brings His deliverance without our contribution or efforts or attributes.  The same God who created the universe out of nothing, also brings salvation out of nothing for us.  These births emphasize that it’s all God’s grace simply to be received in trusting faith.

    And so appropriately on this final Sunday in Advent, on the threshold of the celebration of the gracious birth of Christ, our Gospel tells of the meeting of two women who are remarkably, miraculously pregnant.  One woman is well past the age of bearing children, probably in her sixties; the other is a young virgin, probably no older than sixteen or so.  Elizabeth is six months along with John the Baptizer, the prophet and forerunner of Christ.  Mary has conceived a child in her virginity by the Holy Spirit.  Both of them are pregnant by the power of God’s Word. They are living testimony that “with God nothing will be impossible.”

    The angel Gabriel had told Mary the news concerning Elizabeth, and so Mary hurried off to the hill country of Judea to visit her cousin and share in her happiness.  And as soon as Mary’s greeting reached Elizabeth’s ears, the baby jumped for joy in Elizabeth’s womb.  What an amazing thing!  The sound of Mary’s voice caused the unborn baby John to leap with happiness.  Already as a six-month-old fetus in his mother’s womb he is bearing witness to Christ!  Mary gives voice to the Messiah within her, and the sound of that voice causes John to rejoice.

    Who says that babies can’t believe? And who would dare argue that even unborn children can’t benefit from being in church and hearing the Word? If the sound of Mary’s greeting filled the baby Baptizer with joy, how much more will the sound of the living voice of Christ’s Word bring life and joy to the unborn!  Being in the Liturgy, hearing the Word, eating and drinking the Sacrament is a vital part of every Christian woman’s prenatal care.

    The same holds true for our infants and toddlers and little ones. They need to hear God’s Word even before they know what all the words mean. They need to grow into the vocabulary of forgiveness and eternal life in the divine service. They will have all eternity to master it, but the earlier they start, the better.  Instead of merely soaking in the screen-driven philosophies of the world, they need rather to be filled with the sound of God’s Word at home and in church, to know the historic hymns of the faith and the ancient creeds that have been handed down to us.  A child can believe without fully understanding, just like adults do.  A child can respond to God’s Word without having a huge vocabulary.  If you doubt that, just remember John’s leap for joy at the sound of Mary’s voice.

    The Gospel also records that upon hearing Mary’s greeting, John’s mother Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. And by the Holy Spirit, she says of Mary and her holy Child. “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!”  You may recognize those words.  Together with Gabriel’s earlier greeting, they are the first part of the Ave Maria . “Hail, Mary, full of grace. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.”  We Lutherans, who hold to the sacred Scriptures, certainly can agree with those words without falling into the Roman Catholic error of actually praying to Mary or looking to her for help like a goddess.

    Elizabeth considers it an honor and a gift of God that Mary should come and visit her. She calls her younger relative “the mother of my Lord.”  That’s why the church rightly calls Mary the Theotokos, “the mother of God.”  She is the bearer of the eternal Word, the Son of God.  She is the door through whom God entered our world, the temple in which our Savior chose to dwell as a tiny unborn child.  She is the chosen and honored instrument of the Incarnation of God.  Through her the Son of God received His humanity, so that He might offer it for the life of the world.  Mary is truly blessed among women, and every generation of the faithful rightly recognizes this.

    All women, especially younger women, have a great role model in Mary.  She teaches us that the highest honor of women is motherhood.  For every pregnancy and birth is connected to and is an image of the birth of our Savior, who shared in the humanity of every child, born and unborn.  And in our culture that glorifies promiscuous celebrities and makes fun of chastity and virginity, in an age when pre-marital sex is pretty much considered the standard, even among people professing to be Christian, Mary stands out as a picture of what happens when God’s Word holds sway with someone. She is filled with the Spirit and the Scriptures.  Her psalm of praise, the Magnificat, shows us that this young woman knew the psalms well.  She believed the Word of God that was preached to her by the angel. In that faith she said “yes” to God’s plan that she would be the virgin mother of the world’s Savior.

    We do indeed bless and honor Mary–not because she has some special higher holiness of her own, but because of the Lord’s grace in choosing her.  Who else but Mary is the source of our Lord’s human nature?  Whose womb but hers was His throne room for nine months?  Who else but Mary was He dependent on for nourishment as an infant?  Jesus alone is sinless, but His mother is blessed because the Mighty One has done great things for her by His Word.  To honor her is to honor the incarnation of God, to praise God for taking on human flesh to save us.

    We sometimes have difficulty in blessing and honoring Mary. Perhaps it’s because we have difficulty with anything special and different that God sets apart for His holy purposes.  Our culture has lost the idea of the sacred–sacred time, sacred space, sacred people, sacred things.  Everything tends to be ordinary for our culture, the same, generic, interchangeable.  Our age wants churches to be “comfortable,” the pastor to be “just a regular guy,” worship to be indistinguishable from the surrounding world, Mary to be just another pregnant teenager.

    But that’s not how it is with the Lord.  And so we treat the church building as a holy space.  We don’t just tramp in here as though we were entering a stadium or an auditorium or a store.  This place is set apart.  It isn’t because the wood or the concrete is holy of itself.  It’s because of the Word of God that is preached and heard here. The Word makes this space holy and blessed.

    Or consider the bread in the Lord’s Supper.  We don’t throw it away after communion or even put it back with ordinary bread, because it is holy; the Word of God has been added to it which declares it to be and makes it to be body of Christ in the Sacrament.  Likewise the chalice–we treat it as a holy thing; something sacred.  I hope you would be offended if I took it home and used it at my dinner table, not because the chalice is made of silver and gold, but because it is used for something sacred: to distribute the blood of Christ.  The blood of Christ that it holds is what makes it holy.

    And so it is with Mary. She is blessed and holy not of herself but on account of what she holds, on account of the holy Child that was conceived in her by the Holy Spirit. She is the instrument of our Lord’s incarnation, and for that reason she is to be blessed by all who believe in her Son for their salvation.

    Mary is certainly not to be worshiped. That would irritate her. No, her soul magnifies the Lord, and her spirit rejoices in God her Savior.  She directs our attention to the same place–to her Child.  Mary teaches us not to take our place with the proud and the powerful, the ruling and the rich of this world.  For the Lord is a toppler of thrones.  He puts the powerful in their place.  He scatters and puts down the self-sufficient and the self-righteous.  There is nothing and no one that can withstand the strength of God’s arm.  He destroys everything that competes for our trust.

    Rather, Mary teaches us to worship God with humility and awe, for “His mercy is on those who fear Him” in reverent faith.  He lifts up those who are humbled and bowed down.  God helps those who cannot help themselves.  “He has shown strength with His arm” especially by extending His arms on the cross for us to crush the power of death and Satan.  His arm reaches out to fill the hungry with good things, even and especially here in the holy Supper.

    Mary teaches us that our God is One who keeps His Word.  He helps His people “in remembrance of His mercy.”  He is faithful to His promises.  Galatians 4 says that in the fullness of time God sent forth His Son, born of Mary, born under the Law, to redeem those who were under the Law, so that we might receive the adoption as sons.  Just think about what that means for you:  Mary gave birth to Jesus.  And you are members of Jesus’ body.  That means that Mary is your mother in Christ and the mother of all Christians.  

    In this way Mary is a picture of the church and of all believers.  You, too, are virgin pure and holy; for you are washed by the blood of Jesus that has cleansed you from every spot of sin.  The Lord has been conceived and born in your hearts by the working of the Holy Spirit through the Word.  He dwells in you through faith.  

    And so you also magnify the Lord with Mary.  For the Mighty One has done great things for you.  He has scattered the pride of your sin, and toppled the old Adam from the throne of your heart so that Christ reigns there as your Savior-King.  God is faithful to you; He will complete what He began in your baptism and bring His promises to their culmination on the day of His return.  Just like Mary, blessed also are you who believe that what the Lord has said to you will be accomplished.

✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠

(With thanks to William Cwirla)

I Samuel 1:1 - 2:11
Midweek Advent 3

✠ In the name of Jesus ✠

    Christmas is not always a happy season, but for some, a down time of year.  Not only is it darker and overcast more often it seems.  But as I mentioned this past weekend, feelings of loss or discontentment or inadequacy can get amplified when expectations for the holiday aren’t met or when everyone else seems more cheery.  All the music and the gifts and the get-togethers leave many feeling left out or just tired.

    That may have been something like how Hannah felt in today’s reading.  Every year Elkanah went up with his two wives to worship and sacrifice to the Lord of hosts in Shiloh.  But this annual event only seemed to remind Hannah that she was childless, that the Lord had closed her womb.  Elkanah’s other wife, Peninnah, had several children.  When Elkanah made the sacrifice, he would give portions of the food to Peninnah and her children.  But because he loved Hannah he would give her a double portion, as if she also had a child to feed.  But Hannah wept and would not eat.  For it was bad enough that she had no children–to her it felt like she was cursed and not blessed by God; furthermore, as the Israelites waited for the coming of the Messiah from among their offspring, the fact that she had no offspring made her feel as if she was outside of that divine promise.  But on top of all of that, Peninnah would provoke her and mock her and make her life miserable because of her barrenness.

    We can also be tempted to feel like Hannah when our earthly circumstances aren’t so good, when our marriage or family life isn’t so great, when all the things we hoped for and expected don’t come to pass.  We can fall into the trap of thinking that we are cursed and not blessed by God, that His promises only apply to somebody else and not to ourselves.  The devil then becomes our Penninah, trying to provoke us to unbelief and despair.
    
    Elkanah tried to comfort Hannah by saying, “Am I not better to you than ten sons?”  The question also rings in our ears in the midst of our disappointments, “Is not the love and the providing of your heavenly Father sufficient?”  But in the end it is only the birth of a son that truly comforts Hannah, and it is only the birth of the Son of God that brings real comfort to us.

    Even in the bitterness of her soul, Hannah still looked to the Lord in faith and called upon His name.  Hannah prayed and made a vow to the Lord at the tabernacle, that if He would grant her a son, she would dedicate that son to the Lord and give him over for the Lord’s service all the days of his life.  This wasn’t mere bargaining with God.  Hannah was entrusting the entirety of her situation into the Lord’s hands.  By making this particular vow, she was acknowledging that if she received a son it would be solely by the grace and giving of the Lord.  So also we come before the Lord in prayer, not so that we might manipulate Him by what we say, but so that we might commit ourselves and our needs into His gracious hands, the hands of Him who alone can help and save us.  Though our faith be weak, yet we still believe and confess, “Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.”  

    Hannah prays without making any sound, only moving her lips.  When the priest sees this, he thinks that she is drunk and scolds her.  But Hannah explains that she is simply pouring out her soul to the Lord in grief.  And then, from the servant of the Lord, Hannah finally hears a blessing.  “Go in peace, and the God of Israel grant your petition which you have asked of Him.”  And with that blessing from God’s priest, she went in peace.  She ate, and her face was no longer sad.  In the course of time, God remembered Hannah, and she conceived and bore a son by Elkanah.  She called him Samuel, which means literally “Heard by God.”  For God had heard and answered her prayers for a son.

    Even as the birth of Samuel brought peace and joy to Hannah, so the birth of Jesus brings peace and joy to us.  For in Jesus God has answered your prayers in a most profound way.  In Christ all of your needs are supplied; every petition finds its “yes” in Him.  Christmas is living proof that you are blessed and not cursed by God, that God does indeed love and forgive you and care about you.  For the Son of God took on your very nature, your own flesh and blood, in order to redeem you from all that brings you bitterness and sorrow and weariness in this life.  He became like you in order to rescue you from your isolation and bring you into everlasting fellowship with Him.  

    The birth of Christ is an unmistakable sign that God is with you, that God is for you, that God is on your side.  And it is written in Romans 8, “If God is for us, who can be against us? . . .  Christ Jesus, who died, more than that, who was raised to life, is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.  Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?  Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?”  And then St. Paul concludes, “I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future nor any powers, neither height nor depth nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  Having that unconquerable certainty of God’s love for us in Christ His Son, receiving God’s blessing in the benediction, we are made to be like Hannah, with a face that is no longer sad, able to eat and drink in peace at His table.

    Jesus truly is your Samuel, the sure evidence that you have been “Heard by God,” even before your prayers were offered.  As it is written in Isaiah, “It shall come to pass that before they call, I will answer.”  Just as Samuel entered into the tabernacle to appear before the Lord and remain there all his days, so also the Son of God entered into the tabernacle of our human body and soul to remain there forever as both true God and true man and to intercede for us before the Father.  So fully did Christ assume our humanity that He who created the Blessed Virgin Mary now was dependent upon her for nourishment, so that we may learn to long for the pure spiritual milk of the Word and grow up into our salvation.  When Samuel was weaned He ministered to the Lord before Eli the priest in the place of sacrifice.  In the same way Jesus served His Father by becoming both priest and sacrifice, offering up His own body to atone for the sins of the world.  

    Through the humility of the cross Jesus has brought low and defeated all the Peninnahs of this world–even the devil himself.  And through His resurrection He has lifted up and exalted all those who trust in Him.  This is what Hannah proclaims in her prayer after Samuel’s birth, that canticle that we just sang, which is a precursor of Mary’s Magnificat, which we will sing in a moment.  Notice how in Hannah’s prayer the exalted are humbled and the humble are exalted.  “The bows of the mighty men are broken, and those who stumbled are girded with strength. . .  Even the barren (woman) has borne seven (children), and she who has many children has become feeble.  The Lord kills and makes alive; He brings down to the grave and brings up.  The Lord makes poor and makes rich; He brings low and lifts up.  He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the beggar from the ash heap, to set them among princes and make them inherit the throne of glory.”

    This is the way of the Lord, to turn the thinking of the world upside down, to take down the strong and self-sufficient who trust in themselves, and to raise up the weak and the needy who trust in Him.  Peninnah is put to shame in the end; Hannah rejoices.  The Lord opens her womb to have five more children after Samuel, even as He opens the womb of the church to bring new life to all who believe and are baptized into Christ.  God wins his victories through humility, the humility of the manger and the cross, the humility of the font and the altar.  As this Advent season draws to its close, let us therefore humble ourselves before the Lord in faithful trust, that He may exalt us in due time.

✠ In the name of Jesus ✠

Genesis 18:1-15; 21:1-7
Midweek Advent 1

✠ In the name of Jesus ✠

    Both Abraham and Sarah at first had laughed at God’s Word.  In the chapter before today’s first reading, Genesis 17, when God told Abraham that Sarah would bear a child for him, it is written that he fell on his face laughing.  Then in Genesis 18, Sarah does much the same thing, even though she foolishly tries to deny to God that she had laughed.  The idea of Sarah having a child seemed preposterous both to her and her husband.  For “the way of women had ceased to be with Sarah.”  She was past the time when she could conceive and bear a child.  How could a worn-out wife and a husband who was as good as dead, as St. Paul puts it in Romans 4–how could they be the ones to bring the promised offspring into the world?

    Abraham and Sarah had grown old and weary waiting for God to fulfill His promise–the promise that God would make of Abraham a great nation, that all families of the earth would be blessed through him, that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars in the sky.  We know they had grown impatient because they tried to come up with their own way of fulfilling the promise, when Abraham went in to Hagar the maidservant and conceived a child by her.  Abraham was convinced that this Ishmael was the promised son.  However, God’s promise would not be fulfilled by human wisdom and manipulation.  

    Let us all learn from this, especially when we begin to grow weary and impatient waiting for the Lord to fulfill His Word.  For we, too, can be tempted to think that there are ways around God’s Word that get us to the desired goal, trusting in our own ideas and our own forms of spirituality.  We can even begin to doubt if the promise is actually real.  Our fallen nature laughs at the idea of simply trusting in God to fulfill His Word and waiting on Him; our old Adam scoffs at the notion of living by faith in the Lord, especially when what He says and promises seems literally inconceivable.  Let us repent of this unbelief.  All things are possible with the God who made the heavens and the earth.

    The Lord first made His promises to Abraham when he was 75.  Now he’s 99 and Sarah is 90.  They had waited a long time without a lot to show for it.  The Lord also makes you wait, too.  Prayers sometimes seem to go unanswered.  The Lord delays in His return to bring your redemption to fulfillment.  The days can drag by slowly.  But this is not without purpose or reason.  The Lord is not apathetic; nor is He slow to fulfill His Word.  Rather, He is longsuffering and patient toward you, not wanting any to perish.  In order to save you, He allows you to be brought low, so that you may despair of yourself and your wisdom and your works, so that you have nothing left to hold onto but Him and His Word.

    It is precisely when we can contribute nothing, when the situation is humanly impossible, that the power of God’s Word and the glory of His work are shown most clearly.  When we are brought to nothing, God and His gracious giving are everything.  For the true God, the Holy Trinity, is the one who creates out of nothing.  He brings light out of darkness, life out of death, faith out of unbelief.  He chooses that which is weak and foolish, even things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no one may boast in His presence (1 Cor. 1:27-28).  God’s power is made perfect in weakness (2 Cor. 12:9).  The fact that it was humanly impossible for Abraham and Sarah to have a child actually made this the perfect divinely prepared moment, the appointed time for them to be given a son.  

    As it was with the birth of Isaac, so it is with the birth of Jesus.  “When the fullness of time had come, [after centuries of waiting], God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the Law, to redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons” (Gal. 4:4-5).  God had said to Sarah, “Is anything too hard for the Lord?”  And the angel would say to Mary, “Nothing will be impossible with God” (Luke 1:37).  With God all things are indeed possible (Mt. 19:26)—even the Virgin birth of the Savior without any contribution from a man, even the salvation of us sinners without any contribution of our own works (Rom. 3:28).  The Lord did not pass by His servant Abraham (18:3), and neither does He pass by His people today.  He shows us favor and comes to us in the fellowship of His holy meal.  As Abraham offered water to the Lord for the washing of feet and invited him to rest under the tree, so Jesus washed the disciples’ feet before going to the tree of the cross and resting in the tomb.  By dying and rising, Jesus does what is too hard for man.  The Incarnate One alone defeats death and the devil.  In the shadow of the cross, under that tree we find rest and peace and hope.
    
    The name Isaac means “he laughs.”  What a fitting name that is!  For laughter surrounds the life of this child, both for good and ill.  Although Abraham and Sarah had laughed disbelievingly when the Lord had first spoken of Isaac’s birth, their snickering was turned to joyous believing merriment when the Lord visited Sarah and did as He had promised and brought life to them even in the face of death.

    And that’s how it is for you, too.  Isaac, the son of the father, is a picture of Jesus.  Though the Lord was laughed at and mocked in His suffering, though you at times have had your doubts, His incarnation and death and resurrection now bring you joy and laughter in the knowledge that you are reconciled to God.  You are rescued from Satan’s captivity, and you are right with God and an heir of His kingdom.

    God’s Word is true, whether or not it is immediately believed.  The Lord is faithful and does what He says.  The Lord carries on to completion the good work He begins in us (Phil. 1:6).  Though we are filled with uncertainty, God’s Word is powerful to turn unbelief to confident faith and scoffing to joy.  He is at work constantly through His Word to strengthen our faith in Him.  

    And don’t ever forget that all of you who believe are also children of Abraham.  For Abraham was father to Isaac, Isaac was father to Jacob, Jacob’s 12 sons became the 12 tribes of Israel, out of Israel came the Messiah Jesus, and you have been baptized into Christ; you are one with Him by faith.  Therefore Abraham truly is your father as Christians.  It is written, “If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants and heirs according to the promise.”  Just as Abraham was accounted righteous before God by faith, so are you who trust in God’s promises in Christ.

    So especially during this Advent tide, let us wait on the Lord in humble faith.  Let us hope in Him.  For the Son of the Father, Jesus, brings you laughter in the forgiveness of your sins. The long-awaited promise of the Savior has been fulfilled.  In Him you are set free from sin and fear and death.  In Him you have hope in the midst of this fallen world. With the Lord there is mercy, and with Him is abundant redemption, and He will bring to fulfillment all the promises that He has made to you.  Take Mary as your example and say in simple and humble faith, “Let it be to me according to your word.”

✠ In the name of Jesus ✠

Matthew 21:1-9
Advent 1

✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠

    It is written in the Psalms, “Wait on the LORD; Be of good courage, And He shall strengthen your heart; Wait, I say, on the LORD!”  “Evildoers shall be cut off; But those who wait on the LORD, they shall inherit the earth.”  And it is written in Isaiah, “Those who wait on the LORD Shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”

    Yet even with those great promises of God, we are still not a people who like to wait, on God or anything else.  Everything needs to be available within a couple of clicks or taps.  People better answer our calls or texts without delay.  Christmas is four weeks away, so we’d better start celebrating and playing all the music now.  What is it about the world–and even that bit of the world that resides in us–that can’t wait, that must do all the celebrating in advance so that by the time the actual holiday comes, you’re getting a bit weary of the songs and the artificial cheer and you’re ready to move on, especially if things don’t quite live up to expectations?

    I think the answer is to be found in the fact that for the world, there is no certainty about the future.  All they see looming in the distance is decay and death.  So what’s the point of waiting?  With the world it’s life, then death, so you’d better have your fun now before your time’s up and gone.  But that’s not the way of the church and the people of God.  For us, what we see in the distance is something far better than anything we will know in this world. Christians know that the pattern that Jesus has laid down for us is death, then life, first humility, then exaltation, first repentance, then forgiveness and reconciliation and joy.  That’s why we have Lent before Easter, and it is why we have Advent before Christmas.  We can delay our gratification; we can afford to wait.  For we wait on the Lord, who will in the end give us the greatest joy and happiness in the fulfillment of His promises.  

    It’s not the Christmas season just yet, it’s the Advent season.  The message of the church right now is, “Hold on.  Wait on the Lord.”  This is a time of penitent and hope-filled preparation.  This is a time not for mere sentimentality but to dwell more fervently on the Word of God to make ready the way of His coming to us–which is the reason of course for the additional midweek Advent services.  And even though we will follow the tradition of many churches of putting up the Christmas decorations for the third Sunday in Advent–which is called “Gaudete” or “Rejoice Ye” Sunday–we still won’t light all the candles until Christmas Eve.  We eagerly anticipate Christmas, but now’s not the time for the full celebration.  We don’t sing the “Glory Be to God on High” yet in the liturgy.  That’s the song of the angels at Jesus’ birth.  Now’s the time for waiting and discipline and preparing for the coming of our Lord in the flesh to save us.

    That’s why we have the somewhat unusual Gospel that we do today.  Advent means “coming” or “arrival.”  This Gospel teaches that our Lord comes to you humbly, whether on a beast of burden or in a lowly manger.  Jesus comes not simply to be born; He is born to humble Himself even to the point of death on a cross, to give His life as a ransom to rescue you from sin and death and the devil.  “Behold, your King is coming to you, lowly and sitting on a donkey, a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

    Note that there are two donkeys there that Jesus rides, an older one, the mother, and a younger one, a colt, the mother’s foal.  These two donkeys represent God’s Old and New Testament people.  First, Jesus rides the old, to show that He is the fulfillment of all that Israel was about and all that its prophets foretold.  Then Jesus rides the new, which is born from the old, the new Israel, which is the church.  Our Lord comes to make all things new by dying and rising again.  Out of the old order of death comes a new order of invincible life for us in Jesus.  He unites all believers, from the Old Testament and the New, from every nation and race, together as His true and everlasting Israel.

    And let us not forget that we are the donkey, a very stubborn animal, hard-headed, set in our sinful ways, eager to go our own direction.  And so Christ must ride us and gently but firmly drive us toward the cross.  He drives us to die with Him, to die to ourselves, so that we may also rise with Him to new life, real life.  He drives us to repentance through the Law so that through the Gospel we may have His full and free forgiveness.

    The people spread their clothes on the road before Christ.  This is a fitting sign of their repentance and their faith in Him.  For we must all lay aside our clothing.  St. Paul exhorts us, “Let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.”  You too, then, must cast your clothes on the road before Christ, so to speak, laying aside the stubborn works of your sinful nature.  For that is how you repent and prepare the way of the Lord.  Do not engage in gluttony and drunkenness.  Do not indulge in immoral passions and lusts.  Do not give way to strife and division and envy and pride.  For these things choke you off from the life of God.  

    Instead receive by faith the clothing that only God can provide.  “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ.”  For He is your righteousness, as Jeremiah says.  Jesus wore all of your dark, sin-stained clothing and made it His own so that you would be free from it.  Jesus Himself became the beast of burden, bearing and carrying the sin of the whole world to the cross.  He became Sin for you, so that you would become righteous before the Father by His holy sacrifice.  Jesus perished in the darkness so that you could wear His garments of light and live as children of the Day.  

    That’s the sort of king you have in Jesus, not one who coerces and forces His subjects to serve Him at the tip of a sword or with guns and bombs and drones, but one who lays down His life to serve His subjects, who draws you to Himself through His self-giving.  Every other king sends out soldiers into battle to fight on His behalf.  But this King goes into battle Himself to fight on your behalf.  He rides not on an armor-clad stallion, but an animal of peace–for He comes to bring you peace, as the Christmas hymn sings, “Peace on earth and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled.”  This King will ascend His throne by wearing not a crown of gold but of thorns, not by defending Himself but by becoming defenseless, dying so that you may live and escape from the enemy’s grasp.  This is the King who is coming to you.

    And notice also that He’s the One doing the traveling.  You don’t have to go out searching for Him.  Jesus searches you out and comes to you.  You can’t get to God through your own intelligence or works or emotions.  But God can and does come to you in His grace, 100% of the way.  Without our asking or help, He came down from heaven right to where we’re at, right into our very body and soul, taking up our human nature in the womb of the Blessed Virgin.  He even went so far as to come into contact with the slime and the slop of our sin and death on the cross so that we would be cleansed and rescued from them by His precious blood.

    And our Lord still rides into this Jerusalem, this Mount Zion, meekly and humbly.  The gates of the city through which He enters among us are His words and sacraments.  There in simple water, in spoken and preached words, mounted upon bread and wine, the Lord Jesus comes to you to bring you His forgiveness and life, that He might live in you and you in Him forever–no Christmas-special glitter and fanfare, just beast-of-burden humility and love. So it is that before receiving the Sacrament, we sing the very same words that were shouted to Jesus in the Gospel, “Hosanna in the highest.  Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.”

    Let us all, then, wait on the coming of our King Jesus with heartfelt Hosannas, casting our prayers and praises like palm branches on the path before Him.  Hosanna means “Save now.”  “Save us, Lord.”  It is a penitent cry of praise which is confident that the Lord will help those who wait on Him.  We know that Jesus comes to us here, to give us poor beggars His royal and divine treasure.  While the world is all about its Black Fridays and small business Saturdays and Cyber Mondays, as people anxiously spend their money on treasures that wear out, here we have divine service Saturday/Sunday, where that which does not wear out is freely obtained.  Here are gifts for you with an eternal guarantee, warrantied by Christ’s own blood.  Let us receive Him who alone gives real peace and lasting comfort and happiness, who comes to you humbly and lowly, right where you’re at.  “Daughter of Zion, behold, your King is coming to you.  He is righteous and having salvation!”

✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠

4th Petition of Lord’s Prayer
Thanksgiving

✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠

    This holiday has been set aside by our government for the giving of thanks, especially for our national and temporal blessings.  Interestingly, Thanksgiving first became a national holiday in 1863, right in the middle of the conflict and bloodshed of the Civil War.  Abraham Lincoln saw God’s providence in the pivotal victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, and proclaimed a day of thanksgiving and praise “to our beneficent Father who dwells in the heavens.”  There is certainly something in that for us to learn today about giving thanks even in the midst of conflict and troubles.  And so as we think about all of our temporal blessings, it seems fitting that we consider and meditate on the 4th Petition of the Lord’s Prayer.  If you would, please turn to the back of your bulletins and answer aloud the questions that I will ask you from the catechism.  What is the 4th Petition of the Lord’s Prayer?

“Give us this day our daily bread.”
What does this mean?
God certainly gives daily bread to everyone without our prayers, even to all evil people, but we pray in this petition that God would lead us to realize this and to receive our daily bread with thanksgiving.

    Let’s stop there for a moment.  “God certainly gives daily bread to everyone without our prayers, even to all evil people.”  Think about what that means.  It means that God’s goodness is not dependent on you or your praying.  The Scriptures say that He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and He sends His rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.  The Lord is good.  Period.  If you stop praying, He’s not going to stop being good.  So don’t think that your praying is the key element that gets God to do things, as if we can manipulate Him to do what we want.  The truth is that very often it seems to be the unfaithful and the unscrupulous who are doing better at acquiring daily bread than Christians!  In fact most of Psalm 73 is a lament at how prosperous the wicked often are.  And yet the Psalm also confesses trust in the ways of the Lord, who brings down the unrepentant to utter desolation and destruction in the end.  So, we don’t pray “Give us this day our daily bread” in order to make God do something He otherwise wouldn’t.

    But that raises the question, “Why should we pray for daily bread at all, then?”  We do so because in praying this petition, we are drawn to turn our hearts toward our merciful and generous God, to remember that He is the One who gives us our daily bread and all things, and we learn in that way to give Him thanks and honor as our gracious Lord.  God gives us this prayer not for His benefit but for ours, so that we might learn to look to Him for all our needs and trust in Him and cling to Him, lest we forget about Him and turn away from Him and begin trusting in ourselves, to our own destruction.  That’s the real danger that we face as fallen sinners, isn’t it?  To think we’ve gotten where we are in life by our own sweat and hard work and good choices and intelligence.  That’s especially a danger when times are tough.  If we’re doing OK, we can become proud that we put ourselves in a better place than those who are struggling.  But if we’re struggling, we can burden ourselves with all this overwhelming guilt as if it’s all up to us and we’re the ones who control everything–and then we become overwhelmed with anxiety and worry and finally depression.  In both cases, whether it’s pride or despair, thanks toward God and faith in Him is completely lacking.  There is no looking to Him as the source of every blessing for which we should give thanks.  

    Moses warns us in particular against pride in the OT reading, “Beware that you do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping His commandments, lest you say in your heart, ‘My power and might of my hand have gained me this wealth.’” When we are unthankful, it is because we have forgotten that every good thing that we have in our life is an undeserved gift from our merciful heavenly Father, for which we should thank and praise, serve and obey Him.

     One way you’ll be able to tell that most people don’t really get this point, even on Thanksgiving Day, is in the way they talk about giving thanks.  I’ve said this before, but it’s worth repeating, because it’s key:  If you listen carefully, you’ll notice that while people may talk about what they’re thankful for, there’s almost no talk about who they’re thankful to.  There’s no mention of the one who receives our thanks, no mention of God or the Lord.  Or else they’re just expressing thanks to other people, which is fine, but entirely misses the point of the holiday.  Thanksgiving, then, becomes God-less.  Sometimes I think when people say they’re thankful for something, they just mean they’re glad they have it or they feel lucky.  So be sure when you talk about what you’re thankful for that you say, “I’m thankful to God for this or that.”  For ultimately it’s not our giving of thanks, but who we’re giving thanks to that matters.

    Let’s continue with the catechism:  
What is meant by daily bread?
Daily bread includes everything that has to do with the support and needs of the body, such as food, drink, clothing, shoes, house, home, land, animals, money, goods, a devout husband or wife, devout children, devout workers, devout and faithful rulers, good government, good weather, peace, health, self-control, good reputation, good friends, faithful neighbors, and the like.

    As I’ve already been indicating, when we pray for daily bread, we are asking for more than just food.  We are also praying for everything that is necessary for us to receive and enjoy that food.  It’s hard to enjoy your daily bread when you’ve got rude neighbors or a grouchy spouse or bad health or violence in the streets.  And so when we give thanks for daily bread, our hearts and minds should think beyond the turkey and stuffing on the table, and consider also the farmer’s field and the weather and the trucker who transports and the baker who bakes and the store which sells and the employment by which we earn our money to buy and civil order in society and so forth.  All of this is in God’s hands.  All of this is what we need and ask for in this petition so that our bodily needs might be provided for.

    And yet, we should never forget that this petition comes in 4th place in the Lord’s Prayer, not 1st or 2nd or even 3rd.  That is meant to teach us something, namely, that daily bread is not the most important thing.  First comes God’s name, God’s kingdom, God’s will; and only then comes the daily needs of this life.  You see, the Lord preserves and protects life not simply because He created it, but especially in order to save it for eternity.  The reason He feeds even the wicked and the unbeliever is so that the unbeliever might repent and believe.  That is His will–not just to provide for you for a time, but to have you with Himself forever.  

    And so our receiving of daily bread is ultimately meant to draw us to the even more important receiving of the Bread of Life, our Savior Jesus Christ.  Just as God provides food for both the good and the evil, so also our Lord Jesus died on the cross for all, for the morally upright and for the immoral, for the noble and the shameful, for those who believe in Him and for those who do not.  The Lord is good, and His goodness is shown in His mercy toward people like us, that He took the punishment for all of our ingratitude and pride and sinful self-love, and by His suffering and death He forgave us and freed us from eternal judgment.  This is the greatest blessing for which we give thanks today, that the Living Bread from Heaven has been given to us, Bread which we may eat of and never die.  As Jesus said, “Whoever eats of this bread will live forever.  And the bread which I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world.”  It’s no coincidence that we pray  “Give us this day our daily bread” in the liturgy right before we receive Holy Communion.  For that petition (and indeed every petition of the Lord’s Prayer)  is answered most perfectly in the Sacrament of Christ’s body and blood, given and shed for our forgiveness.  

    And so our Lord exhorts His disciples and you in today’s Gospel: Don’t rejoice simply in the fact that the spirits are subject to you, that you have certain spiritual or material gifts.  Don’t simply give thanks to God for your house or car or job or family--and don't despair if you don't have all these things.  Rather, rejoice especially in this, that He has written your names in heaven by the blood of Christ.  You who are in Christ are in the Book of Life.  You are saved and redeemed and reconciled to God.  You are His baptized chosen ones.  And if you have that, you have it all–even if you’re unemployed or struggling to pay the bills, even if your health is failing, even if there’s conflict in your life or in your home or workplace.  In Jesus you have the unimaginable riches of heaven.  In Him you have the perfect health of His resurrection life and His victory over the grave.  You are children of God’s kingdom and citizens of heaven.  So it is written, “If God is for us, who can be against us?  He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things?”  That’s how St. Paul could say in today’s Epistle, “I have learned the secret of being content in any and every circumstance, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.  I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”  

    God grant that Paul’s faithful attitude may also be your own, that your prayers and petitions may be filled with thanksgiving to God for all of His fatherly love toward you.  “Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, and His mercy endures forever.”  Amen.