John 2:1-11; Ephesians 5:22-32
Epiphany 2

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

    In today’s Gospel Jesus is taking part in and adding to the joy of a wedding feast, even providing the finest vintage wine for the occasion.  This Gospel certainly deals with much more than marriage, but because it’s such an important and timely topic, this year I’m going to follow the lead of Martin Luther and focus especially on the divine gift of holy matrimony.  

    Now you might think at first that Luther’s situation and ours are completely different.  When it comes to marriage and sexuality, his time and ours might in fact appear to be exact opposites.  After all, in the 1500’s some of the most honored and looked-up-to people would have been those who were celibate, monks and priests and nuns who had taken a vow of chastity.  Such people were looked upon as especially spiritual and examples to follow for living a good life.  In our time the most honored people, who are thought of as living the good life, are often those who flaunt their sexuality, who might have several sexual partners over time, and who present their sexual freedom as part of what it means for them to live a truly fulfilled life.  Someone today who is celibate or who waits till marriage is generally looked at as a bit unusual or naive or just boring.

    And yet, when it comes right down to it, the problem in our day and in Luther’s day with regard to sexuality is at its root the very same problem.  For in both cases God’s good gift of marriage is looked down on and sometimes even rejected outright as if it were just a piece of paper, or merely the celebration of a union the couple already consummated for themselves.  But whether you’re living a celibate life in order to achieve some supposedly higher state of holiness before God, or whether you’re sleeping with someone you’re not married to, even with the best of intentions and justifications, the sin is still the same: you’re rejecting the goodness and the necessity of God’s institution of marriage.  It is within that sanctified estate that His good gift of sexuality is to be enjoyed.  So it’s the same thing: whether a person is prudish about sex and considers it somehow to be dirty, or whether they’re indulgent about sex and are fine with whatever consenting adults want to do, it’s two sides of the same coin.  God’s gift of marriage is being degraded and cast aside.  

    However, in today’s Gospel we see that Jesus approves of marriage and blesses it and the sexual relationship within it as good and holy.  Marriage is not just a human arrangement or a mere legal matter.  It’s a divine joining together of a man and a woman, an act of God making two people one flesh.  That’s why it’s called holy matrimony.  Remember, God created marriage and joined Adam and Eve together before the fall into sin.  He’s the One who created us male and female.  God instituted this for the mutual delight and companionship of husbands and wives, and for the creation of new human life when He grants it.  So whether you’re married or single, God teaches you in His Word to honor marriage highly, especially in how you talk about it with friends and family and co-workers.  Raunchy joking about sex does not honor marriage.  Belittling your spouse does not honor marriage.  Talking about marriage as if it’s this burdensome prison that limits your freedom doesn’t honor marriage.  Rather, we should remember and emphasize the great good that God works through this holy estate.

    First of all, in marriage (as in all our vocations) God works to protect us from selfishness.  He places a flesh and blood spouse directly before our eyes, with specific and real needs.  God calls us out of a self-absorbed life that invents its own good works into a devoted life that takes care of the spouse He has given.  A husband is to love his wife as Christ loved the Church and sacrificed Himself for her.  That’s why if a husband is starting to copmlain that his wife is hard to deal with or that she’s not meeting his “needs,” he should look in the mirror and slap himself in the face.  His job is not primarily to be a receiver but a giver, sacrificing himself for her.  It’s time to man up and focus on how to draw her to yourself again.  And likewise, if a wife is lamenting that her husband is not turning out to be the man she hoped he would be, she should remember this:  God’s call to submit to your husband and to respect him is not dependent on how romantic or manly or communicative he’s been lately.  Honor him as your head as the church honors Christ.  With a gentle spirit, keep looking to him to be the man God has called him and declared him to be.  It is God’s intent that through this mutual self-giving, His people would be built up and that selfishness would be put down.  

    Secondly, in marriage God works to protect us from lust.  The book of Proverbs consistently refers to sexual enticements, pornographic enticements, as one of the chief ways in which people are led into ruin.  In marriage God seeks to protect us from the destructiveness of lust.  St. Paul (who himself was single) counsels all who suffer from lust to marry, for this is God’s good and gracious provision for rendering proper affection one to the other.  This is also one of the reasons why Paul counsels spouses not to withhold themselves from each other for lengthy periods of time.  One of God’s blessings in marriage is the dampening and controlling of lust.

    Thirdly, in marriage God seeks to protect us from loneliness.  Through the working of the devil, the world, and our own sinful flesh, we can easily become isolated and cut off.  In marriage God is at work to protect us from that.  When it is His will, He gives us a companion for comfort and camaraderie in life.  In the Garden of Eden, God said, “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.”  Adam received Eve as the God-given companion that brought them both completeness.  Such is God’s intention for marriage also today.

    Fourthly, through marriage God works to rescue us from doubt.  Although we would like to believe that we always make good decisions in life, we know that sin clouds our heart and mind.  So how can we be certain that we have chosen the right partner?  Through marriage God guards against such doubt by giving you the certainty that He is the One who married you to your spouse; that person is the one the Lord Himself has given you to love and to be committed to, even if they’re less than perfect.  And what the Lord has done stands far above any feelings you may or may not have or any later wondering whether you should have chosen differently.  A man and woman may in freedom choose to marry each other, but what really and finally counts is that it is the Lord who unites them, working through the authorities that He has established.  In this way God protects marriage from doubt with the certainty that He is the One who has made the union.

    Fifthly, in marriage God seeks to protect us from the delusion of self-sufficiency.  We tend to think that we can do just fine on our own apart from God.  Without the calling of serving a spouse in marriage (or serving our neighbor in any of our vocations), sinners would perceive even less need for God.  In marriage God protects us from such misguided self-reliance.  He gives husbands and wives the holy calling of serving each other in Christ.  And when husband and wife fail each other, as is bound to happen, God puts His law to work.  He confronts their self-centeredness; He afflicts their consciences.  In this way God drives them back to Himself, to find forgiveness, strength, and hope in Christ.  Confession and Absolution, the preaching of the Gospel, and the Body and Blood of Christ become their lifeblood, making them right with God and able to serve each other again.

    Finally, through marriage God works to preserve society.  Without this institution, the basic unit of society, the family, would crumble.  We see this happening around us, where conflict and chaos and self-will replace His order of family self-giving.  To prevent such evil, God established and blessed marriage from the beginning and said, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it.”  With that creative word, God continues to bless the union of husband and wife so that children are conceived and born.  This, btw, is why same-sex marriage simply does not exist in God’s sight.  Every child has a father and a mother, male and female.  Every father and mother is given a divine responsibility toward their children and toward one another within the commitment of marriage.  Homosexual relationships can only fake that and cannot produce children.  They are fundamentally sterile and lifeless, not because of health reasons or age, but by the very nature of what they are.  God’s purpose in marriage is for husband and wife to serve not only each other but also their children by protecting, providing for, and nurturing them in the training and instruction of the Lord.  Founded upon God’s gift of the family, human society can be more peaceably ordered.  And this in turn gives a good context for the saving Word of Christ to be preached and taught both in the church and the home.

    All of this is God’s good gift.  And all of this is meant to drive us to the greater reality that marriage points to.  The fact of the matter is, to one degree or another, all marriages are broken marriages; for it is two sinners who are united, whose only hope is in the forgiveness of sins that comes from Jesus.  And whether a Christian is single or married, divorced, widowed, young or old, as members of the Church we all are in a marital relationship that rescues and saves us.  For the Church has been united with her holy Groom, Jesus. She is the betrothed of Christ.  In the Epistle today Paul spent a lot of time talking about husbands and wives and marriage.  And then he concludes his comments by saying, “What I’m really talking about though is Christ and the Church.”  Earthly marriage is a sign of the greater and perfect love that God has for His people and the heavenly union that exists between them.

    From all eternity, before marriage was instituted, it was planned that Christ would lay down His life for His woman, sacrifice Himself for the church, to give her life.  Adam was put into a deep sleep, and Eve was created from his side.  So also Jesus was put into the sleep of death on the cross, that this new Eve might be created from the sacramental blood and water that flowed from His side.  St. John calls the church “the elect Lady,” chosen and redeemed by Christ.  For Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her by the washing of water with the Word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having any spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish.  For all of you whom sin has contaminated, or whose marriages and families are broken, Jesus shed His blood to cleanse you of every sin; He sanctified you and made you holy for Himself by the water and the Word of Baptism.  You stand before God spotless and perfect in the family of His Church, His holy bride.

    Just as husband and wife are given in marriage to become one flesh, so you now you as the church are the body of Christ, one flesh with Him through baptism.  So if He is the Son of God, then you are called sons of God.  If He holds in His hand the riches and treasures of heaven, those treasures are also yours to hold and take to heart.  If He is the Righteous One, then you are declared righteous before God.  If the death He dies no longer holds Him in the grave, then neither can death hold you in the grave.  The Bride shares in everything that belongs to the Groom.  That’s how marriage works with Jesus.  What is His is now yours, too.

    This is the joy of the eternal wedding feast that we are given a glimpse of in the Gospel.  The ritual washing water of the Law is turned into the joyous wedding wine of the Gospel.  The best is saved for last, and that best is Jesus–His forgiveness and mercy and life–which are all for you, flowing like sweet wine from the mountains.  Even now in Divine Service the heavenly Groom, our Lord Christ, comes to His bride to comfort her.  He speaks to you His words of love.  He remembers the commitment He made to you at Baptism. He gives Himself to you in Holy Communion that you may share fully in His life.

    So set aside your doubts and fears and sorrows.  For it is written, “As a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you.”  He has saved the best for you.  Come in faith to His table, that you may share in the joy of the eternal wedding feast of the Lamb in His kingdom that has no end.

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

(Some of the points in the middle section of this sermon are based on an article written in Gottesdienst by the Rev. Chaplain Jonathan Shaw.)

Epiphany
Matthew 2:1-12

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

    Some detractors of Christianity like to say that Christians merely took over a pagan winter solstice holiday when they established Christmas.  These detractors suggest that the older and more authentic religion is the pagan one, and Christians are just copycats who made up stuff about Jesus.  But that is most certainly not the case.

    In the days of the early church it was a commonly held belief that great people died on the same date that they were conceived in the womb.  Most believed that Jesus died on March 25th during the Passover of that year.  And so if that’s his conception day, then his birthday would be December 25th.  And thus we have the day of Christmas.  

    However, there were some who believed that the date of the Passover was actually April 6th the year that Jesus died.  (Passover moves from year to year like Easter does for us.)  9 months after that would place His birth on January 6th.  To this day Eastern Orthodox churches celebrate their Christmas on what we observe as Epiphany.  And so we have the 12 days of Christmas, stretching between these dates.  And in a very real sense, even in our tradition, January 6th is the Gentile Christmas.  For it is the first time that non-Jews are given to see the Messiah Jesus, who is their Savior and our Savior, too.

    “Where is He who has been born King of the Jews?”  That is the question of the Wise Men from the East.  It’s important to note that these Wise Men, these Magi, were probably not worshipers of the true God prior to this time.  They weren’t kings themselves but assistants to a king, counselors, advisers.  And their title as Magi would suggest that the “wisdom” they offered to the king came at least in part from occult magic, astrology, the seeking of power and knowledge from various sources other than the Word of God–reading the stars, and other pagan things.

    Of course, they would have had written wisdom, too, and among that wisdom was probably some portions of the Old Testament Scriptures.  For remember where these Magi came from, from the East, from Babylon and Persia east of Israel–the place where the Israelites had been carried away captive as exiles centuries earlier.  Several of those Israelite captives became counselors to the king, Wise Men of sorts–people like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego who wouldn’t bow down to Nebuchadnezzar’s golden image, or Daniel who was thrown into the lion’s den for continuing to pray to the Lord against the official edict.  And those Jewish Wise Men would certainly have brought with them not only the practice of their faith but scrolls containing the words of Moses and the prophets.  

    The Jews returned to Israel a few decades later.  But the Gentile Magi surely would have retained copies of those words over the years, such as this prophecy in Numbers 24, “A Star shall come out of Jacob, a [royal] Scepter shall rise out of Israel . . .”  Now the Magi probably only understood that to be about the birth of an important earthly king.  But when the special star or heavenly body appeared at the time of Jesus’ birth, God by His grace still used their imperfect and muddled wisdom to lead them to seek out Him who is Wisdom in the flesh, the King of the Jews, Christ our Lord.  

    And that’s one of the first points that we should take out of this Gospel today–by the grace of God, He draws even people like this to Himself: semi-pagan astrologers and Magi, people who are enmeshed in false belief and false religion, and He calls them away from all of that to the Truth.  He draws Gentiles like us who fall so easily into superstitious thinking, who are more enthralled with the notion of ghosts and mysterious occurrences than with divine service–we who are tempted to look for guidance in our own mystical experiences and feelings rather than in God’s clear words in Scripture, who wonder if there really is something to astrology and fortune tellers and palm readers and people who claim to channel deceased loved ones.  Even people like us, who are prone to get enmeshed in all sorts of spiritual foolishness, with our muddled hearts and brains, God still draws to Himself through His Word, in spite of ourselves, because of His grace and mercy.  It is that grace and mercy that caused the Lord to become flesh in the first place to redeem us and save us, to lead us into all truth.  This epiphany of Jesus to the Wise Men, then, is good news for us, for it shows Jesus to be the fulfillment of Simeon’s words, “a Light to bring revelation to the Gentiles, and the Glory of God’s people Israel.”

    You can tell that the Magi were thinking in terms of an earthly king, because the first place they go in Israel is to the capital city, to Jerusalem.  “Where is He who has been born King of the Jews?”  That’s where they expect to find Him.  But the Messiah King is not one who comes surrounded by the finery and the glories of the capital.  He comes rather in the lowliness of the humble village of Bethlehem, which means simply “house of bread.”  For this Jesus is for us the Bread of Life.

    Our fallen nature thinks God is to be found in places of power, that true religion is about that which brings health and wealth and success and happy feelings.  But that’s not where Jesus is at.  Herod has all that.  Jesus, on the other hand, ends up having to flee from Herod’s murderous scheme, carted by Joseph and Mary to exile in Egypt for a time, living an ordinary and common life for us.  The life of the true King is marked from the beginning by suffering and the cross.  That’s where Jesus is, not surrounded by earthly glory, but robed in humility for us.  True religion in this world is also marked by this humility of Jesus.

    It’s very important to note in this story the difference between the Gentile wise men and the Jewish priests and scribes.  On the one hand, the Jews who possessed the Scriptures in their fullness and knew the prophecies of the Messiah were greatly troubled at the thought that the Messiah was born.  It says here that King Herod and all Jerusalem were shaken and troubled by this news.  That seems a little strange, doesn’t it?  You would think they might be glad, joyful.  You would think that they would want to personally escort the wise men to Bethlehem so that they could see for themselves.  Instead, they’re more concerned about how this might upset their lives and the political structure.  Instead, they quote the Scripture they know so well and stay home.  

    In many ways, they represent a good chunk of people who think of themselves as Christians.  Some of the most “spiritual” people I know are ones who might go off on this or that religious or moral topic, but who rarely if ever see the need to come to divine service.  Far too many people think that if you just learn enough facts of the Bible, or learn enough morality from the Bible, then you will have God as well.  You can stay at home with your private spirituality and forsake the presence of Christ in the flesh in His gathered Church.  But such people are sorely deceived; they are not Christian.  We must guard against priding ourselves on our Bible knowledge rather than glorying in the One whom the Bible is all about, our Savior Jesus.  We must be careful not to let God’s Word simply become window-dressing in our lives lest we stop praying and meditating upon it.  

    The Magi are our example here.  They receive the Word of God properly, in such a way that they are moved to seek out Christ in the flesh.  The Magi rely on the written Word, but they are not content with the Bible for its own sake.  They cling to it for the sake of Christ to whom it leads them.  That is always the purpose of the Word, to lead us to the Word made flesh, Jesus.  He is there for us, too, concretely and tangibly in the preaching of the Gospel and the Sacraments, no less so than He was for these Wise Men.

    “Where is He who has been born King of the Jews?”  That title, “King of the Jews” might well spark some connections to Holy Week in your hearts and minds.  It’s actually a title that only shows up in two places in the Gospel–here at the beginning of Jesus’ life, and later at the end of Jesus’ life.  And the two situations are parallel.  King Herod was envious and tried to protect His power when Jesus was born, seeking to have Him killed; He ordered the deaths of all the boys two years old and under in Bethlehem.  So also in the Passion narrative, we hear of how Pontius Pilate knew that the Jewish leaders had handed Jesus over to him because of envy.  They, too, wanted to protect their position and power.  In both cases it’s the Gentiles who see Jesus more clearly as He is.  Pilate finds no fault in Him, and Pilate’s wife even calls Jesus a just Man.  But in the end, Pilate caves to the pressure, and in fulfillment of God’s will, perhaps to mock the Jewish leaders, He places over our Lord’s head the inscription “This is Jesus, the King of the Jews.”  

    So near the end of Matthew’s Gospel, we are given a crystal clear answer to the Magi’s question at the beginning of Matthew’s Gospel.  “Where is He who has been born King of the Jews?”  He is there, the humble Child, God in the flesh, the light of God’s love broken into the darkness of our sinful world.  And above all, He is there on the cross, with the inscription over his head declaring, “This is Jesus, the King of Jews.”  He is the King who is given gold for His royal nature but who chooses to wear the crown of thorns.  He is the King who is given incense, used at the time of prayer and sacrifice, who answers our prayers by being the sacrifice for the sins of the world.  He is the King who is given myrrh, a spice used for Jesus’ burial in the grave, which He would conquer in His victorious resurrection.  This Jesus, the King of the Jews, has come to redeem all people–wise men from the east, Roman conquerors from the west, Jew and Gentile, you and me.

    God grant that His Word would continually accomplish its purpose of leading you to the Word made flesh in this new year, that with the Magi we might come and kneel before Jesus week by week as he gives His gifts to us, His true body and blood offered up for the forgiveness of our sins.  For just as the Wise Men returned home by a different path, walking along a new way, so God gives you also to return to your heavenly home by a different path than the ways of your old life and the old ways of this world.  You are given to return home by Christ Himself, who is the Way.  Arise and shine, for your light has come.

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

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 ✠