Holy Cross Lutheran Church

Rocklin, California

The Presentation of Our Lord (February 2, 2012)

Luke 2:22–32

2012Presentation

TITLE: “Jesus Presents You Pure and Cleansed to God”

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! Amen. Our text this evening is the Purification of Mary and the Presentation of our Lord in the Temple.

The Law of God given to Moses required that a woman, after giving birth, would be set apart for forty days. She could not go to any holy place or touch any holy thing for forty days after giving birth to a son. This was called the period of her purification, because giving birth, even in the best of circumstances, always involves pain and blood. All the way back at the Garden of Eden, the Lord told Eve that she would suffer in child-birth. Even in the giving of life itself, there was an understanding that death is at the door. And death is a very unholy thing, for it is born from sin.

It’s really hard for us to understand the idea of uncleanness and purification as the Scriptures teach. We just don’t think in those categories today. How could Mary be impure because she gave birth to a Son? It’s offensive to think about this. What could be more natural than giving birth? What could be more normal than that?

Of course giving birth and bearing children is a good and salutary thing. Children are always a gift from God and blessing of the Lord. But because of the sin of Eve and Adam, with this blessing from God comes a cross. Let’s face it. Children are messy. They start out messy, and it only gets messier as they get older. The messes just change. And the messiest child of all is what we commonly call an adult. Our lives are full of messes, ones that we cause or ones that seem to fall into our laps. Life this side of the grave is messy business thanks to this common sin which infects us all.

The Scriptures understand this very well, and so every mother at forty days was to bring a lamb to the Temple for a burnt offering and two turtledoves or pigeons for a sin offering. In this way she was cleansed by the death of these animals, and made pure once again. The only way that a mother could be made clean was by death and sacrificed. That was the only way it happened.

The same was true for the son. From the time of Mount Sinai, every firstborn male child of the sons of Israel was holy to the Lord, and dedicated to service in the Temple of God. But since the tribe of Levi were the tribe of the priests, all of the other firstborn sons were redeemed, or bought back from Temple service forty days after their birth. The price for the redemption of a firstborn son was five shekels of silver.

So this forty days was a time of purification for Mary and preparation for Jesus to be presented at the Temple of the Lord. Jesus, the true Temple of God, came to visit the earthly Temple. So it is that this young girl, Mary by name, was purified for forty days after the birth of her Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. At the end of this time, she and Joseph brought Jesus to the Temple, along with two turtledoves to make sacrifice, as the Law of Moses required. They were a Jewish couple doing what new families do, to purify the mother and present the Son in the Temple and redeem Him from sacrifice. But this time it was different. This time Mary does not simply bring two turtledoves for her own sacrifice. This time she brings the sacrifice, the one sacrifice of all time, which would cleanse and purify all of us from sin and death forever.

Now this is a bit of a culture shock for you and I. We just don’t think this way. But it is true. Jesus is presented at the Temple of God in Jerusalem and so fulfills the Law of God. They bring the two pigeons to fulfill the Law for Mary His mother, but they do not bring the five shekels of silver for Him. Like the prophet Samuel many, many years before, Jesus will serve the Temple of God. Only this time, Jesus will be the Temple of God, for He is the very Son of God in the flesh.

This is what that old man, Simeon, saw in the little infant Jesus. Simeon picked Him up in his arms, blessed God and said:

“Lord, now You are letting Your servant depart in peace, According to Your word; For my eyes have seen Your salvation Which You have prepared before the face of all peoples, A light to bring revelation to the Gentiles, And the glory of Your people Israel.”

Simeon could now depart in peace, because the very Temple of God was now in the flesh of Jesus Christ. And He got to hold Jesus in his very arms. What a blessing indeed! The salvation and redemption of God’s people did not finally lie in turtledoves and temples and shekels and lambs. All of these things were but a shadow that pointed to the One. God’s salvation, the light for the Gentiles like you and I, and the true glory of Israel, came in that little baby that would one day die for the sins of the whole world. Only He could make Simeon whole. And when Simeon held Him in his arms, then he could go home and depart this world in peace.

But that’s not even the most miraculous part of this wonderful story. When do we sing these words, “Lord, now you let your servant depart in peace….”? We sing them right after receiving the very body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ in Holy Communion. That is no coincidence. What Simeon held in his arms, you take in your mouth. Simeon longed to be in the presence of God, and you take that Real Presence of our forgiving Lord into your very mouth and soul. Take and eat, take and drink, the very body and blood of Christ, given and shed for you for the forgiveness of your sins.

Incredible, isn’t it? More than incredible. Simeon longed his whole life to have what you receive every week right here, in the Lord’s Supper. Here He cleanses you body and soul. Here He forgives your sins. Here He makes right everything that is wrong and messed up on your life. I said earlier that children are messy, even the adult variety. It is that very messiness which Christ our Lord takes on for you. The Epistle to the Hebrews puts it this way: “Therefore, in all things He had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.”

He was made to be like you, so that He could remake you to be like Him. What a wonderful gift and treasure our Lord gives you in His body and blood! He comes into that messiness, that mire and muck of your life, and cleanses you from all sins. We may truly pray with the hymn:

Jesus, by your presentation, When they blessed you, weak and poor,
Make us see your great salvation, Seal us with your promise sure;
And present us in your glory To your Father, cleansed and pure. (LSB 519:3)

Believe it for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in true faith, unto life everlasting. Amen.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen. Our text for this morning is the Gospel just read, the Transfiguration of our Lord from St. Matthew chapter seventeen.

God loves to hide things, so that He may reveal them at the proper time. King Solomon once wrote, “It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out.” (Proverbs 25:2 ESV) What this means for us is that God hides things because it is for our benefit, not because he’s trying to keep secrets. He hides Himself because He knows that if He were to reveal Himself to us in His full glory apart from Jesus, we could not bear it because of our sin.

That is why Peter, James and John fall to the ground when He is revealed. They realize that they are not worthy to be in God’s presence. Like Moses standing before the burning bush, they know that if everything is revealed, they would be consumed. They know, like the centurion from last week, that they are not worthy to be in the presence of God Almighty. They are afraid. And they are right to be afraid. Adam and Eve, after all, fled from the presence of God when they knew their sin (Genesis 3:8).

Oddly enough, we have forgotten our unworthiness in the presence of God. As a culture, perhaps more than any other description, I would say that we are a people without shame. We dress up our children like harlots. We steal and slander one another at every turn. We take God’s gift of life and turn it into a convenience to be aborted if other dreams seem more important. We have no shame as a people. And yet we somehow also have a profound lost of self-esteem and self-worth.

Now when Moses came down from Mt. Sinai, his face shone from being in the presence of God. The people were afraid to come near to him. The reason Moses went up Mt. Sinai here in Exodus is because of this little episode we call the Golden Calf. In a short period of time, the people of Israel had gone from rejocing in God delivering them from the hand of Pharaoh, to worshipping a calf made of melted jewelry. Moses actually crashed the tablets of stone on the ground, broke them, and many people died. So it should be no surprise when Moses comes back down a second time, that they are afraid. His glowing presenced reflected the glory of God, and it terrified them. They went from having no shame, to having so much shame and guilt that they could not bear it.

This is you, dearly beloved. We play games with our sins. We act as though we can pick and choose how these things work. We bite and manipulate one another, all in the name of fairness or justice or even just being right. But as the author to Hebrews puts it, “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” (Hebrews 10:31)

So the fear of Peter, James and John is entirely understandable. They can handle the healing Jesus. They can handle Jesus the teacher. They can even handle Moses and Elijah (at least in their minds). In fact, that little picture or image is so good that they want to CLICK, hold on to that picture. But when the voice of God Himself speaks from the cloud, well, that is too much. They cannot bear to hear the voice of God apart from Jesus.

It is then that this beautiful picture emerges. The pictures is these three, as well as you and I, kneeling before the Transfigured Lord, and Jesus then reaches down and touches them and says, “Rise, and have no fear.” (Matthew 17:7) With these words, everything really does change. Jesus touches them, reaches out to them, speaks words of comfort to them, and they lift up their eyes and see Jesus only.

This, beloved, is how we enter into the presence of the almighty God. We enter through the blood of Jesus. We enter into His presence with the touch of our Lord. It is this touch, this hidden Word, that changes everything.

Does this comfort you? It can and it will. For you enter into the presence of God Almighty here, in this place, at His house. “How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of Host!” God’s house is lovely because God’s house is here for you. It is your shelter from the stormy blast. God’s house is where you are fed and nourished. God’s house is where your sins are forgiven, God’s house is where you get a tiny little taste of this resurrection.

Some day, dearly beloved, some day we will change for good. Yes, you will change. It won’t be the cheap cosmetic changes of today. It won’t be changing an old habit or any of the other superficial things that we all try to solve or improve on the way.

And one day, O Christian, one day the morning star will rise in your heart, and the dawn will come. One day you will go home to be with Him forever. And on that day, the vision, the picture we have in the Transfiguration will be complete. For you, too, will shine like the stars. You, too, will converse with Moses and Elijah and all the company of heaven. You, too, will be with Jesus face to face forever.

On that day, beloved, you will face a final transfiguration, the great change, a last resurrection, a transformation unlike any other, a metamorphisis to eternal life that will never end. May it ever be so for Jesus sake. Amen.

“Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.” (Jude 1:24–25)

2012Transfiguration

• What are the contradictions that a pastor faces every day?
• What are the contradictions his people face every day?  How are they the same or different?
• What does it mean to “Shepherd Through” them?

Those are just a few of my initial questions.  What are yours?

Jesus came to the wedding. It’s really that simple sometimes. Jesus came to the wedding, and everything was different. We don’t know why He came. We don’t know the couple. We don’t know who the master of the feast was. We don’t know why they were such poor planners when it came to the wine for the feast, although to be fair, a wedding feast in Jesus’ time typically lasted seven days. That’s a lot of planning. We know Jesus was there, and Mary, His mother. And some of the disciples. And we know that with Jesus’ presence, everything changed and became new.

So often when it comes to the days and events of our lives, can feel like Jesus isn’t there. Accidents. Mess ups. Problems at home or at school or at work. We may be tempted to ask the question to God much like Moses, “Show me your glory.” “Look, Lord,” we might think to ourselves. “I know you’re God and that I’m not. I know that you can do all things. But people depend on me, and truth be told, I’m afraid. I’m afraid they won’t trust me or you. I’m afraid that when the going gets tough, that you won’t be there.”

If we are honest with ourselves, every one of us has these doubts and thoughts from time to time. Another variation is this, “Would God really care about all of these little problems that I have in my life? Shouldn’t He worry about bigger problems like world hunger or the salvation of mankind?”

There’s actually been some talk about this question in the news lately, although you may not have noticed it. For football fans, you know who Tim Tebow is. He’s the quarterback of the Denver Broncos. This has been a remarkable season for him, pulling out wins when it seemed impossible against all odds. What’s more, Mr. Tebow is an outspoken, overt Christian. It has gotten some people asking the question, “Does God want Tim Tebow to win? What if he plays someone else who is a Christian? Would God pick sides?” And what does it mean now that their season is over with the loss yesterday?

It almost sounds silly, doesn’t it? I mean, really. Does God really care about football?

The question could even be asked about more serious matters. You have probably heard the stories from World War One, when the Axis and Allies were on opposite sides of some trench in France on Christmas Eve, when they started sining Christmas carols to and with one another. Would God take sides when two Christians are both doing their duty against each other?

Speaking of war, let’s get back to this wedding, shall we? In marriage one can easily become obsessed with keeping score and determining who is right and who is wrong in any given matter. Like both football and war, the battle of the sexes in our homes can really make us wonder where God fits into the day to day events which we all face and struggle with. A wife brings that one chore up that isn’t getting done, and the husband loses his temper. Who do you think was blamed for running out of wine at the wedding? The master of the feast? The bride’s family? Somebody else?

The reality is that little things do matter to you and to me. In a marriage, putting your shoes away or taking care of the car when it needs work matters. It matters! Why? Because those little things of everyday life show your spouse, or parents, or children, or whomever it is that you believe they matter, and that what is important to them is important to you. Husbands, if you give yourselves up for your wives, as St. Paul exhorts in Ephesians 5, that shows your wife that you truly love her and that she is the most important person in your life. Wives, if you submit to your husbands, as St. Paul exhorts in Ephesians 5, that shows him that you trust him and trust his judgment, even (frankly) when it doesn’t make sense. The little things matter.

Now I agree with Paul here. This is a great mystery. But what we’re really talking about here finally is Christ and His holy bride, the Church. It’s like this. Christ loves the Church, His bride. He gives up everything for her. He cares as much about the little things as He does the big things. He wants her to be spotless and holy, pure in every way at the wedding feast of the Lamb in His kingdom, which has no end. And for that reason, He washes her with water and Word, He cleanses her, and puts upon her that most beautiful of white garments, the white robe of righteousness that He paid for with His own blood. Christ wants to spend eternity with His bride, not just a one night stand or “until love parts from us”.

His love for you, His Church, His bride, is such that every little thing matters. God has numbered the very hairs on your head. He knows every joy and sorrow you have had or will ever have. He rejoices when you rejoice and weeps when you weep. Even if it’s over a football game. (That, by the way, is no prediction of anything this afternoon!) You see, beloved, there is nothing too small or too great for our heavenly bridegroom, Jesus Christ our Lord.

Jesus came to the wedding. And Mary, as a picture of the Church, tells our Lord what is wrong and then simply says, “do whatever He asks.” Today Christ Himself comes to you in preaching and Word and water and holy meal. He takes the little problems and the great into Himself. Your problems are His problems, and His righteousness is now yours.

So come to the wedding feast now. There’s plenty of wine, which is His blood, and bread, which is His body. He gives you Himself, completely. Come and believe. Come and live. Come to the wedding feast. All things are now ready.

Believe it for Jesus’ sake, Amen.

And now the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in true faith to life everlasting. Amen.

TITLE: “Knowing the Mind of God”

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Our text for today is the Gospel lesson from St. John chapter one, particularly verse fourteen: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14 NKJV) This morning we will reflect in wonder upon the mystery that in Jesus Christ, God bares His soul to us and gives of Himself in a way that none of us can ever truly comprehend.

Every one of us has a sort of running conversation that goes on within us. You know what I mean. You talk to yourself. You talk to yourself about whether to get out of bed, what clothes to wear, how you feel, what you want to do, how much coffee to drink. You can have pretty extended conversations with yourself. Luther talks about this as follows:

Furthermore, we must realize that this Word in God is entirely different from my word or yours. For we, too, have a word, especially a “word of the heart,” as the holy fathers call it.4[1] When, for example, we think about something and diligently investigate it, we have words; we carry on a conversation with ourselves. Its content is unknown to all but ourselves until such Words of the heart are translated into oral words and speech, which we now utter after we have revolved them in our heart and have reflected on them for a long time. Not until then is our word heard and understood by others. St. Paul touches on this in First Corinthians (2:11): “No person knows a man’s thoughts except the spirit of the man which is in him.”

Can you imagine what it would be like to know another person like that, to peek in to their interior monologue? None of us ever knows another person that way. First of all, we would all be too afraid. Like Adam and Eve in the Garden, we would run and hide at the thought of another person truly knowing our thoughts. They are too close, too private, too personal. They are too full of sin and selfishness and heartache and sorrow and want and need and pain. None of us could bear that level of self-disclosure. None of us could handle being that exposed. Not to our children. Not even to our spouse. It would be the ultimate in too much information.

Yet that is exactly what God does in sending His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, into our flesh. The divine life of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, have existed in all eternity with that holy conversation going on. The Father showing His will to the Son. The Son receiving that will of the Father and returning it to Him, all happening in the Spirit.

But God, who is rich in mercy, did not wish to exist simply in Himself. He spoke the Word, and it went forth in creation, making a world out of nothing. God bared His soul to the world. But sin entered in, and the voice of God was not heard. We stopped up our ears to His voice. We refused to listen to all of the great and mighty things that He wanted to tell us. So He sent His prophets. Time and time again God sent them, so that His mind would be made known to us. But what did we do? We killed them. We threw them out of our cities. We were too busy, too bored, too uninterested in the things of God to care about such trifles.

God bared His soul to the world in a way that none of us could ever truly comprehend. He sent His Son, His Word made flesh. The author to the book of Hebrews put it this way:

“God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son…” (Hebrews 1:1-2 NKJV)

God has bared His soul to you. He has opened His mind to you by sending His Word, His Son, His voice into your flesh and blood. It is unfathomable. It is mysterious and wonderful. It is the greatest gift that anyone has ever given, anywhere. And it is all for you. That river of God’s mercy which flows from Jesus’ birth now flows to you. For after all, remember the words from Isaiah:

Unto us a Child is born.
Unto us a Son is given.
His name shall be called wonderful counselor, the mighty God,
The everlasting Father, the | Prince of Peace. (Isaiah 9:6)

Our heavenly Father, you see, has no secrets from you, none that matter to us anyway. His bares His very soul to you in sending His Word into your flesh and blood. Trust Him now. Believe in Him, and live. Know that the God who would do such a great and mighty deed would never seek to hurt or harm you. He loves you, with every fiber of His being. Could there be any greater gift? No. That is the gift of Christmas. God becomes man so that we might become like unto God. He comes down, here and now, so that you might ascend to him. Another early pastor (St. Cyril of Alexandria) put it like this:

He found humanity reduced to the level of the beasts. Therefore he is placed like feed in a manger, that we, having left behind our carnal desires, might rise up to that degree of intelligence which befits human nature. Whereas we were brutish in soul, by now approaching the manger, yes, his table, we find no longer feed, but the bread from heaven, which is the body of life.[1][2]

So come, feast upon the Word made Flesh for you. Feast and rejoice, for God has drawn you up into Him! Believe it for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

And now may the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in true faith, unto life everlasting. Amen.


[1] 4Here Luther seems to be referring to a distinction which originated in Stoic thought and which appeared in Philo between the λόγος ἐδιάθετος (the Logos as He was in God) and the λόγος προφορικός (the Logos as He emanated from God). The first church father to employ the distinction appears to have been Theophilus, To Autolycus, II, ch. 10; II, ch. 22.
Martin Luther, vol. 22, Luther’s Works, Vol. 22 : Sermons on the Gospel of St. John: Chapters 1-4, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald and Helmut T. Lehmann, Luther’s Works (Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1999, c1957), 22:8.
[2] [1] COMMENTARY ON LUKE, HOMILY 1. Just, A. A. (2005). Vol. 3: Luke. Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture NT 3. (39). Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press.

I’ve always loved that phrase at the end of Luther’s hymn, “While angels sing with pious mirth A glad new year to all the earth.” Pious mirth. It is easy in the hustle and bustle of our lives, to forget to laugh and have true joy. Truth be told, often laughter is pretty low on our “to do” list of things for the Christmas season.

But the angels have something to teach us about how we look at these things. The events themselves are pretty simple. We just heard the story from our children, and from Dr. Luther’s marvelous hymn. But simple does not mean unimportant. Mary and Joseph travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem. While they are there, Mary gives birth to her Son, Jesus Christ, the Lord.

That’s it. Oh, there are more details to be had, things to be said, and the like. But the bare facts of it are quite simple. Jesus is born. And with this event, everything changes for you and me, indeed for the entire world.

Because Jesus is born, the story, your story, now has an ending in joy, not sorrow.

Because Jesus is born, these children here have a future that is bright with the light of eternity.

Because Jesus is born, your griefs will come to an end.

Because Jesus is born, the road to the cross is set, and your salvation is at hand.

Because Jesus is born, your sins do not define you. They will be cast off with His death and resurrection.

Because Jesus is born, all of Satan’s plans have come unraveled like so many loose beads on a string.

Because Jesus is born, the gates of hell itself are shaken at the cry of this little babe.

Because Jesus is born, you can sing with the angels of God’s glory now come to earth.

Because Jesus is born, you can now depart in peace. Death is but a quiet slumber, the sleep of a child who will awaken at the call of their Father.

Because Jesus is born, no matter how dark the night is for you, the dawn of a new day in Christ is here.

Because Jesus is born, you can now laugh with the pious mirth of the angels, knowing that your champion is now at hand.

So this night, as we hear the story anew and learn from our children about the Christ child, laugh with the angels. A glad new year is here for all the earth. You are at peace. God loves you. He comes to you now in Word and Meal, ready ever to forgive and to draw you into that gracious embrace.

Believe it for Jesus’ sake, and Merry Christmas in Jesus’ name! Amen.

I’ve always loved the texts centered around Mary. Maybe that makes me a bad Lutheran, I’m not sure. But there is something simple, profound and beautiful about how the mother of God is portrayed, especially in Luke’s Gospel. It is time to take a brief pause from our Christmas preparations, and reflect for a moment on what is really going on here. One author wrote about Mary’s *Magnificat* that it is like an aria in an opera. Everything is moving along in the plot, things are happening, people are dying or loving or fighting or whatever is going on, and then up steps the soprano to sing about what is in her heart. All of the action stops. Everyone turns to her. And listens. Let’s hear what the mother of our Lord has to say this morning.

This morning we hear the story of Mary’s visitation to her cousin, Elizabeth. Elizabeth at this time is six months pregnant. You might remember that she was well past child rearing age when God came to her husband, Zacharias, through the angel Gabriel, to tell them that they would be having a son. The son’s name would be John, which means “God is gracious”. This son, we know him as John the Baptist, is the greatest of everyone born of women, according to Jesus.

So imagine the scene. Elizabeth is bearing a son, in fulfillment of prophecy. Elizabeth is the bearer of the Old Testament. Images of Sarah, of Ruth, of Hannah, and of all the other women who had miraculous births all come to mind. In Elizabeth we find the pinnacle of God’s Word that He always keeps His promises. Well, not quite the pinnacle. For now we have Mary, a young maiden probably fifteen or sixteen years old, who bears not just a prophet, but the very Son of God Himself. At the greeting of Mary, John leapt in his mother’s womb! Even John, not yet born, knew that this was a big deal that Mary would be in their midt.

But Lutherans don’t like talking about Mary. Well, I guess we don’t mind it as long as it is a part of a manger scene or it’s straight out of the bible. But to Lutheran sensibilities, to talk too much about Mary just sounds a little too Roman Catholic.

Perhaps so. We don’t worship Mary, and to do so would be as horrific to her as it would to any Lutheran. But at the same time, when we honor Mary and call her blessed, as she reminds us in the Magnificat, when we do this, we are not honoring Mary, but her Son.

Recognizing the place of Mary in our lives as Christians is really confessing that God became Man. It’s that simple. God didn’t become human, in some vague, androgynous sense. No, He became man. It was a long process. Prophesied for thousands of years, all the way back to Eve and Adam in the Garden. Slowly in type, from age to age, the nations saw their coming Lord. 9 months in the womb of a young girl named Mary. Yet it is that very ordinariness, that very humanity of His journey into our lives that opens up the wonder of God to poor sinners like you and I.

The fact is that Jesus came into the womb of the Virgin Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit. When he did this, he sanctified and set apart all wombs as holy and sacred in God’s sight. God works through real life and death, people like you and me, to bring about His mightiest deeds. God Himself lifted up Mary and made her the Mother of God. Why did He do this? God did this because of grace. That’s actually what the text says. Remember again Gabriel’s words to her at the Annunciation, ““Rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women!” (Luke 1:28 NKJV) And Elizabeth adds the following, “and blessed is the fruit of your womb.”

In other words, dearly beloved, Mary is blessed by God because she is the mother of God. It is grace, pure and simple. But what’s even more important is that because she is blessed, you are blessed. God used her to bring our Lord, Jesus Christ, into the world. We celebrate His birth in but a few short days. So when we rejoice that Mary is the Mother of God, we are rejoicing that God has become man.

In so many ways, you and I have lost that sense of wonder at our Lord’s coming. We treat God’s merciful presence in our midst as an imposition. Going to church is one more task to tick off on the “to do” list of our lives. Even Christian congregations today don’t want to have church on Christmas! I will never get over how tragic that is.

Yet it is precisely for this reason that our Lord’s coming in human flesh and blood is so important. Mary cries out “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God, my Savior. For He has regarded the lowly estate of His handmaiden. For this day forth, all generations shall call me blessed.”

What this means for you is that God has come into your very midst. God is with you every bit as much as He was with her. God enters into your body and soul in His Holy Supper. God washes you with His Holy Baptism. God speaks to you by His Holy Word. God Himself has blessed you beyond all measure. You receive that blessing again and again in His Word of Absolution and Forgiveness spoken over you, the lowly sinner. Just like the Mother of God.

This coming week we will hear the story of our Lord’s birth told by the children of our congregation. How appropriate it is that our children teach us this story! It is the story of the ages. Mary’s story is your story, for in her womb lies your very lifeblood. We pray:

Remember, Lord of life and grace,
How once, to save our fallen race,
You put our human vesture on
And came to us as Mary’s Son (LW 45:3).

And now may the peace of God, which passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds in true faith unto life everlasting. Amen.

Norman Nagel,

In the Name of Jesus, Advent 1, 1994

Our Lord’s coming is one of humility and lowliness. One could hardly imagine a more contrary approach to what we call the Christmas season than Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem. Yet for more than a thousand years, the Church has welcomed each new church year not with the Annunciation or one of the pre-Christmas stories, but rather with Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem on a donkey. If ever there was evidence that God’s ways are not our ways, this is it.

But there it is. While we shop ‘til we drop and have days like Black Friday and Cyber Monday, in the Church our eyes are fixed on Jesus. This is a season of contrasts for the Christian. On the one hand, the themes of family and friends and gift giving are certainly good and appropriate. It resonates with our American sense of pride and the way things ought to be. Yet there is this nagging sense that things are not right. Surely there is something more than home and hearth or trees and tinsel.

Jesus, the Righteous Branch, knows something that our world does not remember. His understanding of who you are and what you truly need is deeper, far deeper than we can even fathom. Jesus knows that you are suffering. He knows that you are mourning over your sin and brokenness. He knows that this season, these months, are the hardest of the year for most people. He knows that while you put on a happy face and try to exude Christmas cheer, He knows that there is mourning.

So what do you mourn this holy season? Do you mourn the death of a loved one? Or the shattering of a marriage? The loss of income, of friendship, or of something deeper? What is it that you fear? The unknown? Those inevitable conflicts with family, and the spent expectations which seem so inevitable? Whatever it is that you fear, it is pretty likely that it will be on your mind and in your heart this month. Life has a way of getting in the way when all we want to do is forget. And no amount of forgetfulness pills in alcohol and food and shopping are going to change that.

But back to our Lord’s entry into Jerusalem. The scene is set just a few days away from our Lord’s betrayal and death at the hands of sinners. They are in Bethphage, just a scant mile from the holy city. This city was really the dugout or batter’s box for the priests. They went there after their service in the Temple, and it was there that they prepared for service in the Lord’s house. You couldn’t travel more than a mile on the Sabbath, so this was the staging area for those getting ready to do the Lord’s bidding at His house. So here is Jesus, ready to do the ultimate service of sacrifice, getting ready to go. Jesus then tells the disciples to go into town, find a donkey and a colt, and bring them back. And if anyone questions you about it, say to them quite simply, “The Lord needs them.”

God has a way of pressing things into His service that we never planned or intended. Our grief and our joy. Our sorrows. Even our sins have been pressed into His holy service. For however broken and troubled you are, our Lord with gentleness and care takes all of these pieces of your crazy life and says to you quite simply, “I need this. Can I have this? It would fit in perfectly into my plan for your salvation.” It’s as if God takes inventory of all of the junk in your life, and everything you would toss as as too hard or too painful, that is what He wants to use for His own holy purposes.

I will be the first to admit that this is hard to see at times. Ok. Not hard. Impossible. How can God use all of this junk to prepare me for His appearing? And I’ll be honest with you: I don’t know. I don’t know in my own life, and I don’t know in yours, either. But what our Lord says to you today is that everything you have and everything you are is pressed into His service.

But this is very important to understand. What I am not talking about is the sort of cheesy “God has a plan” sort of talk that we so often try to comfort ourselves with. It goes much deeper than that. What God wants for you this week and every week is that you recognize what is really going on around you through His Word and Spirit. St. Paul put it this way in our Epistle,

“Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. 12 The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.”

So what our Lord asks of you today is simple. Wake up! Remember who you are, a baptized child of God, holy and beloved. Remember that our Lord’s coming is about you. It is about your salvation, which is right here, right now. Jesus Word is here, His body and blood are ever present, offering you forgiveness, life and salvation.

The Lord is our righteousness, we hear in Jeremiah. You, like those people lining the streets for our Lord so many years ago, are here awaiting His coming. You wait, but you wait in the prison cell of your sin and brokenness. But your wait is not in vain. Our righteousness is coming, indeed He has already come for you. He is here, even now, ready to release you from all that binds you and holds in thrall. The German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer once wrote this about this season:

“A prison cell, in which one waits, hopes – and is completely dependent on the fact that the door of freedom has to be opened from the outside, is not a bad picture of Advent” -Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The door to your freedom has been opening in the birth and death and resurrection of our Advent King, the Lord of heaven and earth. Be free. Our king is coming to you. Rejoice, daughter of Zion! Shout and rejoice! Sing with palm branches in your hards and faith in your hearts as we cry out with the people of Jerusalem, angels, archangels and all the company of heaven, Holy, Holy, Holy Lord! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!

He is coming for you. He is coming now. He is coming with healing in His wings. He is coming to set you free. Blessed is He who comes.

Believe it for Jesus’ sake, Amen.

And now the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in true faith to life everlasting. Amen.

It is always dangerous to say that a season is my favorite time of the year.  But there it is.  Right now Advent is my favorite time of the year.  The hymns are sublime, the Gospel is clear and beautiful.  The hope of the One to Come washes over you like a flood.

The longing of Advent for me is also closely associated with death.  Our daughter, Nadia, died in utero the day after Thanksgiving in 2005.  Our Son, Emmanuel, died in utero on December 21, 2009.  My mother died on January 9.  So this season is really a time of longing for me.  Longing for what is gone.  Longing for what can never be.

But that really is what our Lord’s coming is all about.  Our Lord’s birth is miraculous.  It should not have happened.  By all reason and common sense, it is impossible.  Yet it is true.

This season as we long for what is lost, look to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.  He is the One who wipes away our tears.  He is the one who will create all things new.  He is the one who has gives us hope (Nadia) by becoming one with our flesh and blood.  He is God-with-Us (Emmanuel).

Lord, make all things new.  I hope in your Word alone.

-Pr. Peperkorn