The first time I met Ted I think was when they stopped by our house (formerly their house) to drop off a bottle of wine and welcome us to Messiah and to Kenosha.  He and Jane were kind and generous to the upstart pastor who (thought he) knew everything.

Pastor Ted with his first confirmation class at Messiah in 1979.

The next time I saw Ted was at my installation.  I will never forget it.  We were vesting in what was then the youth room, and I had just put on my chasuble.  Red brocade, very liturgical, very very colorful.  Ted walked in, took one look at me, and said, “Oh my.”  Oh my, indeed.

They weren’t members of Messiah anymore, but Ted and his wife, Jane, lived in Racine not to far away.  Jane still does.  Over the last twelve years or so, I have increasingly come to respect Ted and his faithfulness as a pastor here at Messiah.  Twenty-one years is a long time of service.  I’m sure he did things I wouldn’t do.  I’m sure I’ve done things he wouldn’t do.  But he always, always, respected me as the pastor and offered nothing but support and encouragement along the way.  He was and is a model for how an elder pastor can remain in a community and continue to be of service to the parish he loves, and others, even after retirement.

Among the many things that I learned from him over the years, probably the one that has been the most helpful to me has been one he didn’t even know he was doing.  It was such a part of his nature.  He didn’t get bent about titles and overwrought about terminology.  When I first arrived at Messiah, it bugged me that people called him “Pastor Ted”.  I thought that was disrespectful of the Office.  But over the years, I’ve learned that it doesn’t really matter what you’re called.  The question is whether people will receive you as their pastor, and allow you to bring Christ’s mercy to them in their time of need.  People letting you into their lives is a rare gift.  Sometimes it’s more than you want to know.  But it doesn’t matter much what they call you.  That is for certain.

Some time ago Pastor Ted was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.  For those of you unfamiliar with it, Parkinson’s has to be one of the most painful and just plain ugly diseases on earth.  I’ve seen many with it, including my former Professor Kurt Marquart, and Dr. Ron Feuerhahn.  Near the end, Ted was a shadow of his former self.  It seemed like this big man was wasting away into nothing right in front of us.  I can only imagine how hard the last six months have been for Ted’s family.

But through feeding tubes and tracheostomies, the “death rattle” in his lungs, lost hearing aids and long nights, through pain and what I can only describe as a lingering death, through it all, Ted confessed Christ and the resurrection of the dead.  He brought comfort as much as He received it.  And He always received it.  I don’t know how many pastors were visiting him.  I wouldn’t blame his family if they got tired of the pastor parade.  But Ted was always kind, somehow, even when he was barely with us at all.

The last time I saw him, Wednesday, he was pretty much unresponsive from my observation.  Maybe there was an eye blink or a little look.  I’m not sure.  We talked about some of the things that had happened in his lifetime, wept, prayed and sang.  Our song for the week here at Christ Lutheran Academy was quite apropos.  It’s what I sang to Pastor Ted, Jane, Sarah, and Daniel.  It’s worth passing along here:

Evening and morning,Sunset and dawning,
Wealth, peace, and gladness,
Comfort in sadness:These are Thy works;
all the glory be Thine!
Times without number,Awake or in slumber,
Thine eye observes us,
From danger preserves us,
Causing Thy mercy upon us to shine.

Father, O hear me,Pardon and spare me;
Calm all my terrors,
Blot out my errors
That by Thine eyes they may no more be scanned.
Order my goings,Direct all my doings;
As it may please Thee,    Retain or release me;
All I commit to Thy fatherly hand.

Ills that still grieve me
Soon are to leave me;
Though billows tower,
And winds gain power,
After the storm the fair sun shows its face.
Joys e’er increasing
And peace never ceasing:
These shall I treasure
And share in full measure
When in His mansions God grants me a place.

To God in heaven
All praise be given!
Come, let us offer
And gladly proffer
To the Creator the gifts He doth prize.
He well receiveth
A heart that believeth;
Hymns that adore Him
Are precious before Him
And to His throne like sweet incense arise. (LSB 726, Paul Gerhardt)

There are other things that I’d like to write about concerning Ted, but they will wait for another time.  Suffice it to say that he was a man who stood as a sinner before God, yet righteous for Jesus’ sake.  Anything that God has used me for here at Messiah may be credited squarely on his shoulders for all of his hard work over so many years.   I will miss him.  I’m sure you will, too.

-Pastor Todd Peperkorn

easter02-2011

TITLE: “Peace be with you”

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.  Our text for this morning is from John 20.  We focus on the words, Jesus breathed on His disciples and said, Peace be with you.

We have heard the story of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead.  We have heard how he crushed Satan and won salvation for all who believe His Word.  This is the victory of God over all the powers of darkness and despair.  So why is it that the Sunday after Easter always seems like a letdown?  In the Church year this Sunday is sometimes called Low Sunday.  I’m not sure if this refers to low attendance or how low the disciples felt in our Gospel lesson, but it is certainly true that things are different for the disciples and for us.

Our Gospel lesson takes place the evening Jesus’ rose from the dead.  Last week we heard of the morning’s events.  Jesus rises from the dead, and appears to Mary Magdalene, and says her name.  When she went to tell the disciples, though, they didn’t believe her.  They thought she was crazy, or perhaps was drunk.  So that brings us to this week’s lesson

In our text the disciples are hiding behind closed doors for fear of the Jews.  Jesus has risen from the dead, but the disciples are afraid.  They are afraid of the Jews, they are afraid they are going to be found out, they are afraid that they have put their hope in a dead God.  What could be more pathetic than that?

That is how it goes with our faith, too.  It’s easy to feel good on Easter morning.  The music, the readings, the beauty of the service, everything points to the wonder of Christ’s resurrection from the dead.  But what about later?  What about after the glow of the resurrection seems to wear off?  What about those times when you are alone with your sins.  What about those times in your faith-life when you feel like you can get no breath, when you feel like you are choking or being asphyxiated because it just isn’t in you?

We’ve all been there.  Like the disciples, our emotions as Christians ebbs and flows.  There are times when we feel close to God, but there are other times when we feel far away and distant, unconnected, afraid and alone.  That is where the disciples were that first Easter evening.  They were there with you.

This is how Satan seeks to work on you, my friends.  The last thing Satan wants you to believe is the connection between Easter and your faith.  If He can convince you that Christ’s death and resurrection were just events from a storybook a long time ago, if he can convince you of that, then Jesus’ resurrection from the dead has no meaning.  That is Satan’s ploy.  He seeks to convince you that you don’t believe.  He is willing to lie, deceive, convince, do whatever he can in His power to draw you away from Christ’s words of forgiveness and life.

Left to yourself, you are stuck, right there in league with Satan.  But you are not left to yourself.  That is the point of our Gospel lesson today.  Jesus appears in the midst of them and says, Peace be to you.  Jesus knows His disciples don’t believe in Him at that time.  He knows that they are filled with unbelief and doubt.  He also knows they are full of fear at the Law and that they need to hear words of comfort and hope.

So He says to them, Peace be with you.  Notice how tender these words are in the ears of the disciples.  Notice how tender these words are to you.  Peace.  The wall of separation between God and man was broken when Jesus burst forth from the tomb.  God and man are not longer at enmity; they are no longer at war with each other.  They are at peace.  But like prisoners of war, the disciples have not heard the news.  They haven’t received the fruit of Jesus’ work on the cross and in the tomb.  So Jesus preaches to them and says, peace be with you.

They are great words.  With those words Jesus comforts you and gives you hope.  Jesus died and rose again from the dead to put those words in your ears.  Peace be with you.  He doesn’t pummel with the Law, he doesn’t mock them or condemn for their unbelief, although I suppose the disciples deserved it, as do we.  No, Jesus gives them the only thing that could actually make a difference.  He gave them peace.  As Jesus uses the word here, it means the same thing as forgiveness.  He forgives them their sins.  They are gone.

But Jesus isn’t satisfied to simply forgive the since of the eleven some 2000 years ago.  No, He then gives them the peace again, and says to them: whoever sins you forgiven, they are forgiven; and whoever’s sins you hold back, they are held back.

In Lutheran theology we call this the Office of the Keys.  Jesus gives the Keys to the disciples, now called the Apostles or sent-ones.  He gives them the keys and says that their work, they life task is to be about forgiving sins.  They are to release sins, get rid of them and cast them into the depth of the sea.

That is the work of the Christian Church.  That is why we gather here Sunday after Sunday.  God draws you to this house week after week so that He can say to you, Peace be with you.  I forgive you your sins. That is the point.  God does forgive your sins.  Remember the words from the end of our Gospel lesson, These things are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God, and that believing, you may have life in His name.

God puts His peace on you.  He gives it to you, freely, not because of any merit or worthiness on your part, but because of His great and abundant mercy, which knows no bounds.  This is what the world doesn’t get about Easter.  For so many, even for many Christians, Easter is about the drama of the event or the pageantry or whatever.  Now we do make a big deal about Easter.  But we do so because Jesus died and rose again for us.  Remember again the words from the Creed: who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven and was incarnate of the virgin Mary and was made man. God came down to earth with a purpose.

The old title for this Sunday is Quasimodo Geniti, from the Introit, which begins, “As newborn babes desire the pure milk of the Word.”  The power of Easter lies in the Word of God.  For it is in that Word of God, peace be with you, that all of Christ’s work on the cross and in the tomb becomes yours.   He puts those words into your ears here on Sunday.  He puts those words on your heart in Holy Baptism.  And He puts those words of forgiveness in your mouth in His Holy Supper.  As we prayed in the Introit, open your mouth wide, and I will fill it. Our Lord gives you His very Word made flesh here today.  Receive it with thanksgiving, for all of God’s work is now given to you.  Peace be with you. In the name of Jesus.  Amen.

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

Here’s the audio for my Trinity 16 sermon on the raising of the widow of Nain’s Son.  Another mindmap sermon, so no written text.

-LL

Because of this, it struck me today, upon my arrival in Houston, how different my perspective is now than it was six years ago when I was a delegate.  Six years ago I was all about fixing what is wrong, making the synod safe for democracy, something like that.  My theological views haven’t really changed much in six years, but my self-understanding as a pastor has changed dramatically.  I’m no longer interested in the politics, the personalities, and all of the juicy gossip that every human institution inevitably breeds.  At this point I am really asking the question, where is Christ?  Where is the Gospel of the forgiveness of sins?  Where is the healing for the brokenhearted, the balm of Gilead that can only come from the divine Word?

I know this is a little rambling.  It’s late, but I wanted to get something written for the day.  There are many friends here, old and new.  It’s great to see them all.  There are people I have been in conflict with in various was here as well.  I pray for reconciliation.  There will be lots of back room deals and shenanigans.  There always are.  But in the midst of it all, God can and is still at work.  Sometimes it happens through us.  Sometimes it happens in spite of us.  Sometimes both at the same time.  It is my prayer this week that the decisions and elections that take place here in Houston will further His Kingdom, and that the old hymn will remain true, “Lord, help us ever to retain, the catechisms doctrine plain, as Luther taught the word of truth, in simple words to tender youth!”

-Pastor Todd Peperkorn

Circuit 26 Pastoral Delegate (South Wisconsin District)

Kenosha, Wisconsin

PS CARDS WIN!  8-0 over the Astros.  Go Cards!

Houston Report #1

In this interview we really talked about the notion of hiding from God versus hiding in God. Adam and Eve hid from God in the garden. They tried to cover up their own sins. But by hiding in God, God then is the one who protects us from any harm that may come from within or without. It was a fun interview. Check it out!

-LL

Todd A. Peperkorn, STM

Messiah Lutheran Church

Kenosha, Wisconsin

Trinity 27 (November 22, 2009)

Matthew 25:1-13

For an audio MP3 of this sermon, click this link: Trinity27-2009

TITLE: “Wake, Awake!”

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.  Our text for today is the parable of the 10 virgins from Matthew 25.  Let us pray:

Lord God, heavenly Father, send forth Your Son, we pray, to lead home His bride, the Church, that with all the company of the redeemed we may finally enter into His eternal wedding feast; through Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

“Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.”  So said our Lord.  But the virgins don’t look too shiny sleeping in the middle of the night, as they are depicted here in our text.  On earth their works were not thought wise, the hymn exclaims.  By all appearances, the faith of the wise and the faith of the foolish appeared the same.  You couldn’t tell the wise from the foolish as they slumbered.

Yet there is a difference.  The Christian here on earth lives and breathes and struggles through life just like everyone else.  But by the grace of God, you have the one thing needful.  God in His mercy has given you the oil of gladness, faith in our Lord, Jesus Christ.  This faith points you upward toward heaven.  It means that no matter what you do here in this life, one ear is listening for the trumpet.  There is a part of you that wonders, is it today?  Will the bridegroom return today?  Will our sorrowing have an end now?  We pray it every day in Christ’s Church: Thy Kingdom Come.  When it it be, Lord?  When will you come back?

We don’t know, of course.  We don’t know when the coming of the Son of God will be.  It will be when we least expect it.  He will come in glory, with His holy angels going before Him.  They will cry out to a dying world, Wake, awake,  your king is coming to you even now!

What will that mean for the redeemed, the Baptized into Christ on that last day?  It means all sorrow will come to an end.  It means that all the waiting and wondering and fear and heartache and anxiety and gunk of this life will be over.  Our hymn exclaims that joy as follows:

Zion hears the watchmen singing,

And all her heart with joy is springing;

She wakes, she rises from her gloom.

For her Lord comes down all-glorious,

The strong in grace, in truth victorious;

Her star is ris’n, her light is come.

Now come, Thou Blessèd One,

Lord Jesus, God’s own Son,

Hail! Hosanna!

We enter all

The wedding hall

To eat the Supper at Thy call.

Yet there will be no second guessing that Last Day of our Lord.  There is no place for salt-lookers in Christ’s kingdom.  Set your eyes upon Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.  Like the virgins in our text, the oil is yours and yours alone.  You cannot believe for another, and God will not share your heart with anyone else.  You are His, and His alone.  The things of this life cannot hold you, dearly Baptized.  If they hold you down, they will shackle you to the earth and will keep you from looking up to the Rising Sun, who comes with healing in His wings.

This is what we mean might call in the Church a holy indifference to the things of this world.  It means receiving and rejoicing in what God has given you, but it means not letting those things which God has given you to overshadow the God who gave them to you.  Practicing charity and love toward the neighbor means confessing that because Christ is coming again, the things of this life cannot hold you back and holy you down.  For if they do, there is great danger in losing the oil of gladness as we try to hold on to and juggle all the things of this life in our hands.

The Last Day will be here soon.  There will come a day when all of the evil of this life will pass by as a dream.  The day is coming when Amen will be the only word that really makes sense at all.  The evil of this place will be gone.  Luther put it this way in his catechism:

But deliver us from evil.

What does this mean? We pray in this petition, in summary, that our Father in heaven would rescue us from every evil of body and soul, possessions and reputation, and finally, when our last hour comes, give us a blessed end, and graciously take us from this valley of sorrow to Himself in heaven.

So rejoice this day, dearly beloved. When your last hour comes, be it today or in fifty years, God will give you a blessed end, because you are His child, holy, baptized, a part of the family, with the oil of gladness.  You are ready. 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.

Confirmation and First Communion in the Lutheran Church

Todd A. Peperkorn, STM
Messiah Lutheran Church
Kenosha, Wisconsin
Epiphany 1 – (January 11, 2009)
The Baptism of Our Lord
Matthew 3:13-17
For an audio MP3 of this sermon, CLICK HERE

TITLE: “The Least and the Most”

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Our text for today is the Baptism of Our Lord from Matthew chapter 3, as well as St. Paul’s words from I Corinthians, “Let him who boast, boast in the Lord.”

Boasting. It is our national pastime I think. Whether it is a child talking about how much faster, smarter or better they are than another child, or an adult boasting about their house, job, family or whatever, we all love to toot our own horn. Now to be fair, we don’t always do this in obvious ways. Sometimes we cover it up in a false humility, but it is there nonetheless. We are all selfish by nature. We all want to make sure that everyone else knows what we do, what we are worth, and that we are worth more than others.

But saint Paul reminds us that this is not the way it is with God and His holy Kingdom. He wrote in his introduction to the book of Corinthians:

1Cor. 1:26   For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; 28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, 29 so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.

This is hard for us to grasp, it really is. We don’t want to buy it. We want to believe that God rewards a good effort, and that as long as we try really hard, God will makeup the difference. You know the adage: God helps those who help themselves. Of course, that’s not from the Bible. It’s from Benjamin Franklin (1757 in the Poor Richard’s Almanac), but it’s still close enough. Right? No.

Boasting of course is another word for pride. Pride means to be puffed up, to be convinced that you are right and that you are better than anyone else. Now sometimes pride can be a healthy thing. We can talk about school pride or pride in our community. But that’s not what we’re talking about here. Here we are talking about believing especially that it is your own works before God that matter, your attitude, your belief that you are a better Christian than others. All of us have this prideful, boasting attitude within us somewhere. No matter how bad of a Christian you think you are, there is always someone you know that is worse. That makes it easy. At least you aren’t at the bottom of the pile. Of course, God is not fond of this mindset. St. Paul writes, “You who boast in the law dishonor God by breaking the law.” (Romans 2:23 ESV)

So all of this talk about pride and boasting brings us back to our Gospel for today, the Baptism of our Lord. When Jesus stands in the waters of the Jordan river, He does so as the Son of God and the Son of Mary. John doesn’t want to baptize Him: “I need to be baptized by you, and you are coming to me!” But Jesus replies with this wonderful Gospel proclamation, ““Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.”” (Matthew 3:15 ESV) In other words, Jesus, the Son of God, the creator of the universe, the king of kings and lord of lords, let’s John in on this work of salvation. Only not just John. I would contend that the “us” there actually includes us, you and I as well!

This is what I mean. Jesus was born the Son of Mary. He is quite literally our brother in the flesh. When He does something, you do something. It’s that simple. Everything Jesus does, He does for you. So when Jesus is baptized in the Jordan river to fulfill all righteousness, you are there. This is what our Lord’s baptism does. God declares Jesus His beloved Son, and now, by your baptism, you fall under that
selfsame blessing.

St. Paul calls this “boasting in the Lord”. God ties himself to your future so much that it’s a little unnerving. Yet that is the love God showers upon you in Holy Baptism. What baptism does for you is makes your glory, your boasting be in God, not in yourself and your failings, big and small. Perhaps Luther wrote it best in the Large Catechism:

“Thus we see what a great and excellent thing Baptism is, which snatches us from the jaws of the devil and makes God our own, overcomes and takes away sin and daily strengthens the new man, always remains until we pass from this present misery to eternal glory. Therefore let everybody regard his Baptism as the daily garment which he is to wear all the time.” Large Catechism [Tappert p.446 #83]

God clothes you in Holy Baptism. Jesus stands in those waters, and God declares Him the beloved Son. When He does this for Jesus, He does it for you as well. You have been rescued from sin, death, and the power of the devil. You no longer have to find your identity simply in yourself, and your accomplishments and failures. Now your identity is in the ONE who stands in the water with you, loving you with a whole heart, forgiving your sins, and drawing you into His loving embrace. Boast in the Lord, dearly beloved! He has done all things for you. 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.

Todd A. Peperkorn, STM
Messiah Lutheran Church
Kenosha, Wisconsin
Christmas 2 (January 4, 2009, revised from 2003)
Matthew 2:13-23

For an audio MP3 of this sermon, CLICK HERE

TITLE: “The Flight of the Christian Life”

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.  Our text for this morning is from Matthew chapter 2, the flight of the Holy Family to Egypt.

Many, many years ago God called a man named Jacob to go to Egypt.  Jacob was an old man, he was tired and hungry, and there was no sign of rest for his soul.  His soul had been restless and in pain since the loss of his son, Joseph, so many years before.  Imagine what it must have been like, to believe your favorite son was lost and killed all those many years.  No father should ever have to bury his own son.  And there they were, left in the land of Canaan, in the midst of a famine.  No food, enemies on every side.  Where should they go?

Egypt.  That is where God commanded that they go.  It was a foreign land, a land of pagans and strangers to the Lord God.  And yet that is where God sent them to go.  Jacob didn’t know that his son Joseph was the governor of Egypt.  Joseph was really their protector, and he was the one that God would use to keep his father Jacob and all of his brothers’ safe, especially Judah.  But God is always taking strange circumstances and bringing about great blessings.

Thousands of years later, another son of Jacob would go down to Egypt, but this son of Israel was not fleeing hunger.  He was fleeing the wrath and hatred of Herod the Great.   Herod could not bear the thought that their might be a King in Israel.  He couldn’t stand the idea that anyone but he would be in charge and in control of his little kingdom.  His hatred for Jesus ran so deep that Herod ordered every male child under two years old in Bethlehem be murdered.

It’s hard to imagine that kind of hatred for the Prince of Peace, isn’t it?  This is the part of the Christmas story where most people kind of want to close the book.  What could be so threatening about a little infant?  Would he start a rebellion?  Would he lead the people to go against King Herod?  What could he possibly do to deserve such hatred?

That’s the thing about Jesus.  For Herod, Jesus represented everything that was wrong in the world.  Herod could not understand the concept of forgiveness, or that God would pay the price for our sins.  It was unfathomable, unthinkable that God would pay for our trespasses.  He must have something else in mind!  He must be trying to take away my power as the king, or so Herod thought.  But Herod did not, could not understand, just like the world cannot fathom the depth of God’s love in the Gospel today.  The world cannot understand God’s love, and so the world rejects Him.

So Jesus fled to Egypt, just like his father Jacob did so many years before.  And just like his great-great-great-grandfather Jacob, Jesus was protected by a Joseph, this time His foster-father.  God used one Joseph to keep the family line and the promised Messiah coming so many years before, and he again used another Joseph to protect this little infant King and his mother.  You see, this is all about timing for our infant King.  His time to die had not yet come.  God protected Him now, but there would come a time when God would unleash His own wrath upon His only-begotten Son, so that your suffering would have an end.

We’re getting a little glimpse into Jesus’ life here, and already we see that this life is not an easy one.  Born amidst the animals, no place to lay His head, this little one will do battle for your soul His entire life.  But the battle He fights will not be fought with swords and guns and weapons.  No, His weapons are poverty and weakness.   He survives on the charity of strangers, but that charity will run out.  He does all of this because of His great love for you, His wayward children.

So what does this mean to you?  What Jesus does this morning is teaches us how to understand our lives of suffering and hardship.  St. Peter tells us in our Epistle that if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in this matter.  In order for us to understand this suffering, though, we really have to see ourselves in Jesus’ life.  He left His home for a foreign land, and God saw Him through.  The foreign land to which He traveled, though, was not finally Egypt.  It was death itself.  For truly, what could be more foreign to the eternal Son of God that the road of death?

Yet that is the road that He took for you.  His journey is the road to death, so that your journey does not end in death, but life.  That is the miracle of Jesus’ birth into our flesh.  The real miracle does not lie in how humble was His birth, or the beauty of the scene, or any of these things.  No, the miracle lies in the reality that when He takes on our life, He gathers all of our hurt and suffering and sorrow into Himself.  So when you look at His life, that is your life in Him.

As we near the close of this Christmas season, this is an important lesson for us pilgrims here on earth.  When we talk about the Christian life here on earth, God calls us to look at it through the lens of Jesus’ life.  God does not call you to a life of perfection, victorious living, happiness and fulfillment.  That is what Satan falsely promised Adam and Eve in the Garden.  No, God has bigger plans for you and I.  He calls you in Baptism to a life of suffering and trial, but a life that is shaped by the cross of Jesus Christ.

This is a far greater life, because it is a life of sacrifice that is lived in God.  Only God can bring this about in your life.  You and I just don’t live lives of sacrifice by nature.  You and I are inward focused, self absorbed and possessive, not unlike our friend Herod from our text.  That is how you live.  But by your Baptism, God creates you anew, and gives you this life that is lived in Him and in your neighbor.  You are Joseph and Mary, taking care of the Christ child.  It’s a strange though, isn’t it?  And yet that is the reality of Jesus’ birth.  Jesus puts His very life into the hands of sinners like you and I.
His own life is wrapped up in yours.  When you hurt and suffer, He hurts and suffers.  When He lives the perfect life of obedience to the will and Word of God, you live that perfect life.  And when He finishes His great journey to the cross and the empty tomb, your pilgrimage is complete.

Oh, to be sure, we still have these trials and hardships here on earth.  But look at this babe fleeing in the arms of His mother.  If God can live such a harried and difficult life for you, don’t you think He’ll take care of you here on earth?  That is the gift that He brings to you this Christmastide that goes beyond all understanding.  He gives you the gift of peace, peace that He is in charge.  Peace that He has suffered all things for you.  And peace that will bring you eternal life.  Believe it for Jesus’ sake.  Amen.

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