Lutheran Church of the Resurrection

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On Christmas, God came down from heaven and became man. Which doesn’t mean that He stopped being God. If there’s one thing that God CANNOT DO it’s to stop being God. There is no such thing as ‘retirement’ for God. He always was, is, and always will be God, ruling the universe down to the tiniest detail with His almighty power.

But on Christmas, God became man. “The Word became flesh.” And for 30 years, for all appearances, God was just like us, soiling his diapers, eating, drinking, playing with other children, going to school, learning a trade, going to work, and sometimes just hanging out with the guys.

And no one ever suspected that Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph, was also the Son of God. No one would have ever thought to say what we just said about Him – He is “the only begotten Son of God, begotten by his Father before all worlds, God of God, light of light, true God of true God…” and so forth. He was just Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.

For 30 years, God’s divine nature was hidden under the cover of His human nature. But when He turns 30, things begin to change. What had been carefully hidden for 30 years now begins to be revealed. Continue reading →

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“John appeared in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And all the country of Judea and all Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.”

John was the ‘Billy Graham’ of his day. Great crowds came to hear him preach. John invited everyone to come forward and pray the ‘sinners prayer’ as they were baptized in the Jordan River.

When we baptize someone today, we use the ‘Rite for Holy Baptism’ on page 268 of the hymnal. There’s a formula, made up of Admonition, Scripture readings, certain customs, a renouncing of the devil, a confession of faith in the Triune God and then, finally, the baptism – “I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

Unfortunately, no one knows the what “Rite for Holy Baptism” that John the Baptist used. What did John or his disciples say as they baptized “all the country of Judea and all Jerusalem” one by one in the water? We don’t know.

What we can be sure of however is what John did NOT say. He did not say, “I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” He couldn’t say that because the Triune God had not given His name to this sacred act – at least, not yet. Continue reading →

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Its not every year that we get two Sunday’s to revel in the celebration of Christmas. More often than not, we get Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and the Sunday after Christmas, and then we’re off and running into the season of Epiphany. It’s like that Christmas dinner that took hours to prepare, that everyone was done with in under 20 minutes. Today we’re thankful for some time to savor and enjoy the season of Christmas.

We’re not given very many details about Jesus’ childhood in the gospels. We’re told about His conception by the Holy Spirit, the humble circumstances of His birth by the virgin Mary and the visitation of the shepherds.

We meet Him again at 8 days old, when He is circumcised and named. And again at 40 days old, they once again take Him to the Temple for Mary’s purification and His presentation.

Sometime after that, we’ve not sure how long, there’s the visitation of the Magi, which we’ll celebrate on Tuesday evening this week. And then the flight to Egypt and return to Nazareth. And now He’s 12 years old. Continue reading →

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On Christmas Eve, we beheld Him lying in a manger, wrapped in swaddling clothes.
On Christmas morning, we beheld dwelling among us, wrapped in human flesh.
Now today, we behold Him in the temple, wrapped in the arms of man named Simeon.

Our gospel reading takes place 40 days after Christmas. Joseph and Mary bring their 40 day old baby to the Temple. To make a long story short, they are doing what believers do. If you are new parents, the 40th day after your baby is born, there are two things that you are required to do, according to the Law of Moses.

1st, you bring yourself to the temple for purification. In a way, you have participated in Adam and Eve’s guilt by bringing a sinner into the world. So, God teaches and reminds His people about the doctrine of ‘original sin’ through this ‘liturgical form.’ Continue reading →

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A. John 1:1-2
“In the beginning was the Word and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.”

According to St. John, this is where the Christmas story properly begins. As we heard last night, St. Matthew begins with Abraham and traces the genealogy forward to Jesus. St. Luke begins with Jesus and traces His ancestry back to Adam. But John takes us back even further, to a time before Adam. “In the beginning…”

He might have gone back even further than that if he could have, but everything before that is beyond our reach. That which we have not witnessed with our own eyes, we can only know of by being told about it by one who was an eye-witness.

Only God was present “in the beginning.” And He gives us His eyewitness testimony about what happened and what it was like. And all who believe His testimony say, “Oh, now I see.”

But of what was before the beginning, we have no word from God, not because He was not present, but simply because He chooses not to tell us.

In the beginning, there was already God and the Spirit of God and the Word of God. The Triune God, three distinct persons in one divine essence – was already in the beginning before the beginning began. For a moment… or was it an eternity… there was only God.

But then, while the Holy Spirit was hovering over the deep, God spoke. “Let there be…” Continue reading →

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It was confirmation day at Faith Lutheran Church in Iowa. Each of the confirmands were to memorize Romans 8:38-39 as part of their oral exam before the congregation. One at a time, the pastor asked each confirmand, “What can separate you from God’s love in Jesus Christ?” And each one responded in his turn, “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present not the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Then it came to Sarah. Sarah was a Down’s Syndrome child. As she stood before the congregation everyone worried if she would be able to recite the text. The pastor asked, “Sarah, what can separate you from God’s love in Jesus Christ?” Sarah smiled, and she said, “Nothin’!” It is said that the congregation remembered her “Nothin’!” for a very long time. Continue reading →

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A little boy wanted to land a part in the school play. He was so excited that his parents were concerned how he would handle it if he didn’t get a part. So when he came home from school they quickly asked him how the auditions went. The boy was ecstatic. He joyfully told his parents that his teacher had picked him out of all of the other kids to sit in the audience and clap as loud as he could.

I think that John the Baptist would have been wanted to land a part in his school play like that one too.

John was “supporting cast” and definitely not the “lead role.” He was the announcer who was to announce that the time had fully come and the curtain was about to rise. He was the light man, not the shoes of the lead man. His part was to shine the light on the main character when He came onto the stage. John’s big line in the divine drama was, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.”

Artwork from the early Church depicts John the Baptist with an overly large mouth and a hyper-extended index finger pointing to Jesus. John was perfectly content to be known as the “big mouth with the big finger.”

John was born to be a witness. “He came as a WITNESS to bear WITNESS about the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear WITNESS about the light.” Continue reading →