κήρυξον τὸν λόγον

In 1522, a ship originally commanded by Ferdinand Magellan arrived in port at Seville, Spain. Three years earlier, it had left port there and sailed west. It crossed the Atlantic Ocean, slipped past the tip of South America, traversed the Pacific and Indian Oceans, and then around the southern tip of Africa before going north back to Spain. This worm-eaten, storm-beaten ship had become the first vessel to sail around the world. When the sailors arrived home, something was amiss. It seemed they had lost a day of their lives. By the sailors’ reckoning, it should have been Wednesday when they landed. But in Spain, it was Thursday. Where did they lose track of time?  This mystery confounded voyagers for another three hundred years, until 1884, when representatives from all over the world gathered to solve the problem. They did so by establishing a point of origin to make sense of time all over the world: the international date line. 3. In a deeper, more profound way, we too need a po...

If I were to ask you to describe the message of Christmas in just one word, what would you choose? Just one word. Jesus is a good one. But I don’t think you can find a better word than Immanuel. Immanuel is the name God ascribed through the prophet Isaiah to the infant who would be born of the virgin (Isa 7:14). This single Hebrew word means “God is with us” or quite literally, “With Us is God.”  Immanuel is the message of Christmas: In Christ, God is with us in the flesh. God manifested himself in this way so that we can be with God. The Word, who was with the Father in the beginning, became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Father, full of grace and truth. God in Christ is Jesus, he is Immanuel. God came to us to be with us because we couldn’t go to him. We couldn’t find him. We couldn’t hear him. We couldn’t see him. So God came to us. He came to do what we couldn’t do, living in righteousness, dying on a cross, rising from the dead, asce...

Will God truly dwell upon the earth?  Behold, the heavens and the heaven of heavens cannot contain [him];  Indeed, how much less can this house that I built? (1 Ki 8:27).  That’s what Solomon said when he dedicated the first temple. You can read about it in 1 Kings 8. Solomon’s question is one we still ask today: Would God truly dwell in a place conceived in the mind of an architect and drawn up on blueprints ... in a building constructed with carpenters’ squares and plumb lines ... in a temple as grand as Solomon’s, a temple made by human hands?  The answer came in a cloud ... the visible manifestation of the glory of the Lord ... a cloud so thick that the priests couldn’t even minister in the temple. Yes, God would dwell on earth ... for a time ... in his time ... in the fullness of time. Solomon’s temple was only a prelude. Solomon’s temple would be destroyed and God would not return in the way he once did.  Instead, the Word that was in the beginning, the w...

        Would you look at this: a nicely wrapped present. The box says, Open at Christmas . What do you think it is? A special gift for me? Maybe it’s money to pay for the school. ... What do you think?  Well, we’ll never know what’s in this beautifully wrapped box unless we open it. So ... let’s open it!  There ... Hmmm. Look at that. “A gift to the congregation ... the gift of My grace in Jesus Christ.” Signed, God the Father.   Amidst all the gifts that you’ve received, I trust you will treasure this one above all others: the gift of God’s love and grace in Jesus Christ.  LET US ALWAYS OPEN THE GIFT OF GOD’S GRACE As we do, we shall find. I. The Savior of the world is now always with us (v 4). He has been presented to us out of love. God incarnate is with us today.  We are undeserving of such love (v 5). Remember original sin (Gen 3) There’s nothing we can do to make ourselves right. But God can. Listen to this reading from Titus 3[...

My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior (LSB 248).   Oh, how I love this canticle! ... I love it because it is our song! This is the song of the church! For more than a millennia, from generation to generation, during Vespers and Evening Prayer, the Church has been singing these words. They were first sung by Mary in the hill country of Judea. And thankfully, the church has them in three additional canticles that can be sung during the Lord’s Divine Service. We just sang one of them.  Mary’s song ... our song ... serves to remind us of what God always remembers ... that He does great things to us ... that He fills the hungry with good things ... that He helps his servant Israel to remember his mercy. And this is great news from our Gospel reading in Luke 1 on this Fourth Sunday in Advent!  WE GET TO REJOICE IN THE ADVENT OF HIS REMEMBRANCE. 1.  Following the visit by the angel Gabriel and the miraculous conception of the Son of God ... th...

Our Gospel reading this morning from Matthew chapter 2 revolves around two questions ... the question of John the Baptizer to Jesus: Are you the Coming One? Or should we expect another? (v. 3) ... And the question of Jesus to the crowds about John: What did you go out into the wilderness to look at? ... What did you go out to see? (vv. 7-8). These questions are not insignificant as we reflect on the coming of our Lord. They both ask ...  WHY ARE YOU HERE? 1. John the Baptizer asked this question first of Jesus.  Like John, every Christian has probably asked this question in one form or another at least once. Maybe you heard it phrased this way instead: What do you think of Jesus? Is He actually God, or just a good man with a good word about good living? ... Is God really a man, or does he just seem to be? ... Did God really come in the flesh? ... Did God really die? ... Is Jesus really our Savior, or is He the Judge? ... Is Jesus the center of your being, or an embellishme...