κήρυξον τὸν λόγον

3.     David. Mary. They’re not exactly the highborn of this world. God took David, the lowest of the sons of Samuel, from the filth of the field.   God chose Mary, the lowly daughter of a nobody from a nowhere place called Nazareth, to be the mother of God.  David was the little brother who caused all kinds of trouble. He’d grow up to become an adulterer and a murderer.  Mary was a teenager. No skill. No money. No power. No reputation.  Nothing they had done won them favor in God’s eyes. David and Mary had done nothing special.  But God is not like us. He makes things out of nothing, out of the low, to be in grace.  And so it is with David.  You don’t make me king, David , the Lord told him. But I make you one . It’s not your heart, your faith, your works that have made me the Lord, the King of the universe .  No, I am the King. It is from my heart and by my works that I made you a king. I have chosen you. I am always with yo...

Isaiah 40:1-11 Comfort, comfort, ye My people, Speak ye peace, thus saith our God (LSB 347:1).  I love this hymn! The more I listen to it, the more I love it.  Some people think it’s a little slow. But I think we all need to slow down. And I think the tune perfectly resets my mood ... Comfort, comfort, ye My people ... It’s peaceful ... calming. It’s like the voice of my wife lulling away anxiety in our children ... Comfort, comfort, ye My people .  So you see, I think this hymn gives me all the more reason to love the text for our meditation. It’s not just comfort, it is double comfort. Funny, though, as I was working on this text, something invariably stole my comfort. Grrrr ... I groan! How am I ever gonna get all this done? There are so many distractions ... the spam phone calls ... the text messages ... the bills to pay ... the aches, the pains. The sweet sounds of Advent keep getting interrupted by darkness and worry and anxiety of life.  Who should I call? M...

Psalm 80 Restore us, O God of hosts; let your face shine, that we may be saved! Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel, you who lead Joseph like a flock. You are enthroned upon the cherubim, shine forth. Restore us, O Lord God of hosts! Let your face shine, that we may be saved. 2. It’s a prayer. It’s a prayer of God’s people. They’ve fallen out of favor. They’ve messed up, they screwed up, and they know it. They got caught up in worldliness and false gods. They became careless with God’s Word. They shunned God’s sacraments, his gifts of forgiveness. Their enemies have beaten them. Psalm 80 is the prayer of refugees, God’s people of the Northern Kingdom who fled to Jerusalem in the south when the Assyrian army took over in the north.  Their homes? Gone.  Their places of worship? Gone.  Their government? Gone.  Everything they stored up for themselves. Gone.  All the things they’d put their trust in ... every last false thing that had distracted them from their heavenly ...