December 31, 2020 – New Year’s Eve                       Texts:  Matthew 1:24-25, Luke 2:21

Dear Friends in Christ,

            What you are named is important.  It identifies who you are, it tells others what you are about.  It shapes how you think of yourself.  Do you like your name?  Have you ever wanted to change it?  Modify it?  Take on a nickname? 

            I have always given my parents credit for my name.  In 1965 it was different.  Not many had my name.  It set me apart.  It has been a huge part of my identity.  I have always been comfortable going against the crowd, if needed, and I believe it all started with my name. 

            Jesus is now eight days old.  It is time to get him circumcised and more importantly it is time to give him a name.  His parents have already been told what his name will be.  His name will set Him apart.  His name will identify what He does.  His name will be a blessing.  His name will be improperly used and become a profanity.  He will be comfortable going against the crowd.  His name will mean life for some and others will struggle to identify with it.  It is time for . . .

“THE NAME”

            What I hold in my hand is a piece of paper Toni and I used to name our children.  I keep it in my desk drawer at home.  Since we did not know the sex of our children before their birth we had to have a male name and a female name.  The boys know what they would have been named if they came out of the womb a girl.

            Many of you who have been at Good Shepherd for years already know the story.  Toni put a list of names she liked on a piece of paper.  I put down names that I liked.  Toni’s list came from names she had heard through the years.  My list came from AAA maps of Europe.  We go back to my name and thinking outside the box.  We then set down one night at the dinner table and just started matching names.  We would sound them out.  Do they flow?  Will we scar our kid for life?  We they still love us and invite us to their home someday?  This led us to Karson Calder Lueck.  Karson from Toni’s list, Calder a community in Scotland from my list.  A few years later the same exercise, Holden Shay Lueck.  Holden a community in England from my list and Shay from Toni’s.  It is really the boy’s opinion and we pray they like their names but we have had a few people say to us that the names fit our boys. 

            The name we see given tonight fit the person.  “And at the end of eight days, when he was circumcised, he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.”  The angel had told Joseph in Matthew that they would have a son “and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save people from their sins.”  Joseph then woke from the sleep, did as the angel told him and he took Mary as his wife but did not have sexual intercourse with her.  “And he called his name Jesus.”

            All of this is important for you and me because we are sinful people living in a sinful world.  A world that for the most part wants nothing to do with the Triune God.  Being a person in that kind of world means that I have and will have…problems…anxieties…worries…some traumatic situations.  Does Jesus know all this and relate to me . . . to the person who knows himself?  You bet He does.  The very act of circumcision was an act of His willingness to put Himself under the law in order to pay for my sin.  The Jewish Law required that baby boys be circumcised on the eighth day after birth.  Circumcision was for a sinful, fallen people that God would claim as His own.  Jesus became like us – but without sin.  I’d say He knows us quite well.

            P.E. Kretzmann writes, “For here (in Jesus’ circumcision) He paid the first drop of blood as the price for our souls, the full payment being completed when He committed His soul into the hands of His heavenly Father on the cross.”

            Doesn’t it all make sense?  The Lord promises and gives us a new start.  What an appropriate thought on New Year’s Eve.  It gives us the assurance of forgiveness and peace, anxiety free living in the work and person of Jesus Christ as we cross over into 2021.  Jesus stands before us with open arms to clean up our messes of sin and death and hell.

            You can count on his abiding presence.  You can call on His name at all times.  You can look to His wisdom and power when faced with questions that seem to have no answers.  As you exist down here, Jesus the name that is above every name, will provide comfort and stability in a shaky world.  

            We do not know what is before us and that certainly makes daily living interesting.  He has our attention, doesn’t He?  Rest assured that He who bears the name “Savior” will never leave you nor forsake you.

            It has been a wonderful journey these last few weeks.  Celebrating with Joseph and Mary.  Traveling with them.  Being at the birth.  As we all did with our own children – what will they become?  You know the outcome, but it never gets old for those who know the name . . . JESUS THE CHRIST.

                                                                                                Amen.

December 27, 2020                                                                          Text:  Galatians 4:4-7

Dear Friends in Christ,

            Susan Ertz was a British fiction writer who died in 1985.  She once commented, “Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.”  How do we use or misuse the time that is given us?

            A family moved to the country to escape the high-pressure run everywhere life they had been living in the city.  One day a neighbor stopped by and noticed something pinned to the family bulletin board and asked about it.  The mother said, “That is a poem that represents what our moving here was all about.  The poem starts, ‘Lord, slow me down…uh…well, I haven’t had time to read the rest.”

            I pray your Christmas season time wasn’t wasted.  Let’s grasp the importance of time and the time we just celebrated. 

“AFTER CHRISTMAS TIME”

Do you remember this 1980’s song by The Alan Parsons Project?  “Time, flowing like a river Time, beckoning me Who knows when we shall meet again If ever…”

Time.  Here and gone.  What happens when it ends?  “Who knows when we shall meet again?  If ever?”  But that is the world’s lot when Christ is removed from the life and death and what’s beyond question.

God steps into human history and changes the direction.  “When the fullness of time had come…”  God’s time.  God’s timing.  He is not subject to time, but gives it to us.  He owns it.

Every minute and movement since the fall of Adam and Eve into sin was being directed to Christ’s coming into this world.  The Savior entered in time.

The world has its time.  It is composed of hatred and violence and vulgarity and greed and lies.  We are no closer to solving man’s foibles than we were 50 years ago or 500 years ago or 5,000 years ago.  Time for man is lost water under a decaying bridge.

Look at time in relation to those who understand the significance of Christmas.  “When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.” 

Christ did everything necessary.  He kept the Commandments perfectly in thought, word, and deed.  He bought us back from sin, death, and hell.  Those who believe this “receive adoption as sons.”

Our time is now.  We still battle the awful sin in us.  As sons of God we are blameless through Christ.  Men, women, children – everyone trusting in Christ for forgiveness and eternal life.

We are members of God’s family.  Peter wrote, “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession…” (1 Pet. 2:9a)  Isn’t it fascinating that everyone clamors to a part of something in this world?  And for us as a Christian is that our goal?  Isn’t the fact that we are “a people of his own possession” sufficient for each day?

The last verses of the text, “And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba, Father!’ So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.”

God is our eternal parent.  The Holy Spirit works through the Word so that we can understand that God is our Father – in time and in eternity.

How about the “heir” part?  We’ve all seen a movie where the family gathers to hear the reading of the will.  They want to see if they are getting anything.  Maybe you have been in such a setting?  In Christ we are not waiting on the will to be read.  It has already been read:  “You are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.”  What do we receive?  Heaven and eternal life and an unending Kingdom! 

Remember Moses?  He had the attention of the world and riches right in front of him.  What did the writer of Hebrews say about that?  “He considered the reproach of Christ’s greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward.” (Heb. 11:26)  His time here was insignificant compared to what was promised Him in Christ.  “Time, flowing like a river Time beckoning me Who knows when we shall meet again If ever…”  Such is the sadness of the world.  Such is the tragedy of this life’s brief, brief, moment.

For those of us in Christ?  Every moment is a time to be ready?  “…the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  The Christ of Christmas goes with us…with us…to the end of this world’s time – right into eternity.

                                                                                                            Amen.