December 31, 2015 – New Year’s Eve                                 Text:  Luke 2:21-40

Dear Friends in Christ,

Life is full of surprises.  Some we enjoy, some we could do without.  You be the judge:  “The doctor would like to discuss your x-rays.”  “Class, take out a sheet of paper.  We are having a pop quiz!”  “Congratulations!  You made the team.”  “The tumor we feared was malignant is actually benign.”  “Would you like to go to the winter dance with me?”  “Sure, I’d love too.”  “The boss wants to see you.  No need to take off your coat.”

Life is full of surprises, good and bad.  What will happen in the New Year?  What will be good?  What will be bad?  The thing is, we don’t know.  Except…right here.  There is one sure thing in all the universe, and it is given to us.

“THE SURE THING OF JESUS”

For centuries, Hebrew parents had brought their infant to be circumcised and named on the eighth day of life.  So Joseph and Mary brought Jesus to the temple as the Law required.  The name Jesus means “Savior” or “the Lord saves!”  That was also a confession of faith for his parents.  Remember the angel of the Lord had announced what his name would be because he would “save his people from their sins.”  God’s people were expecting someone to come with impressive power; instead, God comes in weakness, in a baby, laid in a manger.

Simeon confessed Jesus as his Savior from sin.  The Lord told him he would not see death until he had seen the Lord’s Christ.  So the Lord made sure Simeon was in the temple that day.  Right there, before Simeon’s eyes, Jesus was beginning the work of saving us, even while only an infant.

Consider all your failures, all your mistakes, all your shortcomings.  Consider all those words and all those actions of the past year that you’d love to take back.  Right there in the temple, as an infant, Jesus began to make up for them.  Right there, Jesus began to be what his name says he is, our Savior from sin.

Yes, life is full of surprises, both good and bad.  But the one sure thing is this:  Jesus means “Savior”, and that name applied to us brings blessings.  Eternal blessings!

With that blessing God surprised an old woman named Anna.  She had been waiting and hoping and waiting.  And just when it seemed as if she should give up, God came through.  God showed her the Savior.  God brought her the blessing.  She gave thanks to God and told everyone that God had come for his people.

We have the surprise also for us.  Sometimes when we least expect it.  When things look their worst.  When we think that life has dealt us a bad hand, God comes through with a big surprise.  In fact, the whole nature of the Gospel is a big surprise.  We normally expect that nothing is free, everything has to be earned, worked for.  And that’s absolutely true…of all except this:  God’s free gift of eternal life in Jesus.  Blessed surprise!

Think about all the surprises in the Bible.  When Noah’s neighbors realized that it was beginning to rain.  When the up in years Sarah told her husband Abraham that she was going to have a baby.  When Moses saw a burning bush and the voice of God coming out of it.  When the walls of Jericho came tumbling down.  When the angel came to Mary, and then to Joseph to tell them they would have a baby, conceived by the Holy Spirit.  When Jesus grew up to be nailed to a cross and the one whom his disciples had believed in now lay stone-cold dead in a grave.

But soon followed that great and grand surprise when Mary saw him again in the resurrection.  He was alive!  Wonderfully and gloriously alive.

And there is the surprise of our guilty lives when we hear the Lord Jesus tell us again and again, “Your sins are forgiven.  You didn’t earn it, you can’t earn it, but I give it to you.  You are free.  Go in peace!”

There will be one more surprise that comes to us who confess Jesus to be our Savior, who live under his blessing.  This will be a big one.  He’s coming back!  It didn’t happen last year, but he could come this year.  And when he does, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, he will raise us to life, to gather us together to meet him and to be with him forever.

That will be the greatest surprise of all, saved for last.  For those of us who know Jesus it will be the greatest occasion to celebrate.  The greatest miracle of all is that I will be there rejoicing.  You will be their rejoicing.  All who believe in him will be there rejoicing.  It is a sure thing.

What is coming for you in this New Year?  What surprises are in store?  The only sure thing we have is this:  the name of Jesus.  That name we confess, the name placed on us at our Baptism.  He is our Savior from sin.

Amen.

Dec. 25, 2015 – Christmas                                                                Text:  Luke 2:19

Dear Friends in Christ,

Doesn’t it seem like Mary has gotten it all wrong?  Isn’t Christmas – this glorious day – a time for celebration?  And St. Luke tells us that “Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.”  What a contrast.  We live in a time when Christmas is an intense affair.  The hype to shop for the perfect gift.  The gatherings that are more numerous than other times of the year.  But if we look to the first Christmas it was not an intense affair at all.  In comparison to today it was quite calm and quiet.

You can’t blame people for wanting to make a buck.  Ethel Merman belted it out a long time ago:  “There’s no business like show business.”  Show business is fine it it’s place but it has no business in God’s business.  Christmas does have its entertainment and retail side but we have not come here today to be entertained.  We are here on God’s business.  And God’s business calls a halt to all the busy-ness of our hectic lives and this hectic season so that we might discover anew the good news of great joy that was proclaimed to shepherds on Bethlehem’s plain:  “Today…a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.” (Luke 2:11)  Let’s discover again . . .

“THE MYSTERY IN THE MANGER”

What did Mary “ponder” in her heart?  Was she expecting extravagant gifts?  Was she looking for a new donkey to travel back on to Nazareth?  Surely, as a woman, she wanted a new pair of sandals.  I mean you can never have too many of them, can you ladies?  Maybe, being poor, she was hoping that the newborn would have some of the nice things in life.

Mary’s enchantment was not found in any of that.  She pondered that which had been spoken by the angel of the Lord to the rugged shepherds concerning her baby boy, “Christ the Lord.”

As a parent we have all had that moment when we look down at our newborn in amazement and think of the blessing and joy and responsibility.  Mary looks at her child – could it really be the Lord, the God of hosts, who feeds all creation, who opens up his hand to satisfy the desire of every living thing.  Could he come so small in a virgin womb, be born a helpless infant boy, and be suckled at her breast?  “Good news of great joy that will be for all the people” (Luke 2:10), the angel had announced to the shepherds.  This was no pipe dream or human speculation:  these words were from the very mouth of God.  Her firstborn Son was none other than the Messiah, the promised Redeemer, and God in human flesh and bone.  Mary kept all these words and pondered them in her heart.

You and I can do no less this holy day.  There is nothing we can do to add to the luster of this day.  No musical interlude or mind-boggling light display can hold a candle to the simple wonder of a gracious God who loved the world so that He gave his only begotten Son.  When we could not go to him, he has come to us wrapped in swaddling clothes.  This is the mystery in the manger; God in diapers, here among us.  God in a crib – and then some 30 years later, God on a cross, made to be sin for us that he might remove forever the curse of sin and the sting of death.  This is Christmas.

We have experienced this over and over throughout the years, the glitz and glitter and the knick knacks around our house will be packed in our basement crawl space or our attic or our garage not to be seen until another Advent.  The happy glow of this festive day is illusive and fleeting.  But not this.  Treasure in your heart the mystery of God made flesh for our salvation.

In faith, set aside the show business and get down to God’s business.  Today the Christ child has been born.  He comes wrapped in the swaddling clothes of the Word of His Gospel.  He comes for every soul distressed and lonely and grieving.  He comes for every wounded heart and mind.  He comes for peace that passes all understanding, for forgiveness, for life, and our salvation.  He comes for you and you and you this day.  The mystery in the manger has been revealed – He is Christ the Lord!  Merry Christmas!

Amen.

Dec. 24, 2015 – Christmas Eve                                             Text:  Galatians 4:4-5

Dear Friends in Christ,

There is something timeless about Christmas.  We get very nostalgic at this time of year as we think of happy memories that surround family and church traditions.  We see nativity scenes and Christmas cards and sing carols of the baby Jesus “sleeping in heavenly peace” surrounded by angels.  It is right and meet so to do to celebrate our Lord’s incarnation in every time and place and from generation to generation.

And yet, we don’t want to forget that Jesus became flesh in a specific moment in history.  “When the fullness of time had come,” says St. Paul, “God sent forth His Son.” (Gal. 4:4a).  Do you know about that “fullness of time” when the prophecies had been fulfilled and all was ready?  It was a time of social turmoil, religious confusion and moral decay.  Then and now.  Today and yesterday.  The past and the present.  They all lead to the fact that . . .

“CHRISTMAS IS TIMELESS”

We go back to the years before Christ was born.  Pompey the Great captured Judea in 63 B.C.  He became a bitter rival to another brilliant general by the name of Julius Caesar.  They fought a civil war on a global scale.  It ended with Pompey’s murder and Caesar’s victory.  Caesar himself was then assassinated by Roman senators and another power struggle ensued.  Marc Antony fell in love with the Egyptian queen Cleopatra and he abandoned Rome.  Caesar’s adopted son Octavian then took over the city, made himself ruler and took the name Caesar Augustus.  Now there is another familiar name!

By the time of Christ’s birth, Augustus reigned supreme not only over Rome, but also over Judea, all of Asia Minor, northern Africa, and much of Europe.  His power and wealth and influence seemed to fit the bill for a son of God more than the homeless Child laid in a manger.

History has shown that Rome was a great civilization with a system of laws that continue to shape our legal code.  They have a legacy of literature, education, and technology and still influence the world.  But, by the time the Christ child was born this civilization morally was going down the toilet.  Prostitution was everywhere and had been accepted by society.  Homosexuality was widespread throughout this Greco-Roman world.  Abortion and the killing of children were not uncommon.  The masses were entertained with blood sports in the arenas that could involve anything from the torture of criminals by burning to those being devoured by wild animals.

That first Christmas was a time of social upheaval, political conflict, moral decay, recreational sex and violence, religious disunity and general hopelessness.  Sound familiar?  How many of you are beaten down and feeling hopeless this night?  Most of us live in a state where political fighting or non-activity is a regular occurrence.  Aren’t you concerned about what the leaders of the “Land of Lincoln” will smack us with in the New Year?  On the national scene, how many debates do we need?  Can’t there be a better system than wasting all this money two years out from the election?

Who saw marijuana not being a crime and then being sanctioned by the government?  Can legal prostitution be far behind?  Abortion is still a challenge and life is seen as worthless for those with terminal cancer or even a disability?  The gays and lesbians continue to push their agenda and now we have the transgender screaming about their rights in our local school districts?  How much longer before we all share the same bathroom?  Our entertainment is provided by the Kardashians and reality television where people make a train wreck of their lives.  Sports have become a god in our country and people are purposely breaking their arms just to make it on the Internet.  Yes, we are tired and worn down and fed up to here.

Enter a Savior.  Interestingly enough, the events that brought Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem were put in motion by government.  A census was being taken.  Every person was to be counted.  During their time away, a baby, the one who would be counted the greatest of all time, would make His way into our world.  John says that he came into the darkness and boy did He ever.  The world at this point was groaning and God knew it was time.

Our world is groaning.  We use words like “tired”, “worn down”, “I’ve had enough,” or the all-time favorite, “the world is going to hell in a hand basket.”  But that is the nature of the world and the world does not recognize it.  We think we always have to have an explanation for things when the explanation has been there since the Garden of Eden – human sin.  This folks is not going away.

So how then do we “sleep in heavenly peace”?  Led by the Holy Spirit we in faith believe in this Savior who came into the darkness.  He comes to you and me through His Word and His Sacraments.  That Word is a reminder that He is Christ the Lord.  He has come with joy to this world to tell us that He has overcome our doubts, our weakness, our sin.  He breaks into our sin-ravaged lives and declares that we have been redeemed from our sin.  Our Baptisms cleansed us from the muck and mire of society and the body and blood of Christ continue to strengthen us against the evil that surrounds us.  This world can provide the body blows but the knockout came by one born King of kings.  His victory over sin, death, and the devil is your victory over sin, death, and the devil.  In every age and throughout the course of a person’s lifetime, He brings to us the redemption won by His incarnation, death, and resurrection.  His peace and favor rests upon us forever.  In that sense, Christmas really is timeless.

Amen.