In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Sometimes there are Scripture readings where the meaning seems obvious. Readings where we know (or think we know) automatically what is being taught, or proclaimed, or encouraged. Scripture that doesn’t require a lot of explanation, because the meaning seems so clear. This short passage from Paul’s first letter to the congregations in Corinth is not one of those texts. It requires some explanation. At least, we have trouble taking Paul very seriously. What he says seems to go against everything we think about life in this world—especially the life of Christians in this world. Can he really mean that I should live as if I didn’t have a wife? When my loved ones die, I should not mourn? When God’s grace is apparent, I should not rejoice? The difficulty is not in Paul’s words; the words are clear. The difficulty is, as always, in the meaning. The meaning of every single sentence in the Scriptures (or any other collection of letters, words, and sentences, for that matter) depends on context—both the context of what is said, and the context of the person who hears or reads what is said. While we hear only verses 29-31, Paul is in the midst of a larger argument about the way the Corinthians live in their world. This part of his letter goes back to the first verse of chapter seven, when Paul turns to the matters about which the Corinthians had apparently written him. They needed some advice. They wanted to hear what Paul would tell them. We don’t know the questions; we can only guess from Paul’s answers, which is always a little dangerous and can never be perfectly certain. But the reason Paul gives the answers he does is clear: Verse 29: “The appointed time has grown very short.” Verse 31: “The outward, present form of this world is passing away.” The whole meaning of these three verses, the whole meaning of chapter 7, depends on how you view your life. That’s what Paul tells us in these verses. In other words, do you view your life, your relationships, everything, in light of eternity; or do you view eternity in light of your life, your relationships, and everything that belongs to the outward form of this world?

We could think about it this way: what would it look like if we lived in the light of this age? What if we lived as if the time was not short and the world was not passing away? We would tie up the meaning of life in our wives or husbands; we would be in a hurry to get into marriage and a hurry to get out of it. We would weep without hope and our rejoicing would be reduced to putting up a front of pretend happiness. We would treat things as if they were ends in themselves, things to be gathered, and hoarded, and protected, and coveted. And we would treat people as if they were means to our ends, valued for what they can give, or contribute, or do. We would live, in fact, as most of the people around us live—we would live the same way we often do live: as if this world and the things in it are not coming to an end. We talk about how short life is, but we consume things as if it will go on forever. We say we believe in the life everlasting, but we live as if it were coming in a thousand years, if it’s coming at all. And all of these things are just the threads of evidence that form a picture of a life lived in a world whose form is not passing away.

On the other hand, what if we lived as if this world does not matter? As if Paul meant that the things of this world are nothing, mean nothing, point to nothing. The life everlasting would become something disconnected, not just from the present form of this age, but from this age altogether. We would live as if serving our neighbor was just a way to please God, rather than because our neighbor simply needs it. We would not want to weep or laugh too much, nor enjoy the things of this world. They come close to being evil, because they are passing away. We would live as if our own spiritual development, our own attempts to get rid of sin in our lives, were more important than using things to serve people. We say we believe that God is the maker of heaven and earth, but we live as if it belongs to the devil. These are the threads of evidence that form a picture of a life lived in a world that is passing away, rather than its present, sinful form.

Both of these ways of living ignore St. Paul. The first does not take seriously that the time we have under the form of this present age is shortened. The second does not take seriously that it is only the form of this present world whose time is short. But Paul’s answers to the Corinthian Christians are not based on time without eternity, nor on eternity without time. Paul tells the Corinthians, and us, that eternity has entered time. The meaning of our lives and of this world cannot be understood or believed unless we hear this Word. Paul’s specific advice to the Corinthians is based on the general truth that the time until Christ returns has grown short, and that the way things are in this present, evil age is not the way things will be when Christ reveals the age to come. That’s it, right there: Christ has come, and Christ is coming back. The eternal God bound Himself by flesh and blood and time, and now time and blood and flesh—and what we do with them—are forever changed. The entire history of the world and everything and everyone in it have their meaning only in relationship to the God who was in time, reconciling the world to Himself. Giving up His flesh, pouring out His blood, His life coming to an end and the present form of this world with it. Because He began again, a new life, but still the very Body which was crucified—you belong to a different age, even as you live in this one.

“I tell you this, brothers,” Paul says. “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality…. Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:50-53, 58, ESV).

See, it is exactly because your flesh and blood will be changed as His was, exactly because your perishable flesh, along with the perishing form of this world, will put on the imperishable in a moment, the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet—for that reason, your labor in marriage, your weeping, your rejoicing, your use of the things of this world are not vain, not empty, not worthless. But they are worth something, they mean something, because you are in the Lord. The eternal Son came to His end within time so that He can make you eternal within time. It’s not only the current form of this world that is passing away, but your current form, cracked and crumbling under the pressure of sin and death. But let’s be clear: you will still be you, as Christ is still Christ. And this creation will still be His creation. What will be different is not the thing itself, but its form. You will see Christ the way He is, and you will see yourself and this creation the way He has made them. And that is why we live and work and serve even still under the forms of this age: because we know, above all else, that this will be all transformed, and that nothing in this age will be empty or meaningless or worthless, because you are in the Lord, now and forever.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7, ESV). Amen.

– Pr. Timothy Winterstein, 1/20/12

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

From the very beginning of the Gospel according to Mark, you—the hearer, the reader—you know exactly who Jesus is. From the very first verse: “The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” (1:1). And here, at His Baptism: “Immediately, while He was coming up from the water, He saw the heavens torn open and the Spirit as a dove coming down upon Him. And a voice came from the heavens: ‘You are My Son, the Beloved, with You I am well-pleased’” (1:10-11). You, hearing this, know exactly who Jesus is. The fascinating thing is that no one else in the Gospel seems to know. The disciples never call Jesus the Son of God in Mark. The Jewish religious leaders certainly don’t call Him the Son of God. The only ones who do are God the Father, the demons (twice), and a Roman soldier. No one else sees or recognizes. But Mark wants you to know, without a doubt, who Jesus is. He doesn’t want you to miss this. Though the people of Nazareth, among whom Jesus lived for 30 years, don’t seem to know; though no one at the Jordan looks at Jesus and says, “There goes the Son of God”; though it seems that the only ones on earth who know are the demons and the Roman soldier, Mark wants you to know that Jesus is the Son of God. Right here, in the Jordan River, being baptized among a bunch of sinners, looking no different, just another man: this is the Son of God. The heavens are torn open and the Father says it. And then Mark hurries you through until you get to the point of the Son of God being on the earth: the cross. And there, when the Son of God has finished His work, the Temple curtain is torn open, from top to bottom, and in the very next verse, the Roman soldier echoes God the Father: “Truly this was the Son of God!”

You think God is hiding in heaven, separated from you by the sky? No, the heavens are torn open, and God is on earth. You think God is hiding in the Temple, hidden from you by the curtain? No, the curtain is torn open and God’s sacrifice is exposed to the world. There are no more barriers, no more walls, no more separation between God and man, because God has become a man. But that’s not necessarily as good as it sounds. Because if God is walking around on earth, if God is standing right next to me in a body like mine, that might mean that I have to confess my sin. That might mean that I have to give up my sin. I might have to stop living my life the same way I lived it before and never go back. I might have to look at other people differently. I might not be able to say what I want, think what I want, do what I want with other people. Not because they were made in God’s Image; we messed that up a long time ago. But because God has become one of them. We don’t have to ask what if God was one of us; He is one of us. We know what would happen, what He would do. The Gospel tells us. He’s come to take our sin away. That means you can’t have it anymore. You can’t do it anymore. You can’t keep it. He’s come to kill it; in fact, to kill you.

When I was in high school, I used to draw the logos of my favorite sports teams, and the names of bands I liked, on my notebooks and binders. It’s easier now, because we have things like Facebook. Now it’s much easier to construct any identity you want. You can present whatever face you want to people and to the world. You pick what you like and don’t like. You make your page the way you want, and you get to invent your own identity for your own self. But we do this in other ways, too. I don’t think there’s anything sadder than a man who has so wrapped up his identity in his job, and when he retires, he’s got nothing left to live for. I don’t think there’s anything sadder than a husband or wife who has so wrapped up his or her identity in the other person, that when the spouse dies, the living one has nothing left to live for. I don’t think there’s anything sadder than parents who have so wrapped up their identity in their children, so that when their children leave, their marriage falls apart because they have nothing to live for. We’re not even talking about the evil things with which we construct our identities; these are all good things. But good things will kill you if you make idols of them. Jesus has come to kill your old self; what you’ve invented for yourself. The identity you’ve constructed and imagined and presented to the world as “who you are.” He’s come to kill that. Either He kills it, or it will kill you.

But He’s not going to leave you dead. Because Jesus is not an idol. He’s the Son of God. Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? You were buried with Him by baptism into death. Buried. He comes down and buries Himself in the midst of your sin, buried by your sin, and now, after His resurrection, you’re buried with Him in His death. But just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so He raises you to live a new life. And if you have been united with Him in the likeness of His death, you will certainly be united with Him in the likeness of His resurrection. You know who Jesus is; this is who you are. Your old identity, your likes and dislikes, the front you’ve constructed for other people: none of that will last. It will all be torn from you, little by little, until it ends in death. But this identity is not from you; you didn’t make it, you didn’t earn it, you didn’t create it. God gave it to you in His Son. And that’s good news. It means your identity is certain; it cannot be stolen, or broken, or lost. It’s Jesus’ promise, Jesus’ Name, Jesus’ identity. There’s a reason why the catechism says that when you get up in the morning, make the sign of the Cross. It’s not optional. I don’t mean the making of the sign of the Cross, but recognizing who you are, to whom you belong. Baptism is everything, from beginning to end. It’s everything, because it’s Jesus, and Jesus is everything.

This identity is as hidden as Jesus’ identity. No one can just look at you, and say, there’s a baptized child of God; just as no one looked at Jesus, and said, “There’s the Son of God.” But God sees it; God declares it. He says to those in His Son, to you: “You are My Son! You are My beloved one! With you I am well-pleased!” Not because of what you have done, your job, your family, your marriage, but because of Jesus. Because you’re joined to Him by baptism. And that changes everything. It changes how you see the world, how you see your job, your spouse, your children, and how you see yourself. You see other people as ones for whom Jesus died, whose sin is covered by Jesus’ blood. You see your brothers and sisters in Christ as baptized children of God, confessing the same sin, being given the same forgiveness, eating and drinking the same Body and Blood. You are who you are because Jesus is who He is. And that is true now and forever; death no longer rules over Jesus in His Body, so death no longer rules over you in yours. Your identity in Jesus is unbreakable and eternal.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7, ESV). Amen.

– Pr. Timothy Winterstein, 1/7/12

John 14:1-6

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Jesus says to you today, Do not let your hearts be troubled, stirred up, disturbed (John 14:1). This is not the equivalent of saying, “Don’t worry; be happy.” Jesus isn’t saying that things will get better with time, although they sometimes do. But mere words are not going to take away the fact that Henrietta is separated from us by death. The fact that she lived for 91 years doesn’t make this easier to deal with. She was yours, you loved her and she loved you, and that’s not something that human words can replace. That she died during the time of Christmas will likely make this time more difficult for you in the future.

So what can Jesus mean by telling us not to let our hearts be troubled, not just on this day, but every day? He explains: “Believe in God and believe also in Me. In the House of My Father are may dwelling places; if it were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to myself, so that where I am you also will be” (John 14:1-4). There is only one place where troubled hearts are put to rest, and that is in God. And He tells His disciples that they know the way to that place; they know where God is, and they know how to get there. Jesus says, “I myself am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (14:6). Jesus is the way, and He Himself is preparing the way for His disciples, and for all who believe through His Word—not the word of a man only, but the Word of God itself.

Henrietta knew the way, because she heard the Word. I had the privilege of bringing Jesus’ Word and His Body and Blood to her and Freddie for almost five years. To give them the same promise that Jesus gave His disciples: that He was going to prepare a place for them to dwell with Him and with His Father. Where was He going, when He said those words? Not to heaven, but to the cross. He was going to the cross to clear the way between people and God, a way that people litter and crowd and clutter with their sin. Sin—the things we do because we are sinful—that’s what closed the way to God. Your sin, my sin, Henrietta’s sin: it has to be cleared away, it has to be removed, it has to be taken out of the way. And Jesus has done it. He went to the cross to prepare the way, and His Word and His Baptism and His Supper are the ways He brings us to be with Him after His Resurrection. He has not failed to keep His promise to Henrietta. He rose from the dead, and because she heard Jesus and received His gifts, He will come again and raise her body and yours from the dead. Only because of this promise, and the One who makes it, can our hearts be put to rest, even when everything around us is troubled, stirred up, disturbed.

I think one of the reasons that it is so much harder to deal with death at the time of Christmas is because we have created a sort of false picture of happiness, lights, and decorations, where there is no room for the grief that comes with living in this world. We have done it also with Jesus, making Him a pretty little baby who never cries. But if you know the story, you know that He was born to die. You know that the cross was made of wood, just like the manger. You know that the eternal Son of God took on a human body for the particular purpose of going to the cross to die, and by His death, prepare a place for you with Himself and with His Father. Because He did not stay dead, we still celebrate His birth into this world. And that can help us during this time, when the world expects us to plaster smiles on our faces, but we only want to cry. Jesus was born, just as Henrietta was born. Jesus died, just as Henrietta has died. But here is our comfort and our hope: Jesus rose from the dead so that Henrietta, and all those who are on the way, and in the truth, and have true life, will also rise one day. In that promise, do not let your hearts be troubled. Henrietta’s soul rests with her Lord, and soon her Lord will come and raise all the bodies of the dead, and give eternal life to her and all believers in Christ. This is most certainly true.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7, ESV). Amen.

– Pr. Timothy Winterstein, 1/4/12

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Everything’s backwards in Matthew 2: the wise are foolish and the foolish wise; those who should know stay where they are and those who should not know leave and follow; Jerusalem is nothing and Bethlehem is everything, and a minor king of a little place tries to kill the King of all the earth.

Foolish to travel hundreds of miles to kneel before a foreign king; wise to take note of the prevailing political winds and stay nine miles away from the trouble brewing in Bethlehem. The chief priests and the scribes of the people, who know the Scriptures and are ready with the obvious answer, stay in Jerusalem; while the pagan philosophers, who have heard little more than a rumor, leave the big city in search of a tiny town with a tiny Messiah. Jerusalem, the City of God, has been left desolate; and Bethlehem of Ephratha, too little to be among the tribes of Judah, is made great because of the King who comes from her, the one who is both newborn and ancient. Herod, a so-called king, trembles at the questions asked about a King of the Jews, whose star has finally arisen. And what comes from all of this? The state-sponsored murder of children, a small family forced to leave for a foreign land, and a few pagans worshiping in a house.

Who knows what was in the minds of those magi? Who knows what they thought they were doing when they started following a star? Who knows what they thought when they followed the word of religious men, and those same religious men did not go with them to see their own Messiah? Whatever they thought, or said to each other, we know this one thing: they heard the Word, and they believed it enough to actually go and see if what they heard was true. Some wind was blowing, some Spirit moving, and they went with nothing but the Word. Do we need more than that? Do we need more than the Word to cause us to seek God where’s He promised to be? Are we priests and scribes, or magi? Will we be unbelievers long enough to believe? Or have we been believers so long we can no longer believe? The bumper sticker says “Wise men still seek Him.” Where is the wise man? Where is the friend of Wisdom in this age? What can we say when the churches are all empty and the bars and movie theaters full? What can we say when all the Bibles have been bought and paid for, but no one reads them? When the comfort of all our conveniences makes hearing the Word inconvenient? When Christians say they believe the Scriptures, and mock unbelievers for going about their lives without God, and yet the unbelievers are more willing to actually seek out what the Scriptures have to say about Christ, even if they never believe it? What shall we say? If the pagans say no, and then go out and worship Him anyway; and the religious people say yes, but stay home, which one does the will of the Father?

This is the mystery of the Epiphany, the revealed, Gospel: that these Gentiles without the covenant, without the promises, without the prophets and the Land—these Gentiles are made heirs and members of the Body of this Jew, and share in the promise of the Jewish Messiah. The Church is the lampstand on which stands the Light of the World, to “bring light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God.” It is the Church through which the wisdom of God is made known to rulers and authorities, powers and principalities. But it’s no more spectacular today: as then, today the place of the Lord is made known by the Word of prophets and apostles; but instead of being revealed in a Baby, the mystery comes in water; instead of on the lap of His mother, He waits on the altar. To those whom the Word comes, those on whom the Spirit moves, they still come to the Light of His revelation. They still come hear, to confess, to be forgiven, to eat and drink. If they did not believe, they would not come. If they do not believe, they do not come. Nothing has changed; it’s still all backwards, but the reversal is coming. A revealing in the full sight of all the people, the full shining of the revelation to the Gentiles and the full glory of His people Israel.

For now, there are no resolutions, no visions, no certainty among the things of this world; there are only the simple things of the Church’s revelation, and that is enough. It is enough, because it is Jesus Himself, as God hides Himself from sight, but reveals Himself to faith. Enough to sustain us on our travels through this land, made strange by an infant Stranger. Enough to draw to Himself all whom He has chosen, even you.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7, ESV). Amen.

– Pr. Timothy Winterstein, 1/3/12

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

I am sure that people have always had calendars of one sort or another. No people ever lived as if every day was just a carbon copy of the one before it, as the one after it would also be. Humans have had time as a cycle built into us, both in our days and in our years. Night to day to night, built up into weeks and months and years; light to dark and back to light again; life to death to life again. How any given person or civilization might deal with those facts have certainly changed, based in various feasts and festivals, some good and some bad. For the person or people who believed Yahweh in Israel, and those who believe the Trinity in all nations, tribes, languages, and peoples, this passing of time has never been an arbitrary fact of life. It has never been, and it cannot be, a despairing lamentation of the past or a fatalistic resignation to the future; it cannot fall to either of those temptations because it knows one thing: “Lord, you have been our dwelling place, our refuge, in all generations…from everlasting to everlasting you are God” (Psalm 90:1, 2).

But this is not obvious. It is not obvious, looking around us at the state of the world, at the state of our families, at the state of our lives, that God is God and that He is our refuge in this world. It is not obvious when we consider the shortness of our lives and that death comes to each of us, without exception. It is not obvious that God is God and that He is our refuge when we see so much pain and suffering associated with death. But in this Psalm—the only one attributed to Moses—we learn to view death rightly. We see it not simply as a part of being human, as if being human meant, by definition, dying. We see it not as a natural part of life, nor as something to accept and simply get on with our own lives, until we ourselves meet death. No, Moses knows no death that is not the sign of God’s wrath and punishment of sin. Moses hears the terrible consequence spoken over the head of Adam: “By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return” (Genesis 3:19). He sees the carrying-out of God’s warning to Adam: “…of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (2:17). Death is not neutral, and it is certainly not a friend. Each second, each minute, each hour that ticks from the clock of our lives should be a reminder that we live our lives under the threat of death—and we deserve it fully. “You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence. For all our days pass away under your wrath; we bring our years to an end like a sigh” (Psalm 90:8-9).

“So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom,” Moses prays (90:12). The fear of Yahweh is the beginning of wisdom. To know that death is always a result of sin, and the sin is ours, is to fear the God who is our righteous Judge. But that is only the beginning of wisdom. There is a cry for mercy from the one who knows God’s just judgment on sinners. “Return, O Yahweh! How long? Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad…for as many days as you have afflicted us, and for as many years as we have seen evil” (90:13-15). Moses knew well the results of sin, but he knew just as well what sorts of things Yahweh does in the morning. “When Pharaoh drew near, the people of Israel lifted up their eyes, and behold, the Egyptians were marching after them, and they feared greatly. And the people of Israel cried out to Yahweh. They said to Moses, ‘Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness?’… And Moses said to the people, ‘Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of Yahweh, which He will work for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again. Yahweh will fight for you, and you have only to be silent’” (Exodus 14:10-11, 13-14). As the people crossed between the walls of the Sea, and Pharaoh and his armies followed them in, “in the morning watch Yahweh in the pillar of fire and of cloud looked down on the Egyptian forces and threw the Egyptian forces into a panic, clogging their chariot wheels so that they drove heavily…” and when Moses stretched out his staff again, as Yahweh told him, “the sea returned to its normal course when the morning appeared” (Exodus 14:24-25, 27). In the morning, certain death averted. In the morning, enemies swallowed by the sea. In the morning, salvation for the people of God. In the morning, very early in the morning (Mark 16:2; Luke 24:1; John 20:1), there is an empty tomb, and resurrection, and the beginning of a Life that never ends.

And so it is for you. Tonight, as you consider the end of the day, the end of the year, the end of your life, the end of the world; as you consider darkness and night and death; look and see: the salvation of God always comes in the morning. For Israel, for Jesus, for you. Death cannot have the last word, not for your life and not for the world. “Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.” All these days, all these years, filled with reminders of sin and death; but morning is coming. Empty tombs, millions of them, are coming. Resurrection, and Life everlasting. In the morning of your life in Christ, He drowned your enemies in the sea of baptism tied to His death and resurrection, and now He feeds you with the manna of His Body and Blood, until the morning when the glad new year begins, once and for all, in the Land of Promise.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7, ESV). Amen.

– Pr. Timothy Winterstein, 12/28/11

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

This is a very strange thing: one of the greatest mysteries of the Christian faith—maybe the greatest—that the eternal Son of God, by whom all things were created, would take on human flesh. That God would come down in order to raise up humans. That the infinite God would willingly confine Himself to the finite stuff which He Himself had created. What greater mystery could there be than this? Who has ever claimed to understand it or be able to explain it? And yet, because we are confronted with this mystery year after year after year after year, it has ceased to be a mystery to our tired and weary eyes and ears. It has become a commonplace, a cliché, a creche in my yard. And what could I possibly say that you have never heard? What could any preacher say? Maybe that’s why many of the Church Fathers explain nothing; they simply turn the mystery about so that as many facets as possible can catch the light. They gather together all of the pieces and throw them out like snowflakes, each one unique and unrepeatable in its context. Because, the more familiar the text, the harder it is to peel back all of our assumptions and presuppositions and see the core. The harder it is to see with the presuppositions of the Prophets and the assumptions of the Apostles. Or, at the least, it is difficult to make the light flash off a neglected facet of the diamond. The difficulty is that we want to hear something new and, at the same time, for it to be exactly the same as we expect it to be.

It’s interesting because in the first seven verses of Luke 2, we hear nothing surprising, nothing out of the ordinary, nothing that would not have applied to who knows how many people in Bethlehem that year. I have no idea how many people came back to be enrolled in this census; no idea how many pregnant women there might have been; no idea how many young couples looking for a place to stay with distant relatives. But there is nothing strange in those first verses. Not even that they laid the new baby in a feeding trough. Most houses in Palestine would have had two or three main rooms: either a large main room, and a smaller room for the animals to stay in during the night; or, a main room, a room for the animals, and a guest room. Mary and Joseph were not looking for a place to stay in an inn, they were returning to Joseph’s ancestral home, in which he and Mary probably still had relatives, in a culture that strongly emphasized hospitality. It’s almost impossible to believe that no one would have taken in someone of the “house and family-line of David” and his very obviously pregnant wife. No, the more likely scenario is that there was no room in the “guest-room” (which is normally translated “inn”), because there were so many relatives visiting; and so they had to stay in the larger, common room, which usually had two feeding troughs at the lower end of it, for the animals to eat out of when they were in the house for the night. Nothing strange, then, about Mary putting her baby in one of those troughs after He was born. There are strange things going on, but they are not what we can see, not what we hear on the surface of these very ordinary things, such as taxes and giving birth.

We do not hear of anything strange until we get to verse nine: out of the blue, literally, an Angel of the Lord appears and the heavens are opened so that the glory of God’s own Presence engulfs some poor (in both senses) shepherds. They are, indeed, “sore afraid.” Terrified. Speechless. Falling-on-the-ground, covering-their-faces, scared to death. The Angel says, as all angels say, “Don’t be afraid; look, I have a good message, a great-joy message, which is for all the people. Today, to you, is born a Savior who is the Lord Christ, in the city of David. And this is the Sign to you: you will find the infant wrapped up and lying in a feeding trough.” Wait. What? This is the sign to them? That they will find the infant wrapped up and lying in a feeding trough? No star guiding them to the place, no light shining out of heaven into a hole in the roof, just a baby. Nothing to do but to start looking. They don’t know where their Savior is going to be, but they know the Sign, they know what to look for. So in a town not much bigger than Fisher, those shepherds look until they find Mary and Joseph and the infant lying in the trough. And the shepherds tell the people in that house everything the angels had said. Mary, we are told, gathered, stored up, all these words and considered them, pondered them, tried to put all the pieces together.

In the midst of all the things you have going on during this season of holidays—really, holy days—and maybe even more so in the ordinary, normal, commonplace, where do you find Jesus? He is still just as hidden as He was when the Shepherds went looking; He was hidden then, and He is hidden now, for the sake of mercy. As Yahweh said when Moses asked to see His glory, “’I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘Yahweh.’ And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. But,’ he said, ‘you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.’ And Yahweh said, ‘Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock, and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen’” (Exodus 33:19-23). We poor sinners still cannot see the full glory of God and live, so He hides Himself, to be gracious to you and show mercy to you. He hides in the womb of a Virgin, He hides in a feeding trough, He hides on a cross. There is a place near the Creator of all that exists, near your Creator, and as His glory passes by in flesh and bone, a baby and a man, He puts you into the Rock of Ages, cleft for you: and that Rock is Christ. You do not have to go to Bethlehem, or to Calvary, or to heaven, to find Jesus. He has already come; He finds you. Right where you are, right in the middle of all the things in your life that clash with bright lights, and warm homes, and the manufactured material that masquerades as joy and peace and love. Right in the middle of your sin, and your death, that’s where you find Jesus; that’s where He was in Bethlehem, that’s where He was on the cross, that’s where He still comes: to sinners, only to sinners, only to those who know and hate what they are and what they’ve done. Only to you, only to me. And this will be the Sign to you, that today a Savior is born to you: you will find Him wrapped up in words and swaddled in the Sacraments; you will find Him where He has promised to be. “Truly wonderful is the whole chronicle of the nativity. For this day the ancient slavery is ended, the devil confounded, the demons take to flight, the power of death is broken. For this day paradise is unlocked, the curse is taken away, sin is removed, error driven out, truth has been brought back, the speech of kindliness diffused and spread on every side—a heavenly way of life has been implanted on the earth, angels communicate with men without fear, and we now hold speech with angels. Why is this? Because God is now on earth, and man in heaven…” (St. John Chrysostom).

On this most holy night, when your salvation was born, when the Virgin sang her first lullaby, take these things and store them up in your mind and heart. Consider, ponder, gather the pieces of this mystery. Turn them around, tumble them over in your songs and prayers. This, this is Christ the king, whom shepherds guard and angels sing. Good Christian, fear, for sinners here the silent Word is pleading. Nails, spear shall pierce Him through, the cross be borne for me, for you. Hail, hail the Word made flesh, the babe, the son of Mary! (LSB 370).

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7, ESV). Amen.

– Pr. Timothy Winterstein, 12/23/11

]]> http://northprairiepastor.wordpress.com/2011/12/25/christmas-eve-2/feed/ 0 prwinterstein http://northprairiepastor.wordpress.com/2011/12/24/childrens-christmas-service-2/ http://northprairiepastor.wordpress.com/2011/12/24/childrens-christmas-service-2/#comments Sat, 24 Dec 2011 04:35:15 +0000 prwinterstein http://northprairiepastor.wordpress.com/?p=1098 ]]> “Tradition”

 Traditions are funny things. For humans, who are always tied to some tradition or another, we tend to hold them very tightly, and we get a little unnerved when something of long use is changed. (I make no comment about which day the children’s service should be held!) “Tradition” itself is a slippery word. Some people think it’s a bad thing; some people think it’s a good thing. Some people have a lot of traditions, some people don’t think they have any. The Church, and especially particular churches, are known for having traditions, and some would say the Church is “bound by tradition,” meaning that they—we—can’t ever do anything new or different. I don’t know if you’re of the “tradition is good” or the “tradition is bad” camp, but the word “tradition” simply means “what is handed down.” Whatever foods, or customs, or activities you have that surround Christmas, the things that you do every year, those are your traditions, even if you are not “traditional.” The things you are used to seeing every year when you come here or to your church, those are traditions. They are simply the things that have been handed down from parent to child over however many years or decades or centuries. Traditions, like any other habit, can be good or bad, helpful or harmful, meaningful or done just for the sake of “keeping up tradition.” The thing with traditions, especially in the Church, is that you can fall into the ditch on one side just as easily as into the ditch on the other side. That is, you can observe traditions (and we all do it sometime) without thinking about what you’re doing, because you’ve done it so many times. On the other hand, if you try to make a new tradition, you may spend so much time thinking about what you’re doing that you can’t actually worship.

There is no way around this problem. We are all creatures of habit, and we require our habits in order to go deeply into the meaning of our traditions; and, at the same time, our habits can dull our senses to that same meaning. As far as the Church is concerned, the only good Church traditions are those that clearly proclaim the simple facts of the Christian Creed: Christ was born, Christ died, Christ rose from the dead, Christ will come again—all for you. Whatever proclaims those things is a good tradition; whatever doesn’t is a bad tradition—or, at least, a tradition that doesn’t belong in the services of the Lord’s House. But even those traditions that clearly proclaim Christ for you can easily become mere habits in which we lose all meaning. For me, that happens with hymns like “Joy to the World.” I have to force myself to associate something with that hymn other than “this is the end of the Divine Service on Christmas Day.” I have to force myself to listen to the words.

And maybe it is so for you. Maybe the words of these profound hymns are lost in the simple fact of singing them like “we always do.” Maybe the words of Luke, Chapter Two, are lost in the simple act of reading them like “we always do.” “What we always do” is not bad, but once Christmas begins to exist for the traditions, rather than the traditions existing for Christ, there’s no longer any point to all of this. “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace, goodwill to men” becomes just another holiday slogan, rather than a proclamation from the army of God’s angels that something completely unique and original has occurred. “Joy to the World” becomes a generic wish, rather than God come down into the midst of everything that steals joy. And I, for one, doubt I’d know what to do with a silent, holy night if I had one.

This is a time for tradition, but my prayer for you is that under all the wrapping and tinsel, the stark and startling fact of God being born in your flesh, God being born to die, to take away your sin and your death—all of this for you—that that fact would shine through clearly in the midst of all your traditions—tonight, tomorrow and every day after that, until He comes again for His own. I pray that the ancient confession that “for us men and for our salvation He came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary and was made man” would be more than a vague truth, more than an historical event, more than a tradition, that it would be the very food and drink of your existence. As you hear and sing the Word of God tonight, I pray that you will hear Christ Himself speaking to you of your salvation, that God Himself will bless you by that Word and give you His peace, which the world cannot give. Amen.

– Pr. Timothy Winterstein, 12/20/11