The Church Year begins with the Advent of our Lord, His threefold coming:in the flesh, conceived and born of the Blessed Virgin Mary; in the preaching and administration of the Gospel in His name and stead; and in the Final Judgment at the last. It is a season of repentance, marked especially by the preaching of St. John the Baptist, who goes before the Lord to prepare His way. Gerhardt does not mention St. John by name in either of his two hymns for Advent, but he serves the great forerunner’s task; not so much by a proclamation of repentance, as by the prayer of repentance that he gives the people to sing.
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Because you are ransomed and redeemed by the Lord, reconciled to God, and righteous in His sight through faith in His Word, the roaring lion who is always on the prowl, always seeking to devour you, and the vicious beasts that would destroy you — they are all kept at bay. The wild things cannot harm you, because the Lord is with you. It often may not seem that way at all in your present experience. For here and now, in this body and life on earth, you still suffer harm and heartache, hurts and hungers, death and the grave. But have you not heard? Christ Jesus Himself has also suffered all of these things and more, and everything that you suffer. He has spent His time in the wilderness, where the wild things are.
Read MoreA Lutheran sermon about Mary’s response to the Annunciation and the centrality of Joseph in the life of Christ with applications for the importance of fathers in the home and the Church as family.
Read MoreIn the Gospel for this coming Sunday (Advent 2, Luke 21:25-26) Jesus tells us that there will be signs of the end in the sun, the moon, and the stars…
Read MoreWhether you are a pastor or a parishioner, a priest or a bishop, a deacon or an acolyte, or a member of the choir; whether you are male or female, young or old, rich or poor, married or unmarried, you also sing the Church’s song. With King David and the Levites, with St. Mary and St. Elizabeth, with St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, Dr. Luther, and all the faithful who have gone before us in the Word and faith of the Holy Trinity, you also sing and confess the Lord Jesus in His Holy Church.
Read MoreAdvent, like Lent, is traditionally a time of increased prayer, fasting, almsgiving, and Bible reading. The Church doesn’t do these things because we need to prove anything to God or get His attention. We do these things because we need to train both our minds and our flesh.
Read MoreIt is by the Sacrifice of His Cross that Jesus the Christ, the Lamb of God, bears in His body and takes away the sins of the whole world, as St. John preaches, and as St. John inaugurates by means of his Baptism of repentance. So is the Lamb first offered up in the waters of the Jordan, unto His innocent suffering and death on Good Friday. So does He make full Atonement for all your sins. And it is by virtue of His Sacrifice that you are able to draw near and enter into the Holy Place, and that your prayers are heard and answered by God the Father in heaven. Indeed, your prayers rise before Him as a sweet-smelling incense, because He delights in you in Christ Jesus.
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