​"I will never forget you."
Christmas seems such a long time ago now, but it was just three weeks ago that we celebrated the birth at Bethlehem, the beginning of the earthly life of our Savior.
Today we celebrate another beginning in the life of Jesus - it is the beginning marked by Baptism. Jesus is now a grown man and approaches the banks of the River Jordan one hot and dusty day. There he comes face to face with John the Baptist and is baptized. This action in the waters of the Jordan marked a new beginning for Jesus that would end at the cross of Calvary. As Jesus left the Jordan River, we are told 'heaven was opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God coming down like a dove and lighting on him. Then a voice said from heaven, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased."
Jesus is about to embark on the most difficult journey anyone could undertake over the next few years. It would involve every kind of hurt - verbal, physical, mental and spiritual - from his enemies and even from those who were the closest to him. And as he begins this part of his life, he hears these powerful words of affirmation, "You are my own dear Son."
There is no doubt in my mind that Jesus, knowing what was coming, gathered strength from those words. What a way to begin a new part of one's life! What a way to feel before setting out on a new course! What a thing to hear and reflect on later when the challenges that life would throw at him would be almost too much to bear.
How many times would you have loved to hear, "Well done! I am pleased with you." Being critical and negative is easy, which is strange because we all have felt at some time the pain of a hostile and critical comment. Our society, for the most part has become a people who have become focused on criticizing and accusing instead of affirming each other.
Praise the Lord that we have a God who is an affirming God, an encouraging God. Usually, we express our appreciation after a person has done something that pleases us, but with God, it's different.
For before Jesus had told a single story, did a single miracle, or healed a single person, before Jesus remained faithful to his task as Savior, before he spoke about God's love and forgiveness, in fact, before he did anything, there is God's affirmation of who he is. "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”
God affirmed Jesus at the beginning of his ministry, and he affirms his relationship with us even before we can do anything that we might think would earn God's favor. In grace, he says to us, "You are my dear child, and that pleases me."
God said that to each of us on the day of our Baptism. For most of us, he said it when we were too small even to know what was going on. Through the water and his Word of promise, God made a one-sided deal, in that he promises to be our Father and Savior who will love us and care for us throughout our journey through life. He is ready to do that even when we have done nothing to win such approval.
In Baptism, God promises to support and nurture us. He gives us a new life, a new beginning, and the hope of eternal life. He gives us the Holy Spirit to plant in us the seed of faith that grows in maturity as we journey through life. All of this is God's action that marks us forever as God's children.
Baptism is an act of God that celebrates how special and precious we are in God's eyes. In our Baptism, as in the Baptism of Jesus, we celebrate God's welcoming love, a love that comes before anything we may have done and anything we may yet do.
And the wonder of it all is that each morning God's mercies are renewed as he promised us. Each morning he renews his love for us, and each day he speaks to us tender words about who we are, how much we are loved and encourages us to be who we are – God's children who share the love of God in words and acts of kindness in a world that badly needs all the positive input that it can get. That's part of the covenant God has established with us – to give others the same kind of love and forgiveness that he has given us.
And even though we often fail to do what God wants us to do God's love always remains unconditional -it always affirms us, nurtures us, and calls us again to live as one of God's dearly loved children.
When the water of Baptism is poured over us, however long ago that might have been, the pure grace of God was at work at that moment and ever since. In our Baptism, He created a new relationship with us and made a personal promise to each of you that he will always be close by as our Savior and Helper.
In his Word to us, he tells us, "It doesn't matter where life's journey will take you, I will walk beside you. Even if you aren't always loyal to me, I will always be loyal to you. When life takes a turn for the worse, I will be there to comfort and help you. When you need strength to overcome trouble, I will be your strength. When you call to me in prayer, I will hear and respond in a manner that is best for you. When it comes to your dying moment, I will take you to the place I have prepared for you in heaven".
That is his promise, a promise to all those he calls his dear children. In the Old Testament, he promised the people who were experiencing very troublesome times, as he told them through his prophet, “I have written your name on the palms of my hands."
How's that for affirmation and encouragement? The almighty and all-powerful God of the universe commits to affirming us as his dearly loved children even when we don't feel we deserve that kind of favor. He tells us he will hold our hand to comfort and encourage us even when the situation appears to be hopeless.
None of us knows what the future will hold. You can be sure that this year will have days of trouble. In those days of trouble, God's promise to never forget us and always be there with his loving help and support makes us realize what a wonderful God we have.
Today, we recall the way Jesus was affirmed and encouraged by the voice from the heavens and the descending dove, is a great day to remember with thanks the way God has assured us that we are his "dearly loved children" and affirms that regardless of what may happen he will not forget us and hold our hand, even carry us if necessary, through dark valleys and troublesome times.
This promise is certain, for God says to you, "You are my own dear child." "I will never forget you. … I have written your name on the palms of my hands". Amen
 

​Circumcision and naming of Jesus Sunday
1/1/23
Text: Luke 2:21
Title: The Day God Returned To The Temple
 
When I was putting the final touches on my sermon a hymn number 370 in our hymn book came to mind that starts off asking the question, "What Child is this who, laid to rest On Mary's lap is sleeping? Whom Angels greet with anthems sweet, While shepherds watch are keeping?" The rest of the hymn then proceeds to answer those questions, as it tells who Jesus is and his purpose for being born.
I would imagine that hymn was based on Saint Luke's Gospel, for, in Luke's Gospel, we find the answer as to who Jesus is and his purpose in being born. In the first chapter of Luke, starting at verse 30, we read, "And the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom, there will be no end. The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy--the Son of God."
God overshadowed Mary. And in doing so, God had entered her womb in some mysterious way that we can't understand, just as God overshadowed the Ark of the Covenant when it was placed in the Holy of Holies of the temple.
There is a lot of other good stuff going on in those verses, but because we don't have much time this morning, I want to get started on our Gospel reading. "And at the end of eight days, when he was circumcised, he was called Jesus, the name the angel gave before he was conceived in the womb."
I chose to take a closer look at this verse today because today is the feast day of the "Circumcision and naming of Jesus." This feast day which is always on January 1 has been celebrated by the Christian Church since 567 AD. The circumcision part of the feast has fallen out of favor for some time, for circumcision is something not talked about. It is bloody and not a very nice thing to talk about on Sunday morning, so it generally gets overlooked. 
The problem with not studying this verse to learn why Saint Luke wrote it under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit is to miss out on what God wants us to know about the circumcision and naming of Jesus, which by the way, means "Yahweh saves," or, if you want to really get to the root of the Jesus' name it is "I Am that I Am saves."
When Jesus was circumcised, it was not a private event as it is now. It was done publically, at the synagogue, for the circumcision of a male marked the boy as an Israelite, a people set apart, by God, from the other nations that did not circumcise their boys. It was a big event, but in Jesus case it was an even bigger event, for in the shedding of his blood, Jesus, God Incarnate, the "Great I Am that saves," as a living breathing first born son of Israel was obeying the law of God, so that we who are under the law could be redeemed from the curse of the law.
Thirty-two days later, that is forty days after his birth, Jesus arrives at the temple with Mary and Joseph. They were there because God's law given to the Israelites said that every firstborn male child was to be set apart to the Lord.  Mary, before she could enter the temple, made her sacrifice of two turtle doves or two pigeons, we don't know which, for her purification after giving birth.
This is why Jesus, Mary, and Joseph were there that day. It was just a normal thing to do when the first Son was born to an Israelite family. There were probably lots of families doing the same thing that day. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph were just one family of many.
As they entered the temple area after Mary's purification and Jesus' dedication to the Lord, something unusual happened; something really big. Simeon, who we are told is a righteous old man who had been told that he would not see death until he saw the Lord's Christ, led by the Holy Spirit, picks Jesus out of all those baby boys there that day and exclaims, "Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel."
Those beautiful words of Simeon, which we sing on most Communion Sundays after God has entered us through the bread and wine of his Supper that we eat and drink, announce to all people throughout all time that God had arrived at the temple. Salvation for all has arrived, as God had promised after Adam and Eve sinned. 
Let's take a moment and step back some 600 years earlier, before Jesus was born so that we can get a better understanding of the significance of Jesus' circumcision, his naming, and Simeon's prayer of thanksgiving. Six hundred years earlier, when Babylonia defeated Israel and sacked the temple, the Ark of the Covenant was taken, never to be found again. 
The Ark of the Covenant was not just a box with religious articles in it. It was where God resided among the Israelites in the Holy of Holies. On the Ark of the Covenant was the mercy seat where God met the High Priest and spoke to the people while being hidden in smoke or a cloud. 
For almost 600 years, God had not resided among his people. He had not spoken through his prophets for 400 years. It was a spiritually dark time for the nation of Israel. It was not God's choice but the result of the nation of Israel turning its back on God. Much like where the United States and most of the world are today, most of the people who even still worshiped God had made their worship into just ritual and tradition, as many who consider themselves Christians do today. God's people were lost.
God needed to do something, so he did what no one else could do. He came as one of us; Jesus, God in the flesh. He was born of Mary with no earthly father. He was circumcised and named according to the law of God. And now, just 40 days into his earthly life, Jesus, Immanuel, God with us, enters the temple. Not in smoke or a cloud or the Ark of the Covenant, but in the arms of Mary his mother. The infinite God has come back into the temple almost 600 years after he had left the temple; a living, breathing baby, God in the flesh, enters the temple. 
Jesus is the "Ark of the Covenant" in person. There will be no return of the "Ark of the Covenant," for there is no need. God Incarnate, the "Great I Am that saves," has entered our lives, not hidden in smoke or a cloud, but as one of us bringing all people who will accept it the gift of comfort and consolation between God and us. 
So you see, in Jesus' circumcision and naming, his entire life is explained. The shedding of his blood in his circumcision foreshadows his blood being shed on the cross where our sin, and our death were removed and cut off so that we might have the true circumcision of our heart, as we are told in Colossians 2:11, "In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ."
 
In his name, we hear "Yahweh saves" and are saved from God's wrath because Jesus is the promised Messiah. He is the one promised after Adam and Eve sinned. He is the one who stood in the courtroom of God and was found guilty and punished instead of us, even though we still deserve to be punished. He is the one who now turns and says to us, as we stand in amazement at what we just heard, "You are guilty yet not guilty." "Why are you still standing here? Go, live your life, for God chooses you to be his and do good works in his name.  Amen  

​Christmas Day, December 25, 2022
Text: John 1:1-14
Title: Let us Rejoice for the Word is among us
It’s no surprise to find God “in the beginning,” as we do in the first chapter of Genesis. After all, he’s uncreated, infinite, and eternal. He is without beginning and without end. If it were any other way, he wouldn’t be God, for something else would have had to create him. Everything else; that is everything except Jesus who is God Incarnate, whether it is visible or invisible, is part of his creation. We know this because in Genesis 1:1 we are told “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” He made everything out of nothing when he spoke all creation into being by his word. The Gospel of John also starts before creation with the words “in the beginning” but adds “was the Word” Prior to the creation, when there was nothing besides God, there was God’s Word as John tells us “The Word was with God” The Word and God are two distinct persons while being one God. Personal pronouns, such as “he” and “him” and “his,” must be used for the Word. He’s a divine person uncreated, infinite, and eternal. Through this Word, there in the beginning with God, “all things were made”. He was the agent by whom God spoke the entire creation into being. Light and life have their beginning and source in him, for the Word was there when everything seen and unseen came into being and it was very good. Zoom forward from “the beginning” to this moment, and what you find is far different. There’s spiritual darkness, thick darkness, and deep gloom over the whole world. The world in which we live doesn’t know God. Oh many would say different, but it is true, for they don’t know the Word that is Jesus, as God Incarnate. They are spiritually ignorant and blind, living in the darkness John talks about in his Gospel. With a single word “darkness” John describes creation’s fall, sin, death, and hell. The word “darkness” captures the confusion and misunderstanding and futility is in us and around us. For the “Darkness” John is talking about means that man can’t find God, no matter how many times he bumps into the stuff God made. He’s lost, as he lives in an upside-down world that he thinks is right-side up. Disoriented and alienated from God’s creation he constantly is inventing false gods and false worship to try and fill the emptiness he fills deep inside of himself. If the creation were to be redeemed, saved, and rescued from this darkness of sin and death, then God would have to make himself known to us. But how would he do this? God would come to the place where we are, descend to earth, enter his creation, so that we are living in the darkness lost and condemned creatures might know him and be brought back into the light. That my dear forgiven and restored brothers and sisters in Christ is the wondrous mystery of Christmas. God shows up in a place where we certainly don’t expect to find him, as John tells us, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” God the Word, who was there in the beginning and participated in the creation of all things, took on a human nature like yours. The one who was uncreated became created as one of us. The one who lives outside of time has willing become bound by time and place. The Word became flesh, Jesus Christ, true God and true man in one person. What a surprise. God’s human creation left on their own cannot find the creator, so the one who creates became human. The one who formed man from the dust has come in blood and flesh with hands and feet and eyes and mouth, as we are. He was born of a woman. Mary his mother wrapped him in swaddling cloths, and laid him in a manger for a bed. Yet he was before Abraham, even before Adam, and yet he can be found in Bethlehem as a tiny babe. What a mystery. O come, let us adore him. The one who made the mountains and the tree that he was nailed to suffered and bled and died for his creation. The one in whom “we live and move and have our being” according to Acts 17:28 was once more wrapped, not in swaddling cloths, but in linen and laid in a tomb. He did not stay there but came bursting forth on the third day giving us assurance of our resurrection. O come, let us adore him. God Incarnate did not just come a long time ago and then leave us. He who made the wheat and the vine comes now in bread and wine to you. His true body and true blood are present on this altar. Eternal life, the light of the world, is so near that in just a few minutes you will touch him and taste him. For Jesus the Word who was in the beginning is now and forever incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ. That makes Christmas a blessed surprise. The uncreated, eternal, and infinite God comes right here among us as our light and our life. O come, let us adore him. Amen.

​Fourth Sunday of Advent 12/18/22
Text: Isaiah 7:14 and Matthew 1:23
Title: What is in a Name?
 
A few minutes ago, we heard an Old Testament prophecy from Isaiah, "Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel."
Then we hear the same name again some 800 years later in Matthew 1:21-23 where we learn what the name Immanuel means, "She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins." Then he says, "Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel."Which means God with us."
Why would Saint Matthew tell us what the name Immanuel means? He wants those who read his Gospel to know who Jesus is. He wants all people to know that Jesus did not just come for the Hebrews, that is the people of Israel. He came for all people. This Jesus who is to be born, this Jesus who is to die on the cross, is Immanuel, God with us. He wants us to know that we are invited, and welcome in His kingdom, that God has seen our needs and provided for us, and that now we may freely come, even those who are far off from God!
This concept of God dwelling with us is hard to understand. Ten years ago, I read a book titled"The Jesus I Never Knew "by Philip Yancey. He shares an episode from his youth when the concept of  Immanuel, that is"the Word becoming flesh and dwelling with us," dawned on him with profound meaning:
He writes, "I learned about incarnation when I kept a salt-water aquarium. Management of a marine aquarium, I discovered, is a challenging task. I had to run a portable chemical laboratory to monitor the nitrate levels and the ammonia content. I pumped in vitamins, antibodies, and enough enzymes to grow a rock. I filtered the water through filters and charcoal and exposed it to ultraviolet light. Without my care, providing everything they needed to live, they would, at the very least, live a miserable fish life.
"You would think, because of all the energy expended on my fish's behalf, that they would be at the least grateful. Not so. Every time my shadow loomed above the tank, they dived for cover into the nearest shell. They showed me one emotion only: fear. Although I faithfully opened the lid and dropped in food on a regular schedule, three times a day, they responded to each visit as a sure sign of my design to torture them. I could not convince them of my true concern. To my fish, I was a deity. I was too large for them, my actions too incomprehensible. My acts of mercy they saw as cruelty; my attempts at keeping them healthy they viewed as destruction.
"To change their perceptions, I began to see, would require a form of incarnation. I would have to become a fish and 'speak' to them in a language they could understand." (pages 38,39 Strand Publishing 1995).
In this analogy, Jesus became a fish to live among us fishes. Immanuel, God with us. Let us cherish that name, for that name is above all names, for it is our salvation. Jesus is also known by a few other names that are particularly appropriate at this time of the year, 'Wonderful Counselor,' The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace," and, of course, Jesus, which means 'God saves.' He is called all of those names, for they accurately describe who he is and what he does.
There are other verses that speak of him in the same manner, as they describe him as being "God manifest in the flesh." and "The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of Grace and truth."
Never let us, for a moment, hesitate as to the Godhead of our Lord Jesus Christ, for his Deity is a fundamental doctrine of the Christian faith. We will never fully understand how God and man could unite in one person, for, as we are told, who can, by searching, "discover the mind of God?" These great mysteries of godliness, these "deep things of God," are beyond our understanding. The essence and glory of the birth of Jesus is that he, even while in Mary's womb, was God in human flesh.
Immanuel, God with us, is an exquisite delight! "God with us" means the infinite Jehovah with us! That is why the angel told Mary in Luke 1:30-33, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. 31 And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, 33 and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom, there will be no end."
Jesus is "God with us" now. He is with us in times of joy and times of sorrow. He is with us in the uncertainty of life. Do you feel the sorrows of poverty? He "had not where to lay His head." Do you endure the grief of the death of a loved one? Jesus "wept" at the tomb of Lazarus. Have you been slandered for doing some righteous act, feeling the pain of a broken heart? He has, for he said, "Reproach has broken my heart." Have you been betrayed? Do not forget that he, too, had one of his disciples turn him in for 40 pieces of silver.
On what stormy seas have you been tossed which have not also surrounded him? In the deepest valleys and the darkest places of life, if you will but stoop down to look, you will see the footprints, the drops of blood, the drops of sweat of the crucified Jesus. He is in the wildest of storms, the driest of deserts. He cries out to you, "I am with you. Be not dismayed, for I am your helper, comforter, companion, and God."
There is nowhere that you are going or will go on this earth that Immanuel will not be there. Even in our death, he has been there. He knew the separation of the tortured spirit from the poor suffering flesh and cried, as we shall, "Father, into your hands, I commend my spirit." Immanuel, God with us knows of the tomb, for there he lay, a place of rest and not decay. Immanuel, God with us, rose from that grave in his glorified body and ascended into heaven from which he will come in the Resurrection, calling us from our graves to newness of life.
We shall be raised up in His likeness, and the first sight our opening eyes shall see shall be the Incarnate God! We can now proclaim with Job, "I know that my Redeemer lives, and though after my skin worms devour this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God." "God with us." You in your flesh will see him as Jesus the man, Immanuel, God with us.
And now, my brothers and sisters in Christ, the last word to you is this; let us be with God since God is with us. I give you a watchword through the year to come, "Emmanuel, God with us." You, the saints redeemed by His blood, have a right to all this in its fullest sense. Drink it in and be filled with courage!
As the people of God, right here in this church, in the city of Emporia, Do not say, "We can do nothing." God is with you! Do not say, "The Church is feeble and fallen upon evil times." No, don't say these things. instead say, "God is with us." We are to be like the General that reportedly said when asked if he believed he could get his troops into an impregnable fortress, "Can the sun enter it?" "Yes, they replied." "Well, where the sun can go, we can enter." Whatever is impossible in our eyes, when God wants it done we can do it, for Immanuel, God is with us!
"God with us" puts impossibility out of all existence. Hardened hearts that could never be softened will be softened if God is with us. Errors that we believe could never be refuted can be overthrown by three words, "God with us." Let us live with that promise burned into our hearts and minds. Blessed Heavenly Father, we thank you for bringing us the Word; Jesus, Immanuel; God with us. Amen.