Savoring the First Sign

In Nomine Iesu
St. John 2:1-11
January 20, 2019
Epiphany 2C

Dear Saints of Our Savior~

Do you know what a sommelier is? A sommelier is a wine expert—a wine steward—a trained and knowledgeable wine professional. Whereas most of us take a sip of wine and think, “This tastes like fermented grapes,” a sommelier is someone who sniffs the cork, lets the wine breathe, twirls the glass, takes a sip, and detects hints of sage, oak, and butterscotch—and knows with one sip that the grapes came from a hidden river valley deep in the far southern regions of Tuscany. Few of us will ever be able to extract and savor the flavors of vino like a sommelier.

But with the help of the Holy Spirit, you can be a sommelier of the Scriptures. You can read, mark, learn, inwardly digest, and savor what God gives us in His Word; and detect subtle hints of Law and Gospel—the bitter taste of judgment, and the sweet, smooth flavor of God’s amazing grace in Jesus Christ. The more you taste of the Scriptures, the more you can discern truth from error and the joy that comes from Jesus.

There are few moments in our Lord’s earthly ministry that are as ripe and flavorful as the wedding at Cana. It’s our Lord’s first miracle—the changing of water into wine. It’s full of surprises and bursting with joy. St. John invites us to really savor this moment

when he describes this miracle as a “sign,” the first of Jesus’ signs. That word “sign” tells us that there’s more here than meets the eye. If to you this account simply means that Jesus saved the father of the bride a trip to the liquor store, then please hang with me as we explore the full array of flavors this account has to offer.

Wine is all natural. Wine is the natural, normal way for grapes to be used. Fermentation is a natural, God-given chemical reaction. Now, notice if you will, the setting for Jesus’ first “sign.” Where did Jesus first show His miraculous wine-making ability? It’s a wedding feast. A groom and a bride—a man and a woman—have been joined together in holy matrimony. Marriage, like wine, is natural, normal, and God-given. At the very least, our Lord’s attendance at these nuptials shows that marriage matters to Jesus. Marriage is His gift. It’s the foundation on which all of human life is based. Children need both a mother and a father. God’s focus is always on the family.

The recent attempts of our culture to redefine marriage in unnatural and abnormal ways are sort of like trying to extract wine from potatoes instead of grapes. It doesn’t work. The end result of same-sex unions is not marriage, but a shallow imitation of marriage. Same-sex unions are unnatural and abnormal because everyone knows that the normal, natural result of marriage is babies, children, offspring. It takes two sexes to make a baby—male and female.

Marriage is natural; and children are the natural result of marriage. On this Life Sunday it needs to be said that when human beings despise and reject what is basic, normal and natural in God’s creation—we are rejecting God Himself. When we pretend that unborn children are somehow less than human—when we do not protect those little ones, but allow their lives to be ended in the most violent and painful ways—we do great harm. There is nothing more unnatural and abnormal than abortion. And there is nothing more beautiful and precious than the birth of a baby.

We just recently spent twelve days celebrating the birth of a baby. How many stamps—how many Christmas cards did you get with a mother and a baby—the Madonna and Child—depicted? In today’s Gospel that child and His blessed mother are together again. Coincidence? I don’t think so. The interaction between Jesus and Mary in Cana is yet another subtle flavor in this complex vintage we’re sampling from John chapter two.

It’s Mary who first informs Jesus that the wine had run out. At first, Jesus doesn’t seem very eager to do anything about it. Woman, what does this have to do with me? He asks. And then Jesus lets loose with one of those rich, profound, pregnant phrases: My hour has not yet come. Jesus’ “hour” refers to the moment of His glory—the moment when He brings glory to His Father—when He brings life to us—by hanging dead on a cross for the sins of the world. Jesus seems to be telling Mary that His miracles aren’t intended to be cute little parlor tricks cooked up to dazzle the guests at weddings and bar mitzvahs. Jesus’ miracles are “signs” that point the way to the cross—signs that lead us to believe in Him.

But Mary is a model of faith; and she forges ahead in faith, confident that Jesus will act. Mary said to the servants, “Do whatever He tells you.” Those happen to be the last recorded words of Mary in the Scriptures. And we really can’t go wrong by taking those words to heart: “Do whatever [my Son] tells you.” That’s pretty good advice from the mother of our Lord. After all, He’s the one who died on the cross and rose from the dead to save you. So if Jesus says to love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, then we should do it. If He says to forgive those who trespass against us, then we should do it. Do whatever He tells you.

There’s so much to savor in this story. For instance, Jesus has the servants fill six stone jars with water. John tells us that these water jars were used for Jewish rites of purification. And that’s important. Jesus’ Jewish contemporaries washed in this water for reasons of godliness, not cleanliness—thought this washing could make them more acceptable to God.

Well, you know what happens next. The master of the feast takes a sip of the new wine and immediately calls the groom over. “Listen,” he says. “Someone’s made a mistake here. You’re supposed to serve the fine wine first. Then, after everyone’s senses are a little dulled, you slip in the cheap stuff from CVS. But,” says the sommelier, “you have kept the good wine until now.” You have saved the best for last!

Now, remember, this text is like fine wine. Let’s savor what’s going on here. When Mary said, “They have no more wine,” she might just as well have been talking about the Jews of the Old Covenant. Their time was just about up. A new covenant was on the horizon. But they were hopelessly mired in the law—in keeping man-made rules, regulations and ceremonies—with nothing to show for it but six jars of water. That’s about as far as the Law of God can take you. At best, it can give you clean hands; but it can’t purify the heart of a sinner. And that’s a problem.

So savor this good news. Drink deeply of the joy Jesus brings. In Jesus, the old is gone and the new creation has come. In Jesus, Old Testament bathwater becomes New Testament wedding wine. Jesus fulfills the commandments of Moses with His own perfect obedience. That’s why He came—to fulfill the Law of God and then to die an innocent death on the cross—to pour out His blood like fine wine from heaven, to make glad every heart with the joy of His forgiveness, life, and salvation.

Jesus’ coming spells the end of all attempts to clean ourselves up and impress God with our good behavior. You can’t do it no matter how hard you scrub. You’ll never be pure enough by your own efforts to make things right. But Jesus does it for you in His death and resurrection. He takes your sin and gives you His purity. All who believe in Him are completely cleansed and purified—by grace, through faith. And that’s something worth celebrating. And, I’m sorry, but grape juice just doesn’t cut it. In Jesus you have a place at the wedding feast of the Lamb in His kingdom, where the meat is richly marbled and the wine never runs out.

Have we made too much of this first sign of Jesus at Cana? No way. In fact, there are a few drops more of this text left to enjoy. We can’t quit until you recognize this: that what goes on right here at Our Savior every Sunday is more marvelous and more meaningful than what happened at the wedding at Cana. Here Jesus takes water and makes water a sign—a baptism—a sacrament of His death and resurrection life, which is given to you in the splash of your own baptism. Here Jesus takes bread and gives it as His body; here Jesus takes wine and gives it to you as His blood. Right here every Sunday we have a wedding feast where Jesus is the groom, Jesus is bartender, Jesus is even the food and drink. And best of all, you are His honored guests. You get to savor it all like a world-class sommelier.

God has saved the best for last, and the best always comes with Jesus.

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

The Buck Stops with Baptism

In Nomine Iesu
St. Luke 3:15-22
January 13, 2019
The Baptism of Our Lord-C

Dear Saints of Our Savior~

If you visit the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library in Independence, Missouri, one of the many interesting things you’ll see is an exact replica of the Oval Office—just as it looked during the Truman presidency. And sitting there on President Truman’s desk is a carved, wooden, sign which reads: The buck stops here. Passing the buck—shifting the blame—is a good summary of what happens in our nation’s capital day in and day out. With his famous sign, President Truman seemed to be saying that—whatever the dilemma—whatever the problem—he would address it. He would fix it. He would make it right. And if not, then he alone would bear the blame.

With His baptism in the Jordan River, Jesus assumed a similar position. The buck would now stop with Jesus—the buck of human sin. The shame, the blame, the guilt, the lies, the finger-pointing—it will all now come to rest in, with, and under Jesus. He Himself will now assume the blame and fix the problem. He Himself will make all things right—including the dilemma of our sin and death. The buck will stop with Jesus, the Christ.

The Baptism of our Lord is a profound and significant moment in His earthly ministry. Some have described it as Jesus’ public

inauguration into office. We understand how that works. President Truman couldn’t be the buck-stopping president until he was inaugurated. In Wisconsin, we inaugurated a new governor last week (although you may have missed it since the Packers hired a new head coach on the same day). We do it with pastors when they are ordained. You could say that God the Father was publicly ordaining Jesus and visibly anointing Jesus with the Holy Spirit so that He could begin His holy work in earnest. For three decades or so He’d been laying low up north in Nazareth. But now, the Son was going public. The buck would now stop with Jesus, the Christ.

Jesus’ baptism was quite a spectacle. All three persons of the Trinity are made manifest. If you had been there, you would never forget it. That public baptism was to set Jesus apart. It marked and identified Him as the one and only Son of God. For no one else did the heavens open wide. On no one else did the Spirit descend like a dove. For no other human being did the Father testify from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”

One of the unique details St. Luke provides about the baptism of Jesus is that our Lord was praying as He was baptized. And as He prayed the heavens were opened. Only Jesus can do that. No one else can open heaven with their prayers. The original sin we inherited from our first parents—and those actual sins of ours that ruin everything everyday—that sin has shut heaven tight. No amount of praying or pleading on our part can change that. Adam passed the buck and blamed Eve. Eve passed the buck and blamed the serpent. And you and I have often imitated their talent for passing the buck and shifting the blame and justifying ourselves. But who do we think we’re fooling?

The buck stops with Jesus. The redemption of the world—the forgiveness of our sins—the resurrection of our bodies—it all hinges on Him. He’s the Son sent by the Father. The Father is pleased with him—well pleased, in fact. Apart from Jesus, the Father would never be pleased with you or me. There’s nothing “pleasing” about us—no matter how good we try to be, no matter how religious we think we are, no matter how much other people may admire us. Apart from faith in Jesus and His salvation, we are displeasing and unacceptable to God.

But the Baptism of Our Lord brings some very good news: Jesus is God’s beloved Son and, in Jesus, you are beloved by God. Jesus is precious, honored, and loved by God. And, in Jesus, so are you. His baptism spells it out for us—reveals that Jesus is your stand-in substitute—the Lamb of God come to take away your sin in His death. St. Luke points out that Jesus was baptized together “with all the people.” Jesus wades into the water, shoulder-to-shoulder with sinners, expressing solidarity with sinners, linking Himself to the likes of you and me.

But the baptism of Jesus is different from all the rest. Everyone else came to have their sins washed away; but Jesus is baptized so that your sins might be applied to Him. In fact, He comes to be our sin. There’s a movie called “The Green Mile,” and it’s a parable of this very thing. I caught some of it on television recently. In the movie a man is wrongly convicted and is sent to death row. But this man possesses a miraculous ability to heal other people. But there’s a catch. He heals others by taking their sicknesses into his body. Cancer cells, viruses, infections—he draws them all into Himself.

This is what Jesus comes to do with your sin. At His baptism He takes a bath in your sin—immerses Himself in your death. And then, wonder of wonders, He turns that putrid, polluted water into the sweet, pure, cleansing splash of your Baptism. Does it by the power of His death and resurrection. The buck stops with Jesus.

Luther called this a “blessed exchange.” Others more recently refer to it as a “sweet swap.” Jesus takes our sin and swaps it for His sinless perfection. He became sin for us so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. He stood in your place on Good Friday so that you might stand in His place on the Last Day—precious, honored, and loved. He soaks up every last drop of our evil and immorality and bears it to His crucifixion cross. Think of the worst you’ve done—of what you are most ashamed—of what causes you to deserve God’s judgment most of all. Now see it washed away by the cleansing blood of Jesus—who makes our scarlet sins snowy white.

It’s the sweet swap—the blessed exchange. Jesus becomes our sin, and we, baptized into Him, become His righteousness. What Jesus accomplished on the cross for the whole world now comes crashing and splashing onto you in your own baptism. He was baptized into your sin and death. You were baptized into His death and life. You have been buried with Him. You have been raised with Him.

St. Paul in Romans six tells us what this means: You are no longer enslaved to sin. In fact, you are dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Shall you then continue in sin—carelessly, casually continuing in sin—coolly pre-planning your repentance and presuming God’s forgiveness? Shall you go on living your life as if your baptism was a meaningless custom? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? You’ve been united with Christ. Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. Sin no longer has dominion over you. Your baptism means that the buck goes no further than you. You don’t need to blame others or make excuses. You can be the holy person your baptism has made you to be. Live in the love of God that flows from the font directly to you.

This past summer you may have heard the big story that water had been discovered on Mars. Supposedly, a vast underground lake of liquid water has now been detected by a radar instrument onboard an orbiting spacecraft. This is big news because water is the key, they say. Where there’s water, there’s life. That’s close, but not quite. On this day, when Baptism is front and center, let’s put it this way: Where there’s water and the Word there is life. There is forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation.

But wait, there’s more! In your baptism the heavens have been opened to you. The Spirit descends upon you. The Father declares your own adoption into His family by grace, as His own beloved child. With you God is well pleased—not because of what you do, but because of who you are in Jesus. The buck of your sin stops with Him; and your new life begins with Him—in the water and the Word of your own baptism.

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

A Christmas Aria

In Nomine Iesu
Luke 2, Hebrews 1
December 25, 2018
Christmas Day

In many and various ways, God spoke to His people of old by the prophets, but now in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son.

Dear Saints of Our Savior,

In the world of music, classical compositions sometimes contain movements called “arias.” An aria often indicates a pause in the action—a chance for the listeners to catch their breath and reflect on the deeper meaning of what’s going on. For this important task, arias are usually composed for just a solo voice. There may be tenors and basses and sopranos and altos available, but in an aria most of the chorus goes mute. In the aria, one voice tells it like it is. One voice invites us to be like Mary—treasuring up all these things and pondering them in our hearts.

Christmas Day is the perfect day for an aria. If there’s ever a morning where we need to pause and ponder and reflect, this is it. Because this morning we celebrate and confess a deep, profound, and thrilling mystery: The Word became flesh and dwelt among

us. The Word who was with God. The Word who was God. The Word through whom the world was created. The eternal Word who upholds the entire universe by the Word of His power. The Word who spoke into being light and life. That Word, in the fullness of time, was conceived in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary and was born to dwell among us.

This is the breath-taking delight of Christmas. In the baby Jesus, heaven has come to earth. Time and eternity embrace. God and man are reconciled. The eternal deity is wearing diapers as He nurses at His mother’s breast. He is both infant holy, and infant lowly. It’s going to take an aria to help this sink in for us.

The aria was a relatively new musical form back in the days of Johann Sebastian Bach. But it was part of Bach’s musical genius that he was able to synthesize both the old forms and the new musical forms to create music that was (and remains) unique and unparalleled. And it needs to be said that Bach’s musical genius was closely intertwined with his Lutheran faith. He was nearly forty when he moved his family to Leipzig, where he would serve for the rest of his life. Leipzig during Bach’s tenure was a bastion of Lutheran piety and faith.

Within his first five years at Leipzig, Bach crafted, composed, and directed a monumental volume of church music—and by church music I don’t mean preludes and postludes. Sunday after Sunday, week after week, year after year, he composed Cantatas for every Sunday in the church year—large-scale liturgical works for instruments, chorus, and congregation—an effort Bach described as a “well-regulated church music,” all of it executed in a time without the convenience of copy machines and computers and e-mail. But little of Bach’s musical genius was fully appreciated until a century after his death.

By the time Bach’s fiftieth birthday was on the horizon, it was probably time for an aria—a time for Bach to pause, ponder, and reflect—to organize and catalogue what he had accomplished over five decades—and a time to ask what more remained to be done? What was left to do? How could he continue to glorify God through his musical gifts?

One stellar result of Bach’s middle-age aria is the grand work known as the Christmas Oratorio. It was first performed in Leipzig on Christmas Day of 1734. But this morning we get to hear only a tiny sliver—a single, solitary aria—from that monumental composition. The text is printed on the back of your bulletin, and you’ll want to keep that handy.

In this little aria heaven comes to earth. Royalty and deity draw near. Ponder the paradox in this aria: A great Lord, a mighty King, a Savior is coming! And not just any King, but the One who upholds and maintains the whole world—who created all its glory and adornment. But this mighty King is also the tiny baby who sleeps on a hard crib—who cries and wears diapers—whose only protection comes from swaddling clothes. As we heard from Hebrews chapter one: He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.

Bach’s aria announces the arrival of this baby-king with regal majesty. The original score features a trumpet part that’s so heavenly that no trumpeter in Milwaukee could be found to play it for us this morning. But the message of the aria is that heaven comes to earth in the baby who is a mighty King.

Heaven had to come to earth. It was the only way. You see, heaven and earth have been out of sync—and out of tune—for a long time now. A deadly dissonance developed between heaven and earth at the time when our first parents disobeyed God in paradise. Ever since then, earth has tended to go its own way, and march to the percussive beat of her own drummer—with very little thought given to the God of heaven.

As sons and daughters of Adam, we’ve each chosen our rebellious pathways too. God’s ways and our ways do not harmonize. Like our first parents, we tend to spend our days fleeing from God to hide our sin, or else pointing the finger of blame at everybody else around us. Our sin has dropped us all on a slippery slope—a descent that will eventually deposit each one of us six feet under.

What you need is a Redeemer who can reverse that downward, deathward slide. You don’t need a god who strokes your ego with applause from heaven every time you do something good. Nor do you need a deadbeat deity who’s so busy upholding the universe that you’re just an insignificant, unimportant speck of carbon. No, you need a Savior—One who can reunite heaven and earth—One who can reconcile God and man—One who is like you in every way, except without sin—one who knows what it is to sleep in a hard crib.

The cold, hard wood of the Savior’s crib would one day give way to the cold, hard wood of the cross. No trumpets would sound on that dark afternoon. The tempo would be simply set to the percussive sound of pounding nails. Our great Lord, our mighty King, our dearest Savior’s only crown would be of thorns. His throne a cross. And this is why heaven comes to earth—this is why Christ is born of Mary: to bear our sins and be our Savior. This is God’s greatest glory. This is what secures peace on earth, goodwill to men—as angels once declared to shepherds.

The angels aren’t just the supporting cast at Christmas. The angels—they also give us an aria. When we hear those angels singing, that music tells us that, in Jesus, God is restoring harmony between earth and heaven. The author of Hebrews makes a big point in this morning’s reading that Jesus is higher than the angels. But the enduring result of Christmas is that you are higher than the angels too. At Christmas God lowers Himself to raise you up. Christmas is both God-made-small and man-made-big. Jesus becomes what you are—a woman’s child—that He might make you what He is—a child of God. The Son of God becomes no less when He takes on our human flesh; but we—we become infinitely more in Him. Christmas is one small step for God, but one giant leap for mankind. Jesus comes down low to lift us on high with Him—to give us resurrection life that we might live forever as heaven’s most honored guests. Sinful sons and daughters of Adam are now superior to the angels.

I know, I know. That’s profound. It’s deep. It’s a lot to wrap your head around on this Christmas morning. Perhaps we should simply pause. Perhaps we should ponder along with Mary. What we need, I think, is an aria—an aria from the “Fifth Evangelist” to help it all sink in. Pause, ponder, reflect, celebrate: The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

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

Another Shore, A Greater Light

In Nomine Iesu
Luke 2:1-20
December 24, 2018
Christmas Eve

Dear Saints of Our Savior,

It’s Christmas Eve and you are exactly where you should be. You’ve aligned yourselves with the shepherds. Like them, you have heard the message of the angels. And with haste you have come here to Bethlehem to see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord has made

known to us. You are exactly where you should be.

Many of you are aware that on this Christmas Eve 2018 there are two significant anniversaries. Two hundred years ago tonight in a little village near Salzburg, Austria, a new Christmas hymn was sung for the very first time: Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht. A broken pipe organ led Father Joseph Mohr and organist Franz Gruber to quickly collaborate on the lullaby hymn we know as Silent Night. It’s so simple, so profound, and so comforting. In a few minutes our choir will sing a stanza auf Deutsch—with a guitar accompaniment—just like it was done for the first time two hundred years ago tonight.

One hundred years ago marked a different kind of Christmas anniversary. Most of you know that World War One ended in 1918. On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month the “Great War,” as it was called, ended. But it was “great” only in the sense of the staggering death toll. Seventeen million men died in the most horrific ways imaginable. Across the Christian world, almost an entire generation of young men had disappeared from the face of the earth. And as the Christian world gathered to celebrate the birth of Christ one hundred years ago tonight, in every town and village, in every home and family, and around every Christmas table and Christmas tree, there was an empty place. A brother, a son, a husband was gone. The collective pain that must have been felt by so many families one hundred years ago tonight—it’s almost too much to fathom.

But something else happened on Christmas Eve 1918. In Cambridge, England, at the King’s College Chapel, a so-called “Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols” was held for the very first time. Eric Milner-White, the newly appointed dean of King’s College, had also served as an army chaplain in the Great War. He knew what a significant moment Christmas Eve would be that year. He knew how people were hurting. He knew the pain they carried.

Our Lessons and Carols service tonight mirrors that first service a century ago. I doubt that there was a dry eye in the chapel one hundred years ago tonight when these words were prayed: Lastly let us remember before God all those who rejoice with us, but upon another shore and in a greater light, that multitude which no man can number, whose hope was in the Word made flesh, and with whom, in this Lord Jesus, we forevermore are one.

So far this sermon has centered on death and warfare. It’s probably not what you were expecting on Christmas Eve. After all, the Nativity account we heard from Luke chapter two is so placid and peaceful: Quaking shepherds, wooly sheep, mother and child, love’s pure light. But it’s this contrast that makes Christmas so profound and meaningful. It’s why we can talk about death and warfare in one sentence, and in the next sentence hear Peace on earth, goodwill to men. This Christmas contrast is what helps us to see in the darkness of this night the dawn of redeeming grace. A fitting title for this this sermon might have been, “War and Peace.” That highlights the contrast of Christmas, but I think someone else has already used that title.

War and Peace is the story of our lives. Not many of us have served in the armed forces. But that doesn’t mean that we aren’t veterans of combat. Christmas Eve is the time to remember that none of us are pure and innocent victims. Our first parents were the first ones to engage in combat, and the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. We are tactical wizards when it comes to warfare. We’ve weaponized our words to inflict mass casualties and maximum pain. We’ve detonated bombs of rage and anger. We’ve dug down deep into our trenches, stubbornly refusing to repent of our sins and be reconciled with our enemies. We’ve poisoned the air with our passive-aggressive mind games and our daily attempts to make everybody else surrender to our tyranny. This is our sin. It runs death deep. And there isn’t an army on earth that can save you from the horror and hell that you have orchestrated for yourself.

But on this Christmas Eve, in the year of our Lord 2018, you can go home tonight, and climb into your bed and you—you can sleep in heavenly peace. For an army of One has saved you from your sins. Jesus was born to do battle for you. This holy infant, so tender and mild, He grew up with one strategic goal—to save you from the power of sin and death. And so, He led a perfect life in your place. From His mother’s womb to His borrowed tomb, Jesus lived a sinless life. Where the first Adam faltered, fled, and surrendered, this Second Adam took the fight directly to the enemy. He did not quit. He did not waver. He did not surrender. Jesus carried His cross right into that no-man’s land called Golgotha—the place of the skull. Into no-man’s land staggered the God-man—wearing a barbed-wired crown of thorns, bearing your sin and its wages. Our Lord Jesus surrendered His life for yours. Greater love has no man than this, that He lay down His life for His friends (John 15:13).

Friends of Jesus—that’s what you are. For you He lived. For you He died. For you He rose again and shares with you His resurrection victory. Death is defeated. Your sin is atoned for. You are loved by the Lord Jesus. To look to Him in faith is to see love’s pure light. He is your Lord—your Brother—who will never die again. And one day before long, certainly before another century of Christmases come and go, He will lead you onward to that place of rejoicing, where every day is Armistice Day—upon another shore and in a greater light.

It’s Christmas Eve. And you are exactly where you should be. All is calm. All is bright. And right here where two or three are gathered together, the Lord comes among us. In the preaching of His promises, in the splash of our baptism, and in the Holy Supper of His body and blood, He comes. He comes to wipe away your tears, to forgive you, to breathe into your sad life the thrill of hope. He is Emmanuel—God with us. Pleased as man with man to dwell.

It’s Christmas Eve. And you are exactly where you should be. And if this Christmas there is an empty place at your home and in your heart, fear not. For behold I bring you good tidings of great joy. Those who depart this life in Christ—they are with Christ. They are with that multitude which no one can number, whose hope was in the Word made flesh. They are exactly where they should be. They are there . . . and we are here. But in the Lord Jesus, we forevermore are one.

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