Light, Life, Love

 Jesu Juva

St. John 1:14                                                             

December 25, 2022

Christmas Day                                                    

 Dear saints of our Savior~

          The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.  That one sentence captures the heart and essence of Christmas.  We’re accustomed to viewing Christmas the way you might view a beautifully wrapped present—shiny and colorful with a big bow on top.  The gift-wrapping we’re most familiar with is provided by St. Luke:  angels and shepherds, the stable and the manger, and a little later, the star and the Wisemen.  But that’s just the view from the outside.  That’s only the outer giftwrap.  We could actually lose the angels and the shepherds—we could actually set aside the manger and the star—and we could still have Christmas.  We could still have what’s inside the package—the heart of Christmas—the miracle and the mystery of it all:  The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

          The Word who was with God.  The Word who was God.  The Word by whom all things were made.  The Word that upholds the universe.  The Word who was, and is, and is to come.  That Word, in the fullness of time, was conceived in the womb of a virgin and was born to dwell among us.

          When you grasp this, you have begun to grasp the breath-taking thrill of Christmas.  The eternal Word has entered time.  The all-powerful God has decided to dwell among us as a tiny, helpless newborn swaddled against the cold of night, and nestled at His mother’s breast.

          That Newborn and His blessed mother are pictured on the cover of today’s bulletin.  You may want to take another look at that.  It was drawn eighty years

ago this Christmas by a German man named Kurt Reuber.  Although I saw it in a Berlin church last summer, this simple sketch first saw the light of day in a dark and unlikely place—a place far removed from all the comforts and beauty of Christmas. 

          Kurt Reuber studied theology and became a Lutheran pastor in 1933—the same year the Nazis came to power.  In his sermons he frequently spoke out against the Nazi party and was hauled in for questioning on several occasions.  During this time Pastor Reuber was led to take up the study of medicine.  He actually became a medical doctor—a surgeon no less—just as World War Two broke out in the late 1930s.  Despite his past criticism of the Nazis, they commissioned him as an army field surgeon; and he eventually ended up serving on the Russian front, at Stalingrad, as the deadly winter of 1942 descended.

          Eighty years ago today, Reuber and thousands of other soldiers were trapped—under siege—in the Russian city of Stalingrad.  Battered by relentless gunfire and shelling, with no food or medical supplies, there was almost nothing Kurt Reuber could do for his men other than watch helplessly as they bled to death, starved to death, and froze to death.

          He then decided to provide his brothers-in-arms with the only comfort he could.  He had no paper; but using the backside of a discarded Russian map, with only a charcoal pencil, He drew what we see today—Mary embracing the baby Jesus.  He drew it while clinging to life in a hole in the ground, under fire, and in weather just like we’ve had here for the past few days.  Surrounded by darkness, death, and hatred, Reuber framed his drawing with words from St. John’s gospel:  Licht, Leben, Liebe—light, life, love.  Reuber believed those words we heard about Jesus a few moments ago: In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. 

          The drawing was hung on the wall of an underground bunker; and many soldiers facing near-certain death came to view it and be comforted that bleak Christmas.  It reminded those men—drifting toward death—that the Christ of Christmas—the Word become flesh—dwells among us still, no matter how far from home we’ve drifted—that the Savior who received shelter and love from His human mother—He now provides us with shelter and love that reach into eternity.  Reuber’s drawing survived; but Kurt Reuber himself did not live to return home. 

          In his drawing, Reuber gave to dying men the simplicity and the mystery of Christmas: The Word became flesh.  God Himself comes among us, as one of us, cradled in Mary’s arms.  Jesus comes to bring light, life, and love—for you. 

          This great mystery—this grand gift of Christmas—is all the more astonishing when we rightly consider the human recipients of this gift.  Who are we?  We are sinful rebels who by nature prefer darkness to light, death over life, and hate over love.  In fact, it’s not much of an exaggeration to say that, on many days, our conduct better reflects life on the Russian front in 1942 than the light and life of Christmas.

          On nearly every day of the year, we each wage our personal wars with impunity.  In our constant quest to be god in the place of God, we become tactical wizards of warfare.  We weaponize our words to inflict mass casualties and maximum pain.  We detonate bombs of rage and anger.  We dig down deep into our trenches, refusing to repent of our sins or to be reconciled with our enemies.  We’ve poisoned the air with our passive-aggressive mind games.  We’ve laid siege against our enemies, denying them the forgiveness and love we owe them.  Our daily goal is to achieve unconditional surrender from all those around us.  In these ways of war we are all battle-hardened veterans.  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.

          No, your rescue comes from an army of One—the babe of Bethlehem—the Word made flesh, who brings light and life and love—and brings it all for you.  We have seen His glory, but not on the battlefield.  We have seen His glory, but not in the manger.  We have seen His glory on the cross.  That’s why He came—to do battle for you.  To be your ally, your brother, your friend, your substitute beneath God’s righteous wrath.  

          The Word became flesh because that’s what we are—we are flesh.  We’re human beings, created by God.  Christmas reminds us that God became human—that He became just like us in every way, but without sin.  Jesus shows us that being human is not an excuse to wage war against those we don’t like.  But rather, to be human is to be loved by God, and sought by God, and saved by God.

          The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.  Jesus came not to judge us but to save us; not to take us captive, but to set us free; not to pile on more rules and regulations for us to follow, but to fulfill the Law of God perfectly as our substitute.  He came to save sinners, of whom each of us is the chief—the foremost—the worst.  He came to seek you and save you in your lostness, in your despair, in your sin, in your death—to lay down His life for you.  The Word became flesh to save you. 

          In Jesus you can be the person God intends you to be.  The image of God, lost because of Adam’s sin, is now being restored in you.  Jesus is the Lamb of God’s providing, the substitute sacrifice baptized for us, being obedient for us, living for us, dying for us, rising for us, and taking us along for the ride all the way to resurrection glory. That means already today you can live in His light, in His life, and in His love.  Even in your darkest moments, you are not alone. 

          Jesus has been “mangered” right here for us in Word and Sacrament.  In the water of your baptism, in the bread that is His body and the wine that is His blood.  Luther said it best:  “Word and Sacrament are the manger and swaddling clothes into which it has pleased Christ to lay Himself.”  Here you seek the Christ; and here the Christ finds you and embraces you with His love.  Here the Word made flesh encounters our flesh, and in that encounter our sins are forgiven, and we are changed, and faith is strengthened. 

          The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.  This is the enduring comfort of Christmas.  Long after the gifts are unwrapped, the decorations are packed away, and joy gives way to a new week of work—God is with us in Jesus—bringing light, life, and love. 

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

The Word Became Flesh

 Jesu Juva

St. John 1:14                                                          

December 24, 2022

Christmas Eve                                        

Dear saints of our Savior~

          Were you one of those people dreaming of a white Christmas?  If so, I hope you’re happy.  That white stuff on the ground outside actually leads to

my next question: Do you know what’s the most popular Christmas song of all time?  It has nothing to do with Jesus.  The song is “White Christmas,” written by Irving Berlin.  It was released exactly eighty years ago this Christmas, in 1942, during the Second World War.  The song was recorded by Bing Crosby and became an instant hit with the troops overseas.  It made homesick men and boys long for a place where “tree tops glisten and children listen to hear sleigh bells in the snow.”

          Irving Berlin intentionally set out to write a Christmas song that had nothing to do with Christ.  Apparently, Berlin didn’t care for Christmas at all.  For starters, he was Jewish.  But there’s much more to this story.  His life was filled with tragedy.  His first wife died of typhoid only five months after they were married.  His second wife was a Roman Catholic.  Their mixed marriage was a public scandal in those days, reported in all the newspapers.  The first child of this union, Irving Jr., died—died on Christmas Day of what we today call Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.  The Berlins went on to have three girls, for whose sake they put up a tree and exchanged presents each year.  But after the girls were grown and moved out, Irving Berlin never celebrated Christmas again.  It was his famous song—White Christmas—that introduced the concept of Christmas without Christ into the popular culture.

          When Jesus Christ isn’t part of Christmas, there really isn’t much left to celebrate.  When you leave out the baby boy who is God in the flesh, what do you have left?  You might as well say, “Happy holidays.”  You might as well call these days the “Winter Solstice” or the “sparkle season,” or whatever you want.  Because without Christ, there is no Christmas. 

          When it comes to the so-called “war on Christmas,” we may have won it (in a sense), or we’ve at least settled in for a cease fire.  I don’t get upset when store clerks wish me Happy Holidays, or when schools let out for “winter break,” or when the capitol “holiday tree” gets lit.  It’s as if the culture has just given Christmas—the real Christmas—back to us—left it on the front steps of the church with a note that says, “Thanks, but no thanks.  We don’t want this anymore.  You Christians can have your Christmas, and we’ll just be content with our shopping and gluttony and nostalgia.”  The culture has given Christmas back to the church—where we don’t have to trivialize it or water it down. 

          Among us, Christmas can once again be a holy day instead of some generic yearend festival to boost the national economy.  The ball is in our court, so to speak.  So what are we going to do with it?  What do you have when you take away the shopping sprees, the piles of presents, the decorations, the expectations, office parties, eating, baking, boozing, and decorating?  What’s left after eggnog, mistletoe and dreaming of a White Christmas?

          We have one little sentence from St. John:  “The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us.”  That’s why.  That’s why angels sang and shepherds left their flocks in the fields and ran to Bethlehem to worship a baby in a manger.  The Word became flesh.  God became man.  That’s what Mary pondered in her heart.  That’s why Christians from the Third Century on made this night a holy night.  They celebrated the glorious fact that on a magnificent night in Bethlehem, when the fullness of time had come, God delivered on His promise to save the world through His Son.

          The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.  It’s nearly impossible to wrap your brain around that statement.  It means that we can never look at God—or humanity—in the same way again.  God became a man in Christ.  The Creator became a creature.  The infinite God dwells in finite flesh and blood.  This is why Christianity is different—distinct from every other religion.  All other religions have human beings reaching up to God.  Some religions even have humans becoming gods.  But the Christmas gospel declares the opposite:  God became man.  The Word became flesh, and in the flesh He dwells among us full of grace and truth.

          The good news of Christmas is so much better than “rejoice and be merry.”  It goes much deeper than all the sentimentality and nostalgia.  The good news of Christmas is what the angel declared to frightened shepherds:  To you is born this day in the city of David a Savior who is Christ the Lord.  Jesus Christ comes to save us from our sin—to redeem us, not with gold or silver, but with His holy, precious blood and His innocent suffering and death.

          We celebrate our Savior’s birth on December 25^th.  So let’s take that for all it’s worth.  Instead of saying “happy holidays” or even “merry Christmas,” here’s something different.  Try this on for size:  “Christ is born for you.”  You’ve got twelve more days to give that a try.  You can say that to any and all—believer and unbeliever—Jew or gentile.  You can say that because that’s what the angel said.  The Lord’s messenger didn’t say “merry Christmas;” and no one is saved simply because they celebrate Christmas.  “Christ is born for you” is what the angel said.  Unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. 

          It is the best of news—pure gospel.  Christ is your life, your light, your salvation.  If Irving Berlin had believed that, he wouldn’t have had to settle for a shallow, meaningless, white Christmas; his Christmases could have been blessed and joyful.  He could have trusted that his little son was safe—safe in the arms of God’s Son, born for him.  (And this is no less true for those whom you have known and loved—those who have departed this life with faith in Christ:  They are safe—safe and secure in the arms of God’s Son, the Word made flesh, who was born for them.) 

          The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, full of grace and truth.  Jesus is full of grace—undeserved, unearned kindness for sinners.  So don’t be afraid to come to Him.  Don’t think you’re not good enough to stand before Him.  And don’t think you can bargain or earn your way into His good graces.  He comes to you as you are, to save you from your sins. 

          Jesus is also full of truth.  He is the truth.  He knows the truth.  He knows the truth of your sin—knows it far more keenly than do you.  He knows your faithlessness and your idolatry.  He knows that even as we celebrate His birth tonight, we live many days as if His birth had never happened—as if He were not dwelling among us—as if His commandments and His promises applied to other people, but not to us.  The truth of our sin is hard for us to admit.  But it was even harder for Jesus to shoulder that sin.  That’s the truth of why the Word became flesh—to shoulder your sin as your sacred substitute—to die your death and give you eternal life through His resurrection.

          Jesus is full of grace and truth.  And where meek souls will receive Him still, The dear Christ enters in.  In the water and the Word of your baptism, the dear Christ has already entered your life, and He will never leave you or forsake you.  To those who receive Him in faith—to those who believe on His Name and trust in His work of salvation, He gives us the right to be called “children of God.”  That is what you are.  He comes to us and abides with us in His Word and in His body and blood.  In Jesus alone is the thrill of hope for a world of weary sinners.

          The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us.  That is the essence of Christmas—the Christmas you have when you have Christ.  Christ is born for you!  O come, let us adore Him.  Amen.

See, the Gentle Lamb Appears

 

Jesu Juva

St. John 1:29-42a                                                          

December 21, 2022

Midweek Advent 4                             

Dear saints of our Savior~

          It’s a good thing Advent is a season of four weeks—because it takes our family that long just to find all the Christmas decorations.  On Sunday, the last of the nativity sets went up (although the little set from Guatemala is still MIA). 

Something seems to go missing among the decorations every year.  Like that single sock in the dryer, it’s a mystery where these decorations disappear to.  In the off-season, all the decorations are stored in the basement—in an assortment of cardboard boxes and plastic bins.  Not every container is labeled, however, and that can present a problem.  And some of the labels aren’t all that helpful—labels like “Lights 2016” or “Christmas, etc.”  Labels like those aren’t gonna help you find that little Nativity from Guatemala.

          I suppose we could all learn a little something about labeling from St. John the Baptist.  His minimalist lifestyle left him with little need for labeling things.  His pantry had one shelf for locusts and one shelf for honey.  Clutter in his closet was no problem—one hook for leather and another for camel’s hair.  That Spartan simplicity freed John from the need to label anything—excepting, of course, his life’s work—to point his index finger at the ordinary-looking man from Nazareth, and cry out with prophetic precision:  Behold!  Look!  He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!

          THAT is John the Baptist at his best.  That’s his finest work—labeling the Lamb of God.  He may have baptized thousands.  He may have preached the Law with alacrity.  He may have faced down the Pharisees with ferocity.  But there is no nobler work on earth than to point people to God’s Lamb.  There he is!  That’s Him!  He’s the One for you! 

          Jesus of Nazareth was Lord and God; but you wouldn’t have known that just by looking at Him.  This Lord needed a label.  Right from the get-go—even in His Nativity—He needed to be labeled.  Before the shepherds could make their beeline for Bethlehem, they had to be told what to look for—not a newborn in a diamond encrusted crib—but a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.  That’s the one you want.  He’s the long-awaited Savior.  See, the gentle Lamb appears. 

          And for three decades nothing much changed.  When Jesus made His way to John at the Jordan River, John couldn’t point people to the superhero with the halo hovering above His head—or to the guy with the glowing, God-like physique.  No, there was nothing in Jesus’ appearance that would ever lead anyone to conclude that this man is the Messiah.  Even John didn’t know Him or recognize Him at first.  It first had to be revealed to John by the Holy Spirit.  Then—and only then—could John point his finger and label God’s Lamb.

          But what John did was much more than pin a nametag on the man from Nazareth.  John said:  Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!  He labeled Jesus as the Lamb—the Lamb of God.  Now when you hear that, you have to let go of all your notions about little lambs frolicking in a dewy meadow, or cute, cuddly lambs at the petting zoo.  For nearly every lamb in the land of Israel would one day be led to the slaughter.  Lambs were for sacrificing and eating.  The life of the lamb in exchange for your life.  That’s how it worked—a bloody business!—going back as far as the first Passover.

          But this Lamb—Jesus—He wouldn’t just bear away the sins of Israel.  He wouldn’t just redeem the chosen few.  John makes it clear that this Lamb’s mission has cosmic significance.  He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. The sacrifice of God’s Lamb is to deal with the sin of the world—all of it—including your sin and my sin.  Who would have guessed this?  Who would have figured this out on their own?  That the likes of you and me are actually loved by God’s Lamb?  We have to be told.  It has to be revealed to us—preached to us.  John must label Jesus.  He must provide the subtitles for what would otherwise be completely foreign to us.

          We desperately we need this Lamb of God, labeled by John.  It’s critical that we hear John’s voice and follow his finger and believe that this Lamb loves us and bears our sin away.  We have need of this Lamb.  This Lamb is the sole solution for our sin and its wages.  If you say you have no sin, you are mislabeled—you’re deceiving yourself and the truth is not in you. Ever since that day when God’s perfect world was ruined, and all creation was cursed, we have languished under the label the Lord assigned to us.  It’s a label you cannot refuse—a label you cannot long avoid.  In fact, you’ve earned this label for yourself.  What is this label?  You are dust, and to dust you shall return.  All we are is dust in the wind.  The dust of death—the sting of sin—awaits us all.

          But there’s a Lamb on the loose in these parts—God’s Lamb—who still today takes away the sin of the world.  This Lamb, Jesus, was led to the slaughter for your salvation—a bloody business carried out at Calvary.  And this Lamb was raised to life on the third day.  Long live the Lamb!  Because He lives, your destiny is not dust and decay, but the resurrection of the body and the life + everlasting.

          God’s Lamb is a living Lamb!  He will never die again!  And this Lamb of God comes among us.  Through time and space, by the power of God’s Word, this Lamb locates Himself in bread and wine—to feed us with the fruits of His sacred sacrifice—to feed us with His very life and forgiveness. 

          The body and blood of Jesus right here?!  For us Christians to eat and drink for the forgiveness of sins?!  Who would have guessed this?  Who would have figured this out on their own?  Who would look at that wafer and wine and say, “Here’s Jesus, the Lamb of God, given for me?”

          We need someone to label it for us.  We need someone to say, There He is!  That’s Him!  He’s the One for you!  And who, pray tell, is the best man among men for that job?  John the Baptist still prepares the way for Jesus every Sunday.  John the Baptist’s best work lives on in the liturgy.  John labels the Savior’s presence in the sacrament every Lord’s Day (in the Agnus Dei).  Every Sunday we sing his words.  And in so doing, we make his words our own:  O—Christ, Thou Lamb of God, that takest away the sin of the world, have mercy upon us.  John’s words become your prayer—your confession—as you prepare to receive Jesus in His body and blood.  You sing John’s words directly to Jesus, just as if Jesus were right here, present with us . . . precisely because He is present with us.  In the bread that is His body—in the wine that is His blood—He comes.  He comes to take away your sin.  He comes to supply you with the riches of His mercy.  He comes to grant you peace.

          Christmas comes in four short days.  Learn this lesson to celebrate Christmas aright.  Learn to label the Lamb with John.  For the Lamb in the manger . . . is the Lamb on the cross . . . is the Lamb on the altar.  Worthy is the Lamb!  Behold!  Look!  See, the gentle Lamb appears, promised from eternal years.

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

Faithful Joseph

 

Jesu Juva

St. Matthew 1:18-25                                                     

December 18, 2022

Advent 4A                                                         

 Dear saints of our Savior~

          There he is—poor Joseph.  Every other character in the Nativity of our Lord seems to shine brighter than poor Joseph.  Mary gets called “blessed” by all

generations.  The holy angels sound spectacular.  Even those stinky shepherds get a speaking part.  But poor Joseph is just “there.”  The Joseph on the cover of the bulletin today seems either to be deep in thought or possibly suffering with a migraine.  The Joseph figure from under the Christmas tree is so unsteady that it takes a piece of cardboard beneath his feet to prop him up and keep him from falling flat on his face.  Poor Joseph.

          The real life Joseph to whom Saint Matthew introduces us today did, in fact, start out a little bit wobbly, shaky and unsteady.  But who can blame him?  Joseph and Mary were pledged to be married.  That meant that after a time of courtship, a formal marriage contract had been signed before witnesses.  We might say they were engaged; but their engagement was tantamount to marriage among the Jews of that time.  They were as good as married, except for the physical consummation of their marriage.  This marriage was a done deal.  In fact, it would take a divorce to put asunder what God had already joined together.

          A divorce is exactly what Joseph had in mind—not a full-blown, public, tabloid-style divorce, but a quiet, quick, face-saving separation that would allow Joseph to walk away from this marriage.  In fairness to Joseph, we should point out that his bride-to-be was great with child.  Pious Joseph could conceive of only one explanation for that conception:  Mary had been unfaithful.  Joseph was a practical man, a carpenter who worked with his hands.  He knew full well how pregnancies came about, and he knew that it wasn’t “by the Holy Spirit.”  To proceed with a lifelong commitment to this pregnant bride would make Joseph the talk of the town of Nazareth—the man about whom all the wagging tongues would be whispering.  He would be teased, taunted, and gossiped about.

          Joseph just didn’t have the stomach for all that.  Would you?  Joseph must have agonized over this long and hard, but in the end he chose to take the easy way out of a difficult situation.  He was fearful instead of faithful.  He opted for selfishness over sacrifice.  He would divorce Mary and divorce himself from the whole distasteful drama.  Some see Joseph’s plans as the honorable, decent thing to do.  But consider for a moment what this “decent, honorable” divorce would have led to:  Mary would have been left abandoned and alone, to give birth to a child in a culture where the survival of mothers and children depended almost entirely upon husbands and fathers.

          Now, we shouldn’t be too hard on Joseph—especially since we’re an awful lot like him.  How often have we chosen to push our own personal “easy button,” instead of doing the difficult task laid out before us?  How often have we been fearful instead of faithful—imagining and expecting the worst in every situation?  How regularly do we choose selfishness over sacrifice—always expending as little effort as we can possibly get away with?  How quickly have we divorced ourselves from everyone and every situation that we find difficult or distasteful?  How often have we chosen to do what’s quick and convenient instead of doing what’s right and honorable and God-pleasing?

          In our marriages and in our families, in our jobs and careers, in the classroom and right here in the church of Jesus Christ—we have all readily retreated from the responsibilities of our God-given vocations.  We are all derelict in our God-given duties.  Looking back at the past twelve months it’s terribly clear how much we love ourselves and how little we love those whom God has given us to love?  On our best days we are wobbly and unsteady like Joseph.  On our worst days we are unrecognizable as children of God.  And every day we are desperately in need of a Savior from our sins.

          And this brings us back to Joseph, with whom we have so much in common.  And as you well know, the story of Joseph does, in fact, have a very happy—very joyful—ending.  In the end, Joseph did the difficult thing.  In the end, wobbly, unsteady Joseph became faithful and fearless.  He became unafraid to plunge headfirst into the miraculous messiness of his marriage to Mary—a match made in heaven, to be sure. 

          But what about our messy, complicated lives?  What about the sticky-wickets that threaten to derail us into shame and sin?  Will our stories—like Joseph’s—also have happy endings?  How will we ever be faithful and fearless—when doing that will be difficult and distasteful?

          Let’s begin by listening—listening like Joseph listened.  Listen to the Word of God.  This is what Joseph did.  For Joseph, those words were delivered by an angel—a messenger.  But make no mistake, the words were God’s words:  Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.  She will give birth to a son, and you—yes, YOU, Joseph—will have the high and holy privilege of giving Him the name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.

          Those words of God changed everything for Joseph.  God’s Word penetrated Joseph’s selfish slumber.  His Grinch-like heart grew three sizes that night.  His scrooge-like attitude toward Mary and her baby melted away.  As he went to bed that night he was pondering how he might evade and waffle and schwaffle his way out of doing a difficult thing.  But the Word of God changed everything; and Joseph woke up with the strength and the stomach to do the difficult thing—to take the next step—to love Mary with his whole heart and then to be the first man among men to name Mary’s Son and to claim Mary’s Son as His Savior from sin and death.

          Beloved in the Lord, on this fourth Sunday in Advent in the year of our Lord 2022, the Word of God changes everything for you too.  God’s Word brought grace to an unworthy, undeserving Joseph.  Today God’s grace in Jesus comes to you as well—grace that covers a multitude of sins.  The name that matters most today is not Joseph, but Jesus.  That name really tells the whole story today—for you, for me, for all the people of God, for Christmases past, present and future.  The name “Jesus” says it all.  The name “Jesus” means “The Lord saves.”

          You have been saved by Jesus who took your place as your sacred substitute, starting in the womb of His virgin mother.  Jesus dared to do what was difficult, distasteful, and impossible.  Jesus chose sacrifice over selfishness.  Jesus chose nails and thorns.  Jesus did not fear to take as His holy bride sinners like us—unfaithful and adulterous to the core.  In the cleansing splash of your baptism Jesus Himself has named you and claimed you as His own.  And the price for this naming and claiming was His crucifixion cross where wagging tongues taunted and mocked this most gracious bridegroom.

          Why did He do it?  Why did Jesus do this most difficult thing?  To save His people from their sins.  So that sinners like you and me and Joseph and Mary can find our help in the name of the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.  His name is Jesus—the name declared by Joseph when Jesus was circumcised on the 8^th day. 

          Matthew specifies that it was Joseph who named the baby Jesus.  But isn’t it interesting that there’s not one recorded word of Joseph in the entire New Testament.  There’s not a single syllable spoken by the carpenter from Nazareth that the Holy Spirit saw fit to preserve for us.  There’s no song of Joseph, such as Mary’s Magnificat or Simeon’s Nunc Dimittis.  No, Joseph was apparently the strong, silent type.  And let there be no doubt that Joseph’s actions speak far louder than any words he might have uttered.  Joseph’s faith was shown in quiet actions of generosity and gentleness.  Later on, when Herod threatened to kill the boy Jesus, Joseph led his family to safety in Egypt.  He settled his family back in Nazareth once the danger had passed.  And once Jesus hits the age of twelve, we never ever hear of Joseph again.

          God’s Word had its way with Joseph; and God’s Word will have its way with you too.  For in that Word, God is with us.  In the splash of Holy Baptism, in the bread that is His body and in the wine that is His blood.  In these precious means God is with us, bringing forgiveness and faith and courage to do the difficult work of your vocations—so that both your words and your actions can carry the same faithfulness as Joseph’s.  Keep that in mind when you’re feeling wobbly and unsteady—when all your options seem difficult and distasteful.  God is with you . . . to save you.  Pleased as man with man to dwell—Jesus, our Immanuel.  Amen.