revmattil.org

On this twelfth day of Christmas I am still trying to make a fuss over the gift God gave to us in sending His Son to be our Savior.

John 1:14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

A scientist was walking in his garden one day thinking about the great mysteries of the universe, and who or what was in control. He allowed that there must be some sort of higher being, but he could not conceive how a God who created the universe could be known by man. How could little, insignificant man understand God? As he was thinking this, his shadow fell over an ant hill, and all the ants began to scurry to safety. Watching their panic, he suddenly realized the only way he could show them that he meant them no harm was if he were to become an ant himself.

God decided to communicate with man in the same way, by becoming one of us. He wanted us to understand His feelings toward us, He wanted to communicate His love for us, so He did something that shook the universe: He became man without ceasing to be God. We call this the Incarnation. God took on the form of a human being so that He could communicate with us on our own level. Jesus Christ was not just a man who achieved such perfection of character that He reached the Godhood. He was God, who descended to the human level so that He could lift man to the divine level.

God has always loved man, but we went against God’s will: we sinned. Being a just God, He must punish sin. Payment must be made for the wrong done. Out of His love for mankind, God devised a way for payment to be made for sin that would still allow us to be with Him in happiness for eternity: He would make the payment for sin Himself. As a man, He was able to live under the law — As God, he did so perfectly. Since we could not do it, He did it in our place. As a man, he went through everything that we go through, yet He did so without sin. As a man, he suffered the punishment for sins. Since He was God, He was able to take the sins of all men upon Himself. In order to pay for sin, He laid aside His power as God. That was the only way He was able to die in our place.

The price that Jesus paid for our redemption was terrible. When we think of the suffering He endured to purchase our freedom from sin’s penalty, our hearts should overflow with love for Him.

An orphaned boy was living with his grandmother when their house caught fire. The grandmother, trying to get upstairs to rescue the boy, perished in the flames. The boy’s cries for help were finally answered by a man who climbed an iron drain pipe and came back down with the boy hanging tightly to his neck. Several weeks later, a public hearing was held to determine who would receive custody of the child. A farmer, a teacher, and the town’s wealthiest citizen all gave the reasons they felt they should be chosen to give the boy a home. As they talked, the boy’s eyes remained focused on the floor. Then a stranger walked to the front and slowly took his hands from his pockets, revealing severe scars on them. As the crowd gasped, the boy cried out in recognition. This was the man who had saved his life. His hands had been badly burned when he climbed that hot drain pipe. With a leap, the boy threw his arms around the man’s neck and held on for dear life. The others silently walked away, leaving the boy and his rescuer alone. Those burned and scarred hands had settled the issue.

In the world today, there are many different voices calling for our attention. Among them is the one whose nail-pierced hands remind us that he has rescued us from sin and its deadly consequences. It is to Him that we owe our love and devotion.

In the wee hours of this eleventh day of Christmas I was awake and pondering love. I’ve done that a lot over the years. The world has a lot of conflicting ideas about what love is or how to define it. Something I have noticed is that the definitions of love are a lot different the further you get from morality. It is nothing like the love we see displayed in Scripture, whether it is God’s love for us or the love of believers for others.

When you separate love from the truth of God and His Word, there is no telling what you will have. But it won’t be the love of God or the selfless kind of love He wants us to show each other.

1 John 3:16 This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.

The Christmas season is a reminder of the vast love that God has for His creation. Ponder that as you read or sing this hymn.

Love Divine, all love excelling, Joy of heav’n to earth come down,
Fix in us Thy humble dwelling, All Thy faithful mercies crown.
Jesus, Thou art all compassion, Pure, unbounded love Thou art;
Visit us with Thy salvation, Enter ev’ry trembling heart.

Breathe, oh, breathe Thy loving Spirit Into ev’ry troubled breast;
Let us all in Thee inherit, Let us find the promised rest.
Take away the love of sinning; Alpha and Omega be;
End of faith as its beginning, Set our hearts at liberty.

Come, Almighty, to deliver; Let us all Thy life receive.
Suddenly return and never, Nevermore, Thy temples leave.
Thee we would be always blessing, Serve Thee as Thy hosts above,
Pray and praise Thee without ceasing, Glory in Thy perfect love.

Finish, then, Thy new creation; Pure and spotless let us be.
Let us see Thy great salvation Perfectly restored in Thee,
Changed from glory into glory, Till in heav’n we take our place,
Till we cast our crowns before Thee, Lost in wonder, love, and praise.

The Lutheran Hymnal #351

Life is hard. We know that to be true. Some people seem to have more problems than others, but life here on earth is still a challenge for everyone. The problems people face will be vastly different, but they are still problems.

Last month we attended a “couple’s shower” for some young friends expecting their first child. Our hostess had just recently moved into a gorgeous new home she and her husband built in the country. It is a “smart home” in that just about everything in the house can be controlled from her cell phone. That is all well and good until the internet goes down, as it did shortly before the party that day. As I said, it is a very new home. She knew how to control everything with the app, but not without it. She could not figure out how to make her “smart oven” work, which made the food prep more interesting. On top of that, her husband was terribly ill and staying in the barn so he would not be around any of the guests. And they were supposed to leave on a family vacation the next day!

Life can be hard in many different ways. You might think the problems my friend was facing were minor compared to yours or those that other people face. But something I learned a long time ago is that your problems are just that: your problems. They are real and you have to face them, deal with them, and do the best you can with them. They will not be the same as the ones your neighbor faces, but they are real life issues with which you must contend. Don’t belittle the problems others have in their lives.

Advertising agencies are well aware of the truth of the adage “Life is Hard.” A large number of the ads they produce try to convince you that using a certain product or shopping at certain store will make life easier for you. One drug store commercial recently used the catch phrase, “Let’s talk about making things easier.”

God knows this about us, too. He did not intend for our lives to be hard, but they are because we brought sin into this world He created. Our disobedience brings all the problems that result in life being so hard. That is why He came down here to live among us as one of us. By taking on human flesh, He would experience the reality of a hard life. He loved us and lived a life of perfection for everyone, and He was killed on the basis of trumped up charges. He did this in order to make our lives easier now and with the promise of eternity with Him. He paid the debt our sin deserves so that we could be forgiven and restored. Look at some of the things He said and promised.

John 16:33 “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

Matthew 11:28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”

We live our lives in the confidence that God is with us and will care for us!

Hebrews 13:5 God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.”

Romans 8:31–32 “If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?”

As you deal with your hard life today, remember God’s promises. Merry Tenth Day of Christmas!

Yesterday we started the New Year thinking about the name of Jesus. That got me to thinking about how important God’s Name has always been, even before we came to know Him as “Jesus.”

In the Old Testament, God had not yet revealed Himself to man as one of us, as the God-man Jesus. But He had nonetheless told man who He is. He first revealed His name to Moses. You remember the story. God comes to Moses to tell him that he will be the one to lead the Israelites out of their slavery in Egypt. Moses tries to get out of that job, but without much luck. So He says to God, “Pharoah will want to know what your name is, God. What should I tell him?” God’s answer: YAHWEH. That is a Hebrew word that means “I AM.” Tell Pharoah “I AM” sent you. That name of God, YAHWEH, which is sometimes rendered as JEHOVAH in English, is translated in the Old Testament as LORD in all capital letters. That is God’s name in English, the one in this passage from Numbers:

NUMBERS 6:22-27   The LORD said to Moses, “Tell Aaron and his sons, ‘This is how you are to bless the Israelites.  Say to them:  “The LORD bless you and keep you;  the LORD make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you;  the LORD turn his face toward you and give you peace.” ‘  So they will put my name on the Israelites, and I will bless them.

God’s name, the great I AM, is actually placed upon you each time your hear that Benediction. Who He is, what He has done, salvation from His grace, all of this and more is placed upon you in this blessing from God. You are God’s chosen people in Christ, and you are to be identified with who your God is. For that reason, God puts his name on you.

Merry Ninth Day of Christmas!

Today we begin 2024 by the way we reckon time in this country. Happy New Year. I pray you will have a new year blessed by God in which you grow in your faith and relationship with Him.

In the church year calendar, this is Octave, or the eighth day of Christmas. According to God’s instructions given to Abraham (Gen. 17:10 ff.), it was on the eighth day that all male children were to be circumcised. This marked them as God’s chosen people, the ones through whom He would bring the Messiah to the world. And in the time of Jesus, it had become the custom to name a child on the day He was circumcised. We find this to be the case for Jesus and John the Baptist. So this day is observed in our church as “The Circumcision and The Name of Jesus.”

Luke 2:21 On the eighth day, when it was time to circumcise him, he was named Jesus, the name the angel had given him before he had been conceived.

Throughout Advent and Christmas you probably encountered a lot of different names for our Lord: Unto us a child is born! Unto us a Son is given! And the government shall be upon his shoulder. And his name shall be called: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince Of Peace, Son of David, Son of God, Prophet, Priest, and King; Root of Jesse, Key of David, Rock of Ages, Cornerstone, Dayspring dawning from on high, Light of the world, Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End; the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, Bread of Life, Redeemer, Emmanuel, God With Us, A Savior Which Is Christ The Lord.

All of those names are descriptive and revealing. Yet as lengthy a list as that may be, that is not all of the names given our Lord in the Scriptures. The most obvious omission from that list would be the name most familiar to us, that name that sounds so sweet in a believer’s ear: Jesus. That name is the most revealing and the most descriptive, for it tells us exactly who He is. The angel, in telling Joseph to name Him this, put it this way:

You are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins  (Matt. 1:21). 

The name Jesus, or YESHUA in Hebrew, literally means “Savior.” His name tells us exactly who He is and why He came to this earth. He did what we had not done. His life was in total compliance with the laws that we so regularly break. And because He was without sin, because He did everything required by God, He was able to offer His perfect life as the only acceptable sacrifice for sin. He was executed, although He had done no wrong. And through this brutal and horrible act, He saved you from eternal death. He rose again from death to tell you that the saving was finished. By accepting and believing in Him, you are truly saved from your sins and from death.

If you believe this, and remember this in this New Year that begins today, it will truly be a Happy New Year.

O God, our help in ages past, Our hope for years to come,
Our Shelter from the stormy blast, And our eternal Home!

Under the shadow of Thy throne Thy saints have dwelt secure;
Sufficient is Thine arm alone, And our defense is sure.

Before the hills in order stood Or earth received her frame,
From everlasting Thou art God, To endless years the same.

A thousand ages in Thy sight Are like an evening gone,
Short as the watch that ends the night Before the rising sun.

Time, like an ever-rolling stream, Soon bears us all away;
We fly forgotten as a dream Dies at the opening day.

O God, our help in ages past, Our Hope for years to come,
Be Thou our Guard while troubles last And our eternal Home!

(Lutheran Service Book #733)

 The end of a year reminds us, as does this hymn, that:

Time, like an ever-rolling stream, Soon bears us all away;
We fly forgotten as a dream Dies at the opening day.

How many of you know the names of your grandparents? How about your great-grandparents? Unless they were widely known or did something of note, most of them have been forgotten by the world. Even the memorial stones meant to last forever will weather and eventually be erased or crumble away.

Psalm 90, written by Moses, is assigned to this last day of the calendar year. Moses was facing his own death from this world. He recognizes that the problem of sin is his, not God’s. It is our sin that separates us from God, and there is nothing we can do about it. The answer to the problem is God stepping in and taking care of our problem, offering us a remedy.

Psalm 90:1 Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations.

Even though our sins have earned us a front row seat in hell, God has shown mercy in sending Jesus. He faced death for you, stared it in the face at Calvary and destroyed it with His cross. His compassion is unending. Moses prayed in this Psalm:

Psalm 90:14 Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.

That prayer was answered when Jesus burst from the tomb on Easter morning, conquering death for everyone and giving eternal life to those who believe in Him.

Merry Seventh Day of Christmas!

How’s Christmas going for you?

Seems like the question is late, but we are very much still in the Christmas Season until Epiphany, which is January 6. Today, December 30, is the sixth day of Christmas. I like the chance to sing Christmas hymns for one or two Sundays after Christmas Day.  One that is on my mind today is “Let Us All With Gladsome Voice.” The final stanza mentions the New Year, which will begin this coming Monday.

This hymn has a beautiful, simple message of praise to God for the wonderful gift we celebrate receiving at this time of year.

Let us all with gladsome voice Praise the God of heaven,
Who, to bid our hearts rejoice, His own Son hath given.

To this vale of tears He comes, Here to serve in sadness,
That with Him in heaven’s fair homes We may reign in gladness.

We are rich, for He was poor; Is not this a wonder?
Therefore praise God evermore Here on earth and yonder.

Christ, our Lord and Savior dear, Be Thou ever near us.
Grant us now a glad new year. Amen, Jesus, hear us!

(Lutheran Service Book #390)

Matthew 2:13–18 When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up,” he said, “take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.” So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: “Out of Egypt I called my son.” When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled: “A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.”

This fourth day of Christmas is also observed as The Feast of the Holy Innocents. These were the boys born in Bethlehem around the same time as Jesus who were slaughtered by a maniacally jealous King Herod in a fit of rage. He wanted no threat to his throne, so he simply eliminated what he saw as competition.

This episode, as tragic and horrible as it is, does not seem to fit in with the joyous celebration of the birth of our Savior. However, it is a stark reminder of why Jesus came here. The problem of evil was consuming mankind. It is still a problem today. And Jesus was the remedy. He would be the sacrifice to pay for all sin. He would offer redemption to any who would trust in Him. He is our hope, our deliverer, our Savior.

Throughout His life here on earth, Jesus was a voice of reason, calmly addressing the problem of evil in people’s lives. He spoke God’s Word, the truth, in the face of the lies this world continues to spread. And lives were changed. People listened and believed. Not everyone, but many. And that is why we need to continue to calmly speak God’s truth in the face of the lies this world spreads yet today. We can show the world there is an alternative, a better way. It happens when we live in the confidence of knowing we are forgiven children of God.

Innocents continue to be slaughtered in our world. It happens in conflicts like the ones in Israel and the Ukraine. It happens in abortion clinics throughout the world. In the face of such atrocities, we should speak out. We should tell people about our righteous, loving and victorious King who did not come to kill and destroy His enemies. He came so that all could have life and have it to the full. Speak that truth so that more will hear, and the Holy Spirit can do His work in their hearts.

Today is the Feast of St. John, Apostle and Evangelist. This is the disciple John, the one we hear in the group “Peter, James and John.” He is called an Apostle, because it means “one who is sent out.” All the disciples (followers) of Jesus became Apostles when He sent them out to tell the world who He is and what He has done for us through His life and death and resurrection.

He is also called an “Evangelist.” We call the ones who wrote the Gospels “Evangelists,” because it means “Good News.” In the Gospel that bears his name, John refers to himself as “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” That was not to imply that Jesus didn’t love the others, but to affirm that John knew without at doubt that he was loved be Jesus.

John wrote a lot about love, as he did in John 3:16 and throughout the three epistles/letters that bear his name. John also wrote the last book in the Bible, Revelation, which is a vision of the end times. Even in this book that is often confounding, he writes of God’s love for us.

As we remember John today, I share with you the beginning of his first letter. This is also a description of God’s great love for us, even though it does not use that word. It speaks of the arrival of Jesus here on earth as one of us, the event we continue to celebrate this season. It reminds us that it was because of our sin that he came, to give us the remedy we so desperately needed, a remedy that was for the whole world. And it encourages us to live new lives in response to this Good News.

1 John 1:1–2:2 ¹ That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. ² The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. ³ We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. ⁴ We write this to make our joy complete. ⁵ This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. ⁶ If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. ⁷ But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. ⁸ If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. ⁹ If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. ¹⁰ If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives. ¹ My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. ² He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.