Oh, Come, All Ye Faithful

Yea, Lord, we greet thee, 
born this happy morning;
Jesus, to thee be all glory given,
Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing.
Oh, come, let us adore him, Christ the Lord.

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God," says St. John in the prologue to his gospel (1:1). And what a mighty Word he is! Words communicate important information. In person Jesus came to reveal the true God to mankind: a God who is kind, wise, omnipotent, and who loves people.

When Satan outs himself, when he and his demons take possession of a human being, they abuse and destroy. Jesus' humble presence in his little manger is a foretaste of his humility on the cross, the mighty work through which God's wrath was diverted from us onto himself, and through which God's favor was diverted from him onto us. By faith, all ye faithful, ye can experience this amazing swap--you give Christ all your sins and he gives you the Father's forgiveness.


What can we say in response to this but glory be to God in the highest! What can we do but worship him. Oh, come, let us adore him, Christ, the Lord!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Max Lucado - False Doctrine

I love the way author Max Lucado writes. He is a great storyteller and a fantastic wordsmith. I have a number of Lucado's books on my shelves and receive his daily paragraph devotions. However, as popular as he is, as many books as he has sold, as many lives as he has touched with the Gospel, he still proclaims false doctrine. I still remember being told at the Seminary that you can generally tell a pastor's theology based on the kind of books he has on his shelves. Though our WELS pastors may have a few books by Lucado, Covey or even some fiction by Peretti, they had better have the majority of their books be sound, Lutheran, biblical doctrine. Martin Luther, The People's Bible commentaries, The Book of Concord, People's Bible Teachings, C.F.W. Walther, Francis Pieper, Werner Franzmann, etc. I mention this because of the devotion I received via email from Max Lucado on Friday, June 12 entitled "Saved by Faith." In the devotion he calls communion and bapti
Read more

Jesus has prepared a place for you - A funeral sermon for Jim Hermann

Image
John 14:1-4 “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me.  2  My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? 3  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.  4  You know the way to the place where I am going.” “In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.” Did you catch the difference between what I read just now and what I read in the Gospel lesson? The Gospel lesson was from the NIV. The second verse I read was from the King James Version. If you’re older than 50, that’s the version of the Bible that you heard in church and learned in catechism class. But, even if you’re older younger than 50, you know about the mansions. “The mansions of heaven” is a term Christians use pretty often. Preachers say it, poets write it, people
Read more

Water into blood and water into wine

Image
Here are some thoughts that didn’t make it into Sunday’s sermon. The Old Testament lesson for the 2nd Sunday after Epiphany is the account of Moses turning the water of the Nile River into blood. The first of the ten plagues God used to get the Israelites out of Egypt. Exodus 7:14-24 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Pharaoh's heart is unyielding; he refuses to let the people go. 15 Go to Pharaoh in the morning as he goes out to the water. Wait on the bank of the Nile to meet him, and take in your hand the staff that was changed into a snake. 16 Then say to him, 'The LORD, the God of the Hebrews, has sent me to say to you: Let my people go, so that they may worship me in the desert. But until now you have not listened. 17 This is what the LORD says: By this you will know that I am the LORD: With the staff that is in my hand I will strike the water of the Nile, and it will be changed into blood. 18 The fish in the Nile will die, and the river will stink; the Egyptians will not
Read more