Johann Gerhard on Christmass [Christmass Day]

T E X T O N L Y

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Isaiah 52:6-10

• Hebrews 1:1-12

• St. John 1:1-14

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ—Amen
 
Please hearken to the historic proclamation of Christmass Day:
The twenty-fifth day of December.
In the five thousand one hundred and ninety-ninth year of the creation of the world
 
from the time when God in the beginning created the heavens and the earth;
 
the two thousand nine hundred and fifty-seventh year after the flood;
 
the two thousand and fifteenth year from the birth of Abraham;
 
the one thousand five hundred and tenth year from Moses
and the going forth of the people of Israel from Egypt;
 
the one thousand and thirty-second year from David's being anointed king;
 
in the sixty-fifth week according to the prophecy of Daniel;
 
in the one hundred and ninety-fourth Olympiad;
 
the seven hundred and fifty-second year from the foundation of the city of Rome;
 
the forty second year of the reign of Octavian Augustus;
the whole world being at peace,
in the sixth age of the world,
 
Jesus Christ the eternal God and Son of the eternal Father,
desiring to sanctify the world by His most merciful coming,
being conceived by the Holy Spirit,
and nine months having passed since His conception,
was born in Bethlehem of Judea of the Virgin Mary,
being made flesh.
 
The Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ according to the flesh.
 
On this day of our Lord’s Nativity (birth), instead of a sermon prepared by me, I share with you a short devotional writing from one of the many gifted theologians throughout the history of the church. Today’s selection is a snippet from a Christmas sermon by Johann Gerhard. Gerhard is revered as the greatest theologian of the seventeenth century Lutheran Church. In addition to being a Dr. of Theology, he was also a very fine parish pastor. 
 
What you will hear is a portion of one of his Christmas sermons. In this sermon, Gerhard, examines the message of the angel to the shepherds. He preaches a Christmas sermon on the very first Christmas sermon. This snippet is about the angel’s words: “For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior.”
 
The words of Johann Gerhard: 
For you today is born a Savior. All these words press for faith, for only through faith is Christ born in a spiritual manner within our hearts; without this spiritual birth the physical birth of Christ benefits us nothing. If a wild tree is to bear fruit, it has to be grafted into a fruitbearing, life-giving branch, so that it might receive nurture and strength from it; thus the human nature in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ became a Tree of Life. 
 
If we are to receive fruits from Him and be made alive, we must, through faith, be engrafted into Him, just as He comfortingly speaks of this in John 15:14: I am the genuine vine; remain in me, and I in you. Just as a tendril shoot cannot produce fruit of itself, except it remain on the vine; so also not you, unless you remain in Me.
 
Into His assumed human nature, Christ at the same time placed the fullness of divine grace and truth. If it is to benefit us, then we must partake of the self-same fullness; that takes place through faith (John 1:16). The Lord Christ became man in order that we men might become partakers of the divine nature; if that is to occur, then we must believe, as it is once more stated in John 1:12: He did give power to become God's children to such as who believe on His Name.
 
Our birth is unclean and unholy (Psalm 51:7): We were conceived in sin, born in sin. Christ’s birth was pure and holy; if we are to be redeemed from our sinful birth, then we must sink it into Christ’s holy birth. That takes place only by faith.
 
That’s why God has placed all the treasures that Christ brought along with His birth into faith, for through faith we fruitfully partake of the flesh of Christ. Through this same flesh of Christ is Life, and thus we come to the Father through Christ, as He says in John 14:6: No one comes to the Father, except through Me. And, the human nature of Christ thus becomes for us a door to deity, just as faith is a door for us to Christ’s humanity.
 
Accordingly, whoever grasps this word: “This little Child is born for you”, that is, “whoever receives and trusts this birth as if Christ had stepped down from heaven and was born solely on his account”, such a one will also find in Him a Savior and a Christ, just as the angel already here calls this little Child a Savior. If one then is saved from sins, he also is righteous before God; for where there no longer is any sin, at that point there is righteousness. If he is righteous before God, then the law will not be allowed to accuse him, for no law is given to the righteous (1 Tim. 1:9). 
 
If he is redeemed from the accusation of the Law, then he is in grace with God, for where God’s Law does not damn, there God does not fume in anger either. If one is in grace with God, he also has the certain hope of eternal life; for eternal life is nothing other than the eternally enduring grace from God and joy in God…
 
…Just as on that occasion the worthy little Child lying in the manger and wrapped in swaddling clothes was met by the shepherds, so He still has a crib and swaddling clothes in which one should seek Him. The manger is the Christian Church, which feeds us God’s Word; in that very same Word is Christ, in that very same Word alone is salvation.
 
Just as this manger has an outwardly insignificant appearance, so also it fares with the Christian Church and the Christian: In God’s eyes it is glorious, but in the eyes of men it is insignificant and despised. That’s why the Christian Church speaks in the High Song of Solomon 1:5: I am black, but indeed beautiful. She is outwardly black in the eyes of men, for the heat of temptation and trepidation has thus burned [her]; inwardly she is beautiful in the eyes of God.
 
Christ’s swaddling clothes are the Holy Scriptures, which are the paper swaddling clothes in which He has wrapped Himself for the entire Scripture promotes Christ; He is the kernel of Scripture. It is true [that] these little cloths [the pages of Scripture] have an insignificant appearance; it appears as if Christ is not in them. Human reason can also not find Christ in them; but when the divine Light comes to it, by which the eyes of our understanding become enlightened, one can in them joyfully find Christ—just as the shepherds already here found this little Child at Bethlehem in insignificant swaddling clothes.
 
Amen.
The peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus—Amen
  

As a Child [Christmass Eve, Zion's Children's Program]

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READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• St. Luke 2:1-16

 

Mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you.
 
Jesus speaks to us, this Christmass Eve, from His holy Scripture and His many hymns, created by His Church. 
 
According to the Lord we need salvation as only a child can give. That message is so needed today, because we need faithful fathers to teach their households in order to produce faithful children. For having children around is having the Christ-child in our midst. That each time we see a child, faith is reminded of the childhood of our Lord and God.
 
Children are a gift from the Lord because He was one Himself. The world hates children, but the Lord loves them all. In the pregnancy and delivery of St. Mary, the mother of God, we see what St. Paul means in 1 Timothy 2:15 when he says in the Spirit, “Yet she will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.”
 
Not that if you have more kids you will be more saved, but that through the childbearing of St. Mary, woman is saved. Whether she has 0 children or 20, the biological fact that she can have children reminds her that as a child, her God entered this world to suffer and die for her. That when she incubates and nurtures and raises a child, she is imitating that great hero of faith, St. Mary.
 
How did the Lord bring us here? Through six barren mothers: Sarah the mother of Isaac, Rebekah the mother of Jacob, Rachel the mother of Joseph, Samson's mother, Hannah the mother of Samuel, and Elizabeth the mother of John the Baptist. She is sixth in the line of women whose miraculous maternity betokens the seventh and greatest. For the seventh is greatest because she alone is not merely barren, but a virgin, and her Son is not merely man but God. 
 
So the birth of our Lord is foretold in the blessed motherhood of its forerunners. 
And of those forerunners Elizabeth and her son are greatest, for John will be great in the sight of the Lord: greater than Isaac, for not merely his parents, but many will rejoice at his birth; 
greater than Jacob, for not merely the inheritance, but the gift of the Holy Spirit shall fill him; 
greater than Joseph, for having honor not merely above his brothers and parents, but, among those born of women none greater than John was born; 
greater than Samson, though he too shall drink neither wine nor strong drink, yet unlike Samson he shall not be blind, but behold the Lamb of God; 
greater than Samuel, for he shall anoint not David, but the Son of David Himself. 
 
But even John, the sixth type, is not greatest, for seventh is the Lamb of God, who was born twice, once from the Virgin, and again from the tomb: as it were, the eighth barren womb, into which birth and resurrection are all the baptized joined forevermore. (Every day will I bless Thee, p.24)
 
It is the Lord’s doing and it is marvelous in our sight (Ps 118:23). Not just of children, but of everything in life. When we breathe, we can remember the first breath God gave to Adam. When we eat, we can remember the Last Supper of our Lord. When we wash, we can recall the cleansing blood of Christ, poured out generously upon us. Such is the Life of Faith, grounded in Word and Sacrament, instituted by the Christ Child, born to save His people from their sins.
 

St. Joseph, hero [Christmass Eve]

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READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Isaiah 7:10-14

• Romans 1:1-6

• St. Matthew 1:18-21

 

Mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you.

 

Who speaks to us on this eve of His own nativity, saying,

“Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit”

 

Thus far heard from our Gospel reading and God includes St. Joseph in His Word to prove to us His Word that says, “the prayer of the righteous man is strong and effective” from James 5:16. This points us to belief that we are made righteous only by Faith from God, thus we should return to our Righteous Man, Christ, often and make His Church our priority, as St. Joseph did.

 

The heroes of Advent give way to the heroes of Christmass, first of which is our own St. Joseph, who, true to saintly form, appears out of nowhere, does his work, and promptly disappears to nowhere. St. Joseph is brought in as the Guardian of Jesus, that is, that he gives Jesus paternity and security, as a father is supposed. 

 

In the first place, St. Joseph secures St. Mary’s place in the world. Though God could have done it all from her womb, He willed that Joseph perform his godly duties of fatherhood towards Him, just as He did not spurn the virgin’s womb. God accomplishes all His work through men, through means and His birth is no different.

 

However, there seems to be a problem with St. Joseph. Not only is he criticized by unbelievers to be only a foster-father, as if that makes him less and Jesus even lessa, but he is also an excommunicant of his father, David’s throne!

 

Let me explain.

 

After the summary statement that Jesus was the son of David and of Abraham, St. Matthew’s gospel follows Abraham’s line through Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph down through David and the sons who followed him as kings of Israel and then sons who went into captivity, ending with “Jacob, who begot Joseph the husband of Mary.” 

 

As we read through the genealogy, we run into a problem, allegedly. We go through all the “begots,” which simply means that A was the father of B, even though “B” is a strange name for a child…until we get to verse 11, which reads “Josiah begot Jeconiah and his brothers about the time they were carried away to Babylon.”

 

Jeconiah.

Also known as Coniah and Jehoiachin, he was not one of the good kings of Judah.  In fact, “he did evil in the sight of the LORD, according to all his father had done” (2 Kings 24:90). You can read about his father and the great sin he committed in Jeremiah 36. Coniah reigned just three months before Nebuchadnezzar invaded Judah and took him prisoner.

 

Jeremiah gives us more about him, as well as the problem he brings with him to the genealogy in Matthew. In Jeremiah 22:24, God says, “’As I live,’ says the LORD, ‘though Coniah the son of Jehoaikim, king of Judah, were the signet on My right hand, yet would I pluck you off; and I will give you into the hand…of Nebuchadnezzar.’”  

 

In v. 30, Jeremiah wrote, “Thus says the LORD, ‘Write this man down as childless, a man who shall not prosper in his days; For none of his descendants shall prosper, sitting on the throne of David, and ruling anymore in Judah.’” 

 

Here is another verse skeptics misread. They look at the word “childless” and point to 1 Chronicles 3:17 and even Matthew 1:12, where Coniah does indeed have sons and shake their heads:  “Contradictions, contradictions.”  

If they would actually read the text, they would discover that it refers to the throne of David.  Coniah would be “childless” as far as any of his descendants ever sitting on that throne.

None of Coniah’s descendants ever sat on David’s throne.  None of them ever can.  

 

When Nebuchadnezzar deposed Coniah, he put Mattaniah, Coniah’s uncle, on the throne and changed his name to Zedekiah, 2 Kings 24:17.  Coniah went into captivity.  Zedekiah was the last king to sit on David’s throne.  No one has sat there since.

 

So what?

 

Joseph is a descendant of David through Coniah. This, apparently, puts God in a catch-22 and His critics begin foaming at the mouth. See?? Jesus can’t be God or David’s heir because God kicked his fathers off the throne and therefore no Christianity. Checkmate Christians! Happy Holidays.

 

Repent. What is true of the sins of the Jews is true of our sin, when Jesus says, “you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God” (Matt 22:29). You believe God’s Law to be the end of all things. If, like a lawyer, He and we do not keep to the code, then all of reality unravels, our faith is in vain, and chaos rules the universe. God can’t even keep His own Law.

 

Hahahaha, silly mortals. We always believe that because God gave us reason, that somehow that reason can reach above and beyond God, dethroning Him. We completely, utterly, and continuously miss the fact that all things come from Him. He has created all things. 

 

Are Christmass trees pagan? Um, God created trees, so He calls dibs.

Is December 25th pagan? Well, December 25th and all dates come from God, so He gets first priority on what they mean.

Does God’s Law contradict God, or do His prophesies not line up, or is there an evil and apostate man in His family tree? He Who gave the Law to Moses, knows best what it means. He Who gave the prophets and all writers of the Bible the thoughts and words they expressed, knows what He is doing. He Who made man, knows also how to make him righteous who is unrighteous in his sin.

 

The quick and easy fix for this apparent “problem of St. Joseph” has already been heard. For the same Word that created the heavens and the earth out of nothing, declares for all people of all time that, “Joseph was a just and righteous man, because he believed the Word of the Lord and He counted it to him as righteousness (Matt 1:19; Gen 15:6; Gal. 3:6)

 

Scripture goes on to explain further: “Understand, then, that those who have faith are children of Abraham. Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: ‘All nations will be blessed through you.’ So those who rely on faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith” (Gal 3:7-9).

 

The curse on Coniah is not greater than God. God is He Who cursed (Gen 5:29), so God is He Who lifts the curse, in other words: forgives (Dan 9:9). The only way Coniah’s curse would stick with his descendants is if they loved the curse more than God’s declaration of Confession and Absolution.

 

Dearly Beloved, if God cannot save Coniah’s sons, then what hope is there for you? But this is the mercy of God: that Christ was made man for us. That He was born into our human nature and assumes it into His divine nature. Not that God is changed, but we are. We are made Christ-like, such that we also become fellow heirs, “heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if so it be that we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified together” (Rom 8:17).

 

The world wants us without hope, because it has no hope. It wants us spinning through an endless abyss of darkness and despair, simply because that is their belief and they want the same for everyone, if they must suffer it. 

 

Yet upon that abyss, darkness, and despair has the Light shined. the morning has dawned upon us. The Virgin bears a Son and the glory of the Lord shines round about us. He matures, carrying the cross for us. He rises again to create His Church, where His praises and glory have no end, distributing His Light in Word and Sacrament. 

 

The curse we share has been lifted and we are made righteous by the righteous, innocent, and precious Blood of the Lamb of God, born to His mother, to save His people from their sins. St. Joseph, now also our guardian and hero, secures us by his fatherly and manly example, making sure that the Faith is handed down to us, simply by being a righteous man in Christ. Thank God.

 

No denial in Christ [Advent 4]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE 

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Deuteronomy 18:15-19

• Philippians 4:4-7

• St. John 1:19-28

Mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you.
 
Who speaks to us on this fourth Sunday of the new Church Year, saying,

“Then why are you baptizing, if you are neither the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?”

 
In this confrontation between John the Baptist and the Jews, we can already hear the distant echoes of the Trinity season, where immediately Jesus warns us that they will not believe even if someone were to come back from the dead.
 
In this confrontation from our Gospel heard today, John the Baptist seems to be defending himself to the point of contradicting Jesus, Who will later call him “Elijah to come” (Matt 11:14). What would cause John to take such a precarious stance, that would make people call into question the whole Bible because of it, in our days? 
 
He spoke that way because John the Baptist knew who he was taking to at the river that day. He knew he was facing off against the Original Murderer, the father of lies himself. And he knew that if he gave even one inch of agreement, it would be the end. And so he takes up the position of complete denial of satan, his works and his ways.
 
Of course John is going to deny that he is the Christ. Who in their right mind would claim that title?? More important is: why did the Jews ask the question? Because they want him to be the Messiah of their making. If he says he is, then they can make him as they want him. They can set him up and they can knock him down, taking the hopes of the people with him, in order to control them and keep their positions of power.
 
He says he is not Elijah, because if he gives an inch, then they will throw the books at him. Well where’s your fire from heaven? Where’s your chariots?  John knew he didn’t have those things, so he wasn’t lying, but he is not the Elijah the Jews want. If he were to say such an affirmation, they would raise a mob and turn everyone against him.
 
Finally, if he were to admit he was a prophet, then his words would just be twisted. Where are your miracles? What are your prophesies? Where are your words and actions approved by us, who are chosen of God and keepers of His Word? See he is not a real prophet, but a charlatan. Do not listen to him, people of Israel. He is a blasphemer.
 
Rather than contradicting God’s Word, John was contradicting the Jew’s words. I am not the Christ you want. I am not the Elijah you’ll be happy with. I’m not the prophet you will accept. This is John’s denial, not of Jesus, but of the devil. Therefore his answer to these demonic forces is as general and simple as possible. Basically, he states: I am a Christian.
 
I tell you today, if John the Baptist were to have come in our time, things would be no different. That should be obvious, especially when you see on TV things that are evil being called “good” and things that are good, called evil. In our sin, we are quick to side with the Jews and are ready to judge even the One Who has come back from the dead.
 
Yet, I also tell you, that of such is the perfect Salvation that Jesus had purchased and won for us, even for John, that the Baptist could have answered all those questions in the positive!
 
How could John say he is the Christ? When you call yourself Christian, what do you think that means? It means you are a little Christ. You have union with the Son of God. You have been clothed with Him and you no longer live, but Christ lives in you. What you will be on the Last Day is you will look like Him. By Faith, you look like Christ to the Father.
 
That John could also be Elijah, is at Christ’s word. He says plain as day: John is Elijah who is to come (Matt 11:14), who will “be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb…will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God…[and will] turn the hearts of the fathers to the children,’ and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.” (Luke 1:15-17). Not in chariots of fire, but in the forgiveness of sins.
 
Likewise, is John a prophet, for a prophet’s first and foremost duty is to point people to faith in the Messiah and John does that, literally. Behold I will send my messenger in the wilderness, before the great Day of the Lord, who will prepare the Way, a straight highway for our God.
 
All of this is what St. Paul means when He says “If I were to judge myself I would not be judged”, in 1 Corinthians 4. That, because he is using and handing over only what the Lord has instituted and handed over Himself, that if people would judge, they wouldn’t be judging him, but God. 
 
Likewise, John the Baptist uses or speaks nothing except what the Lord has already given and already spoken. This is the reason for his incredulity when the Jews do not believe, calling them a brood of vipers. This is the day the Lord has made, how can you not believe it?
 
This is the mercy Jesus bestows upon us, that He is judged for our sin, death, and the power of the devil. In Him, we are not judged, and if we are, in us is only found the holy, innocent, bitter sufferings and death of Jesus Christ our Lord, in faith. For our Lord, comes down all glorious, to be judged. The One Who said, “Love your neighbor” is hated by His fallen neighbors, in our place.
 
Yes even you. For, as you heard last week, even John the Baptist asks Jesus, “Are you the Christ?” Are You the One to Come? Though, where John and our sin denies, Jesus acknowledges. He is the Christ, chosen and anointed of God, and blessed are you who hear and believe, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven (Matt  16:17).
 
Jesus is Elijah’s Lord, He Who gave to Elijah his fire and his chariots and his eternal life, for Christ’s sake, now appears in order to purchase and win such life for all. Jesus can do all the things Elijah can do, but perfectly. Where Elijah could only depose Jezebel and her priests, Jesus unseats the very usurper who deceived them, the devil. Where Elijah could only ascend with the help of heavenly chariots, Jesus rises again from the grave never to die again.
 
Jesus is also the Prophet, of Whom Moses spoke. Jesus is from among the brothers, that is He is God and man. The voice of the Lord God spoke on Transfiguration’s mount, “Listen to Him”. “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them” (Jn 3:36). And where Moses could only speak words, Jesus is the Word of God Who Speaks and it is done; He commands, and it stands fast. (Ps 33:9)
 
John baptizes with water, but Jesus baptizes with water and “the Holy Spirit and fire” (Matt 3:11). And His baptism is a life giving water, rich in grace, and a washing of new birth. The baptism of Jesus raises you from the dead (Rom 6:5) and that resurrection is how you know it is the Lord’s work, as He said in Ezekiel 37:13. 
 
The Jews were not after John, they were after God. King Herod did not want to behead John, he wanted to behead God Who made such commands against sins. Such is the violence and murder that sin works in our bodies and spirits. But thanks be to God, that “the kingdom of God suffers violence and the violent take it by force” (Matt 11:12), that is the violence of the cross of Christ.
 
In our sinful rebellion we put to death a lamb of God and return Easter Day to find an Eternal Lion. An Eternal Lion that brings us into His realm of Grace and mercy, such that we find only the things that are instituted by Him, His Word and His Sacrament. Believing in those things and surrounding our life with His Divine Service, we then also may answer with John: I am a little Christ!
 
At the Word of His Forgiveness you are washed clean. At the washing of rebirth and renewal, your Old self is drowned, daily, and the New Self, Christ, is put on. At the invitation from the Lord to “move up higher” at His Wedding Feast, you now prophesy the Lord’s death until His comes again in glory.
 
In His Church, we faithfully and confidently renounce the devil, his works and ways. Instead, through faith, we cling to Christ, His works and His ways. The Work of Salvation, freely given in His Body and Blood, and the Way of righteousness, whereby we commune with a new, righteous life, denying our old sinful ways and following Christ our example.
 
“The saying is trustworthy, for:
If we have died with Him, we will also live with Him;
if we endure, we will also reign with Him;
if we deny Him, He also will deny us;
if we are faithless, He remains faithful—
for He cannot deny Himself” (2 Tim 2:11-13).
 

See and Not see, St. Thomas [Wednesday Advent 3]

 

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Ephesians 2:19-22

• St. John 20:24-29

Grace to you all and Peace from God our Father and the LORD Jesus, the Christ.

 

Who speaks to us from our Epistle heard this evening saying:

“In Him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.”

 

In Him. In the very visible and physical Body of God, St. Paul teaches.

Tonight we finally get to a saint from the Bible. Maybe that makes you more comfortable, knowing for certain that God wanted us to hear about St. Thomas and so He included him in His Word. Yet, even then, there is not much about St. Thomas in the Bible.

 

One text calls him the “twin” and very rarely does he stand out among the Apostles. Before the raising of Lazarus he does say, “Let us go die with him”. All this brings us to the same conclusion we reached with St. Lucy, that true saints decrease, while Christ increases. We would rather the mantle be on Christ’s shoulders, than our own.

 

But that is not what our focus will be tonight with St. Thomas.

 

Listen to a quote from St. Gregory the Great:

"St. Thomas' unbelief has benefited our faith more than the belief of the other disciples; it is because he attained faith through physical touch that we are confirmed in the faith beyond all doubt. Indeed, the Lord permitted the apostle to doubt after the resurrection; but He did not abandon him in doubt. By his doubt and by his touching the sacred wounds the apostle became a witness to the truth of the resurrection.

St. Thomas touched and cried out: My Lord and my God! And Jesus said to him: Because you have seen Me, Thomas, you have believed. Now if Thomas saw and touched the Savior, why did Jesus say: Because you have seen Me, Thomas, you have believed? Because he saw something other than what he believed. For no mortal man can see divinity. Thomas saw the Man Christ and acknowledged His divinity with the words: My Lord and my God. 

Faith therefore followed upon seeing."

 

Jesus gives such grace and mercy that not only is seeing believing but not seeing, also. Thank you , Jesus.

So it is that we see St. Thomas usually represented in church Art with a square or some other engineering instrument. Because he was the man who wanted to see and measure God!

 

How dare he, right? Who measures God? Not you. Not me? In fact, part of Job’s chastisement includes measuring, or rather his inability to measure properly. From Job, “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements? Surely you know!” (38:4-5)

 

Not only has God determined the measure of all things, but He is Himself immeasurable. As He says in Romans 11, “Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!” (v.33). Even Jesus agrees when He tells us that no one has seen God at anytime, neither have they seen the Father (St John 1:18, 6:46).

 

But He does go on, no one has seen except He Who is from God, the one and only Son. And goes even further still in St. Matthew 11:27, “no one knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.”

 

And John 14:9, “Whoever has seen Me, has seen the Father”

 

In this light, we not only return to St. Thomas, but all the Old Testament as well. When Abraham encountered the three men in Genesis 18, he knew it was the Lord God and told his wife to measure out three measures of meal to make cakes. And those three measures were enough because God is three in one.

 

Abraham is able to use human measurement in order to please God. Amazing. We usually think that we miss our measurements of God, we fall short of His glory. From Daniel 5, “God has measured your kingdom, and finished it; You have been weighed in the balances, and found lacking;” (v.26-27). And that is true, in our sin.

 

God is the measure of all things and He has chosen the path of man’s measurement of Him. That is His promise, for not only was man’s measuring of the manna from heaven enough for Him and the men had no lack (Ex 16:18), so also when God stands in the measurement of man, His own self, Jesus Christ, the Father accepts the offering of the Son on the cross.

 

God allows Himself to be measured, to be studied, to be handled and it leads to the truth of all things. God places Himself inside a box, a God-made-man box, and reveals His salvation to His Apostles. Such that with St Thomas’s 5 senses, he can cry out in faith, “My Lord and my God!”

 

In Christ, not only does St Thomas get to not see and believe, but he also gets to see, measure, and believe the entire history of God’s salvation which focuses on and has its completion in one man: Jesus Christ. 

 

St. Thomas gets to measure the two eyes that saw Light in the beginning. St. Thomas gets to evaluate the 10 fingers that formed man from the dust. St. Thomas gets to analyze the hands and arms that brought out the faithful from the all the countries where they were scattered and save them by faith alone (Ez 20:34).

 

The lesson of St. Thomas is that we get to take God at His Word and at His Body. The Lord presents Himself to you, for you to measure and find no lack in Him, because He has shown up as a man, to reconcile God and man, and to speak and commune with His people until the end of the age.

The Word: Present, Heroic [Advent 3]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Isaiah 40:1-11

• 1 Corinthians 4:1-5

• St. Matthew 11:2-10

 

Mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you.

 

Who speaks to us on this third Sunday of the new Church Year, saying,

“And Jesus answered them, ‘Go and tell John what you hear and see'”

 

Thus far from our Gospel reading today, included by God because He wants us to hear and see. Not just the miracles and theology of Jesus long ago, but the fact that John can actually hear and see God, in the flesh; moving, breathing, living. This is the point of all of Scripture and this leads us to see the world in a new light. The Light that God is near, alive, and active in His own Body.

 

Now, I can utterly sympathize with John the Baptist in his seeming unbelief, and you should too, as he asks Jesus to confirm His identity once again. But look at it from his perspective; that he could actually be living out the End Times as the Lord had prophesied, is mind blowing. Not only that, but the sheer fantastic idea that he also finds himself living out his own crazy-man ramblings at the Jordan river. That a Messiah is coming. That He will be great. That He will baptize! And then shows up in the flesh.

 

John the Baptist: You’re sure? You’re sure. Right? Now. Now? You sure? Really?

 

Maybe this is how Noah felt when he was told to build an impossible boat to house an impossible amount of living creatures, in order that they impossibly float on a Flood to end all floods. Noah said, you want me to start now, or later? Now? right now. You sure? You’re sure.

 

Or Abraham, even worse. Hey Abraham. Yeah, I’m gonna need you to leave all your stuff and go. Yeah, just take some things that can get you by, animals and workers, but you gotta go. And it’s gonna be far. No more allowance from daddy. No more jury duty for your buddies. No more family connections. 

 

What I want to know, and maybe you do too, is what could have possibly moved them to do such drastic things? I mean, they had to have been heroes to need nothing more than a voice to do all that weird stuff like eating bugs and constructing zoological research vessels. Am I expected to do such things? Are you?

 

The first answer is yes. As our Epistle said, we should first be regarded as servants of Christ. He says “Ark”, we say “how high?” There are no two ways around the Word of God. Either we hear and obey, or we are an unbeliever. So now you better give those voices in your head a chance, right? One of them may be God trying to get through to you…

 

NOT. 

Here is how the world wants you to think God works, how God speaks to people: as an uncontrollable, unpredictable ghost.

Why is God being a ghost important? Because then you are easy to control. Because then we can say He said something and not have to prove it. It would be a festivus miracle. God spoke to our preacher! We must listen to him and give him all our money!

 

So God spoke to me today…

 

Repent. And you believe it. It just speaks to your heart. It moves you so. God just going around, inspiring rando people, here and there, with His enticing, phantom voice. Its all so romantic. Its all so irresponsible. Of course God would act like that.

Wake up. This is real life, not the movies. And if the God of the Bible is just a spirit who enjoys playing tricks now and then and acting with no regard to person or doctrine, then He is not God, but a hypocrite. 

 

In our sin, we can’t believe that John the Baptist wouldn’t have known his actions would land him in prison, much less on his way to the executioner. John should have just ignored the voice. It would be alright. God would have forgiven him. God is love. But God showed up, not just His Voice.

 

Truly St. Paul’s words are true of us, that “scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die” (Rom 5:7). Much less, would we be moved to heroic deeds by a still, small voice. Not happening. And dying? Not really die, but “dare to”, right? Figuratively die. 

 

In your weakness, St. Paul continues: “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

 

God remembers His love towards us in Christ alone and dies, not for the righteous, not for the good, but for the unrighteous, for sinners dead set against Him. He remembers what He said and what He promised. He caused it to be written that we might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God and the Son of man, come to make saints out of sinners. 

 

In an act of divine mercy and love, God does not leave John the Baptist with some disembodied prophesy to be decoded by his own powers. First of all, with God’s words in his mouth, God gave John a father who would have recounted, ad nauseum, his story of silence and rebirth, in order to tell John what his life would be. In the second place, the Lord placed Himself in front of John, while he was prophesying, to prove that the words coming out of John’s mouth were true.

 

Noah may have missed Adam by mere decades, but Noah’s father did not. His father would then have recounted to Noah, ad nauseum, all the first things the Lord did with Adam and Eve, from the lips of Adam. Such that, when the Word of the Lord appeared to Noah, it was not a ghost but a man. A recognizable and well-known man. Either Jesus or His ordained priest, Seth, Adam’s son.

 

Likewise, Abraham who was around to hear Shem, Noah’s son, preach about God’s paradise, God’s judgement, and God’s Promise. And Jonah and John the Baptist and all the prophets were able to unreasonably do what God told them, because He showed up Himself to tell them about it. This is what, “and the Word of the Lord appeared…” means.

 

“No one comes to the Father except through me” (Jn 14:6). With those words, Jesus can do whatever He wants. He could have been a voice from everywhere or nowhere when speaking to any of the Patriarchs. But He didn’t, He doesn’t, and instead promises the Way to the Father is through Him, God and man, soul and spirit, Body and Blood.

 

As always, the promises of God are for comfort and peace, not turmoil and puzzles. “Comfort!” cries Isaiah from our Old Testament reading. Comfort found in three things: pardoned iniquity, the revelation of God’s Glory, and the Word standing forever. 

 

“For the Father draws indeed by the power of His Holy Ghost,” says our Confessions, “however, according to His usual order [the order decreed and instituted by Himself], by the hearing of His holy, divine Word” (SD XI:76)

 

Dearly Beloved, it is the Holy Spirit that has birthed and created His Holy Christian Church with the gifts of Jesus. And it is the Holy Spirit that continues to reveal God to the Baptized, through His Word. And that Word doesn’t read itself. Just as Jesus sent John the Baptist, He sent His Apostles, and now sends His pastors to you, for the same reason.

 

That the Word of God be living and among you. That you may have the Word of the Lord appear to you, not just in a silly man in funny pajamas, but in His Word and Sacrament, given to men, to be taught and administered. The Lord continues His work in the flesh through means.

 

There are no heroics in imagining God making a test for you to find Him. It is make-believe to believe that you must wait around for a vision or a sign. Besides, that way is agony and despair. True comfort, as Isaiah said, comes through means. True heroics is being in the presence of the Lamb.

 

The forgiveness of sins, purely proclaimed, that God is in man-made-manifest, in Christ Jesus, among us, living, working still, and that the Word stands. Not only did He stand again, rise again from the dead, but He stands forever, never to die again. He is risen from the dead and from there, distributes His gifts.

 

In particular, that the messenger has gone before to prepare the Way. The Way of everlasting life. And since both John and Jesus are men and have trod that path, we know and believe that there is the same path for us. Yes the unseen path of faith, kept and preserved by the Holy Ghost, but grace given that our physical path also align with it.

 

God sets the path to His Son before our face, calling us with His Gospel and enlightening, sanctifying, and gathering us with His true Body and Blood. By the Word that created heaven and earth; the Body and Blood found in the manger and found on the cross of Christ, is now found on your lips, for the Lord is at hand.

 

St. Lucy, hero [Wednesday in Advent 2]

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READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• 2 Corinthians 10:17-18, 11:1-2

• St Matthew 13:44-52

 

Grace to you all and Peace from God our Father and the LORD Jesus, the Christ.
 
Who speaks to us from our Epistle heard this evening saying:
“For it is not the one who commends himself who is approved, but the one whom the Lord commends.”
 
ST. LUCY, Virgin and Martyr, radiating light, readies us for the Light of Christmas
The very name Lucy pulsates with light, a living symbol amid the season's darkness (the days are now the shortest of the year). As a wise virgin Lucy advances with a burning lamp to meet the Bridegroom, just as we light our own candles to meet Him here. She typifies the Church and the soul now preparing their bridal robes for a Christmas marriage.
 
St. Lucy’s. Day of death is December 13, about 304 and is usually pictured in church art with a sword and with two eyes on a plate. Now, that the famous Sicilian martyr really lived may be deduced from the great popular veneration accorded her since most ancient times. The Acts detailing her sufferings, however, merit little credence.
 
This is usual for the Church legendarium for a reason. One of those reasons, I believe, is because the saints rarely wish their deeds and name known more than their Savior. A real saint couldn’t care less if people knew they had a spiritual gift from God. If it took the spotlight off Christ, it was regarded as satanic.
 
But back to our hero: 
In one such St. Lucy legend, she was so beautiful that a local lord demanded her hand in marriage. Unfortunately, St. Lucy had already pledged her virginity to Christ and would not have it. The local lord was enraged, but to stymie any further acts of violence against her or her family, St. Lucy put her own eyes out, that she might be ugly. Ugly to the world, pure to Christ.
 
Another legend has her sneaking food and comfort to persecuted Christians in Rome, with lighted candles on her head that she might have both arms free for carrying food. Scandinavian countries still honor her this way and parade their young girls around Church, wearing wreaths of candles.
 
According to another, she made a pilgrimage to Catonia with her mother, who suffered from hemorrhage, to venerate the body of St. Agatha. After praying devoutly at the tomb, Agatha appeared to her in a dream and consoled her: "O virgin Lucy, why do you ask of me what you yourself can procure for your mother? For your faith too has come to her aid and therefore she has been cured. By your virginity you have indeed prepared for God a lovely dwelling." And her mother was actually healed.
 
Immediately Lucy asked permission to remain a virgin and to distribute her future dowry among Christ's poor. Child and mother returned to their native city Syracuse, and Lucy proceeded to distribute the full proceeds from the sale of her property among the poor.
 
When a young man to whom Lucy's parents had promised the virgin's hand against her will had heard of the development, he reported her to the city prefect as a Christian.
"Your words will be silenced," the prefect said to her, "when the storm of blows falls upon you!"
 
The virgin: "To God's servants the right words will not be wanting, for the Holy Spirit speaks in us." "Yes," she continued, "all who live piously and chastely are temples of the Holy Spirit."
"Then," he replied, "I shall order you put with prostitutes and the Holy Spirit will depart from you."
Lucy: "If I am dishonored against my will, my chastity will secure for me a double crown of victory.”
Aflame with anger, the judge imposed the threatened order. But God made the virgin solidly firm in her place and no force could move her. "With such might did the Holy Spirit hold her firm that the virgin of Christ remained immovable." Thereupon they poured heated pitch and resin over her: "I have begged my Lord Jesus Christ that this fire have no power over me. And in testimony of Him I have asked a postponement of my death" (Resp.). When she had endured all this without the least injury, they pierced her throat with a sword. Thus she victoriously ended her martyrdom.
 
"If I am dishonored against my will, my chastity will secure for me a double crown of victory.”
These are the words I want our focus on tonight and these are the words you should be able to look back into the sermon from Sunday and find their truth there. The sin that is forced upon us is not ours, but double for the one enforcing.
 
Thus we can face the mark of the beast and have confidence in our Savior. Thus we can own up to known and unknown sin. Thus we can double down on the Lord’s Way, knowing full well that it will not be the world’s way. Christ returns our virginity, our chastity, our purity in the forgiveness of sins. St. Lucy points to her Savior.
 
In St. Mary’s famous last words recorded in the Bible, in John 2(:3-5), she sets this example for us, down the line. “When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”
 
 And Jesus tells us to be holy. Not “find holiness for yourself”, but “You will be holy, because I AM is holy.”(Lev. 11:45), said Jesus in Leviticus. 
 
To whatever saint we may turn for example or advice, they will always repeat St. Mary’s words to us, “There. That is the Man for you.” We take all our gifts; our beauty, our charity, our piety and count it all rubbish, count it all but loss that we may gain Christ (Phil 3:8).
 
And what do we gain when we gain Christ? Beauty. Charity. Piety. Family. A hundred times more and a hundred times better than we could ever hope to accomplish here on our own. Just as an acolyte, St. Lucy’s be-lighted wreath leads us to the Divine Service of our God. We enter in, behind the veil (Heb 6:19) where Jesus has gone.
 
St. Lucy brings hope to the persecuted martyrs, but knows that she will also become as they are, under the cross. Our hope is that though we can be replaced by anyone and will be forgotten by the world, our Lord and God does not forget. Even the dimmest light of faith is fanned into flame at His Word.
 
We turn our eyes, then, to where St. Lucy turned her eyes. For Jesus has risen again from the dead and will restore loss to those who remain faithful. Hear and believe then, that “it is not the one who commends himself who is approved, but the one whom the Lord commends”. 
 
“each one will receive his commendation from God” (1 Corinthians 4:5).
 
And our commendation is Christ, Who has mercifully given such examples of the Faith, that we, who are living in the Last Days, would not lose hope, but find strength in Word and Sacrament and courage in those men and women who have made it to the end successfully, facing the same sin and trials we do. Lord, have mercy upon us.
 

Forgiveness: God's Power through means [Advent 2]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Malachi 4:1-6

• Romans 15:4-13

• St. Luke 21:25-36

 

Mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you.
 
Who speaks to us on this second Sunday of the new Church Year, saying,
“Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.”
 
As we continue to ponder heroes this Advent season, I made mention last time that heroes are those who have stood up and have not renounced the faith. Though they were ordered, they did not say I renounce Christ.
 
Now I almost thought of daring all of you to say that, but I won’t trouble your consciences. The only reason I would dare you to say it is because I want you, trusting your baptism more than you trust even the words that come out of your mouth. Instead, we are to trust in the Words that will not pass away.
 
This is because sin is much greater and much more horrific than we have been led to realize these days. We think sin is just a surface thing something like saying, “I renounce Christ”. Indeed those are heavy words, however, does someone saying them mean that they’re automatically going to hell?
 
I would put this on par with statues in the house, and eating food offered to idols. No matter how many times you wear a head covering, no matter how many times you don’t get a tattoo, no matter how many times you forgive your brother. 
 
God is not mocked God cannot be tricked. He knows a true faith from a fake faith. Fake faith, wears Christ and his church like a hat, putting it on and off at convenience, and only being skin deep.
 
True faith is faith that has the hat, but who depends on God and can resist such things as words if they are forced upon you, signs of the beast forcibly engraved, or possibly even voluntarily! The power of God is the power of God after all, and not the power of men.
 
One example, you may think of, is the difference between King Saul and King David. Now, you would think, for as evil as King Saul became, even trying to kill David most of his life, that his sin that caused God’s rejection would be equally as horrid.
 
Our answer comes in chapters 10 and 13 of 1 Samuel. chapter 13 is where Saul is rejected by God, through Samuel (God works through means) as he said, “You have done foolishly. You have not kept the commandment of the Lord your God, which He commanded you…But now your kingdom shall not continue” (v.13-14).
 
But what did Saul do foolishly? He was told to “go down before me to Gilgal and behold I am coming to you to offer burnt offerings and to sacrifice peace offerings. Seven days you shall wait, until I shall come to you and show you what you shall do" (1 Samuel 10:8)
 
and apparently, he didn’t wait long enough, maybe an hour? Who knows. But he gets impatient, burns the offerings before Samuel gets there, and gets in trouble when Samuel arrives. Now, did he offer the sacrifice wrong? Was the ritual backwards? Did he not call on the Name of the Lord? No. All of that was there. All of the outward, and churchly, works were there. The problem was, Samuel was supposed to do it.
 
Seems pretty petty, on God’s part so far, to rejects Saul just because of something so tiny, right? On top of that, compare him to king David. Now David was a man after God’s own heart, right? Yet, his sins are more numerous than Saul’s and still retains the Lord’s favor. With murders, adulteries, thievery, and infidelity, How does David get out and not Saul?
 
Why do people go to hell? Why do bad things happen to good people? 
 
Repent. You have no answer. this is because you believe with all your heart, that as long as a person is “good” and “goes to church”, that person is saved. You don’t sweat the details, because God is love and love covers a multitude of sins. We don’t have to do everything exactly correctly, God just likes to make us sweat every now and then.
 
Tell that to Cain, who was rejected because of his offering. Tell that to Ham, Noah’s son, who was cursed for trying to help his father with his drunken nakedness. Tell that any one person who believes that he is receiving wrong from God, because he thinks he did it all right.
 
Though we have to depend on people to reveal to us who they are by their words, and have no other choice, God can see into the heart. Renouncing Christ is more than just being a punk and saying whatever is the opposite of what your dad wants. Renouncing Christ is to give up on Him.
 
That is the crucifixion. One of the reasons the world forsakes Christ to suffer and die alone is because He is a disappointment. We thought He would be the one to restore Israel. We thought He would be the one to free us from oppressive government. We thought He would be different, but when He starts bleeding and growing faint, then we see that His insides are just like ours.
 
On the cross, the inside (sin, death, and the power of the devil) looks like the outside. of Jesus, we weren’t too sure for a while there. He was forgiving sins, performing miracles, silencing religious oppression. He had to be different on the inside. I mean, the Transfiguration! We mistakenly see our sin in Jesus and attribute it to Him.
 
And this is part of our Lord’s work. That we see the sea being uncooperative, the celestial bodies not doing as we wish, and the trees withering away and think, “Does that seem right to you?” We look at the turmoil in the world and find that turmoil in us. Our Lord’s work convicts us of our sin.
 
And we hate it, because we don’t want our outside to look like our inside. However, it is only godly sincerity that wants the inside to look like the outside. We try so hard to put on a good show for everyone; to make them aware that we are likeable, trustworthy, and brave. But we know its just a show.
 
There is a thought that, if you act out how you want to be, then it will become habit and it will be you. But how many habits must we change or develop to complete a picture of ourselves that is not sinful?
 
So the forgiveness of sins comes without cost to you and is the power of God. Stronger than those tattoos, stronger than those slips of the tongue, and stronger than your rebellious spirit is the word of grace that covers you in Christ Jesus.
 
Another part of our Lord’s work is salvation. And if He is going to offer salvation to all, don’t you think it should be a little stronger than our weaknesses? Don’t you think it should be able to outshine music preferences and frivolous speech? 
 
It should and it does. In fact, whether you live or you die you are the Lord’s. As long as we treat every sin as if that sin will be the sin to knock us off the path, then that is conviction from the Holy Ghost and faith in Christ.
 
This is not an excuse to continue in sin. Eventually, sin will kill off faith, such that we believe that it doesn’t matter in the end and will see no problem with it. This is the path to hell and judgment, for God will see that love and trust in sin and say, “Thy will be done”.
 
One part of staying awake is to realize our sin and lack of faith and turn to the only Man Who can do something about it: Jesus. To fear and reverence His Work. To love His Bride, and to Trust His plan.
 
Here we may return to Saul’s sin. The size of the sin is not judged by our standards, but God’s. And God’s standard was not just that Saul wait 7 days and then sacrifice, but to let Samuel do it, because Samuel is the Called and Ordained man of God, sent to the people by God Himself. Saul lacked faith in Jesus’ work of giving gifts to men.
 
To Cain and Ham, they simply loved themselves more than God. That since God had already chosen them, there was no wrong they could do. Without faith, they displeased God by hating the order of His Church.
 
To us, we find all those things inside us and more. We could spend days in the confessional. that is all to say, without faith. But with Faith, our insides become like our outsides. With Faith, we receive life from God and in this life, hope. For, in the forgiveness of sins, there is hope for the worst of sinners.
 
Godliness is a gift from God and part of it is humility. The humility to accept that God’s salvation is being worked out in the world through His Church. If we want faith, we must turn to the Word, not the words of others. If we want clean insides, we must turn to the Sacraments. If we want forgiveness stronger than ourselves on our worst days of doubt, we must turn to Him Who comes to us saying, “do not disbelieve, but believe” and it happens.
 
Thus, we find in God’s treasure not just masks and hats for Church, but clean hearts and right spirits. We do not have to pretend we are saved, we are, at God’s Word. We don’t have to fear our rebellious years or any “welp I’m going to hell for that one”, because Christ is raised from the dead.
 
So that we can act on the outside what we believe on the inside so that our outsides can actually become conformed to our insides that, with Communion, now is conformed to Christ.
 

St. Nicholas, hero [Wednesday in Advent 1]

 

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READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• St Luke 14:26-33

• Hebrews 13:7-17

Grace to you all and Peace from God our Father and the LORD Jesus, the Christ.
 
Who speaks to us from our Epistle heard this evening saying,

“Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith.”

 
Here, Jesus is talking about leaders as ones who have been called and ordained to speak the Word of God in Truth, not just any joe who stands up and says, “God spoke to me.” Do we think that, just because God uses people to do His work, that that work is going to be sloppy and sporadic? The Lord has never shown us such a side to Himself. He works through means, not just your emotional currents.
 
Many people choose their heroes when they are young and impressionable. And that is not a bad thing. At that age we have yet to judge others for their faults and baggage they have accrued over the years.
 
One of the means God chooses to work through are the teachers He gives to us in His Church. As we said Sunday, we will be appreciating a few of those “heroes of the faith” as wonderful gifts from God. This evening, the Church celebrates and remembers St. Nicholas. And though he has been shamefully demoted to “jolly ole St. Nick” these days, he lived his life as a bishop and confessor of the faith.
 
According to Church legend, St. Nicholas died December 6, 350AD. The saints’ days in Church are usually celebrated death days, FYI. This means that, historically, he lived long enough to see Constantine become emperor and make Christianity the official religion of the empire. Part of his legend, however, comes from before that time of peace.
 
Nicholas was born at Patara in Asia Minor to parents who, having long been childless, had petitioned God with many prayers. Already as a youth Nicholas became noted for his zeal in helping the unfortunate and oppressed. In his native city, there lived a poor nobleman who had three marriageable daughters; he could not obtain a suitor for them because he could offer no dowry. The contemptible idea struck him to sacrifice the innocence of his daughters to gain the needed money. 
 
When Nicholas became aware of this, he went by night and threw a bag containing as much gold as was needed for a dowry through the window. This he repeated the second and third nights, saving the girls and defending their purity before God and men.
 
This is the legend that gives us the gift-giving idea during Christmas, as some of that gold allegedly fell into their stockings which were drying at the end of their beds. “Joyful giving” is the main lesson we take from St. Nicholas. Giving that puts others needs ahead of our own. Where that gold came from, who knows, but I’m sure it came at great cost to our hero, St. Nick.
 
On a certain occasion he was imprisoned for the faith. In a wonderful way, he later became bishop of Myra, in Turkey. His presence is noted at the Council of Nicaea, where my favorite story of his takes place. One of the opposing bishops was trying to normalize the teaching that Christ was only a man and not also God. St. Nicholas had finally had enough, threw hands, and slapped that man in the face hoping his senses would return him from his folly.
 
He died a quiet death in his episcopal city, uttering the words: "Into Thy hands I commend my spirit." For, first and foremost, he was a leader, a preacher of the word of God, and spokesman of the Father. Hopefully, as you see, there is a goodly bit of genuine Christianity in joyous, loving gift-giving. 
(The Church’s Year of Grace, Parsch, 157-158)
 
The chief and primary of which, is faith in Christ. So it is the chief duty of the Called and Ordained to preach the word of the cross of Christ, which is the power of salvation. St. Nicholas is another image of our great, high Priest Who intercedes for us and offers us the Sacrifice of Redemption in the Body and Blood of Christ.
 
Following St. Nicholas through time, we carry our own crosses, because in faith we now want to be faithful. We want to have nothing rule our hearts except Christ. And when the Lord returns to hold all to account, we want to be found hungry and poor that He would fill us with good things.
 
In the Divine Service, St. Nicholas communes next to us, with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. This hero, kneels before the Hero of heroes Who comes to bring joy on earth and everlasting joys in the Resurrection. As heroic as St. Nicholas is, our memory of him is only in admiration. Our example from him, is to be faithful to the Lord’s Church.
 
And that is a cross to bear in and of itself. Not only did our gospel reading tell us about hating family and self, but also renouncing everything we have. This our Savior does on our behalf. God of all, He suffered and died, renouncing it all to seek and save sinners. This, our St. Nicholas also did, to a lesser degree, renouncing his treasures to become a pastor and to elevate those three daughters in need.
 
Even though we may not agree with God’s methods in using means, that is only sin rebelling against His Will. Since Christ has laid things out in order for us, we should take up that cross and joyfully let God be God, that is suffering, dying, rising again, and building His Church for us.