By Todd Jones Joy to the world, Christmas has come! For many, the joy of this holiday season is in the opened gifts and the abundant food and beverage options. The glow of that Christmas is fading fast. Our text today challenges us to rediscover the joy that gave a song of love for the ..
By Glenn A. Nielsen The celebration of Christmas begins, in stores and media, months before December 25. Advent has led up to the church’s celebrations of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Now, three days later, the season of Christmas continues. But what is left to say? What is left now that the children’s program has brought the trip to ..
By Joel Biermann Israel, God’s rebellious son, God’s adulterous bride, remains always the unexpected recipient of God’s greatest giving. He even intervenes for Israel as a Savior who chooses to suffer affliction for the sake of his chosen people. In response to such extraordinary loving kindness, Israel, of course, rebels… and then yet once more remembers her saving Lord. ..
By David L. Adams Introduction In this brief section the Apostle Paul gives Christians guidance for understanding how the life of Jesus, received in baptism, manifests itself in the communal life of love, in worship centered in the word of God, and in a heart at peace that receives all things from God in a ..
by Henry Rowold Sometimes Christians find the prophetic writings strange territory because those writings seem to be an unending boiling and churning of divine wrath and horrifying judgment. The New Testament seems to be much more familiar territory in terms of knowledge and content. In reality, there is plenty of judgment in the New Testament ..
by Travis J. Scholl Talk about good news, bad news. The day after Christmas (“On the second day of Christmas, my true love gave to me…”), and already the evangelist has swept up the holy family to Egypt, and Herod is massacring the innocents of Bethlehem. Of course, as much as the news might wake ..
By Travis J. Scholl “The text is designed so that the memory is a generative event in subsequent generations of Israel, generative of energy and courage for the belated contexts in which God’s people will again face oppression, will again cry out in pain, and will again appeal to the God of all departures.” So says ..
By Gerhard Bode Liturgical Setting The Gospel reading for the First Sunday after Christmas observes the Presentation of our Lord in the Temple. Textual Comments 2:22-23 After Mary’s forty-day purification is completed, she goes to the temple with Joseph and the infant Jesus. The couple offers sacrifices in keeping with the law, but the centerpiece ..