December 2024

The Season of Advent

The season of Advent marks the beginning of a new church year in which we reflect anew on the meaning of the incarnation, ministry, suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus for us. In the season of Advent we focus on the threefold coming of Jesus Christ to the world in the flesh, in the Word and the Sacraments, and in glory. At this time each year we in the church should ask ourselves the same question that Martin Luther asked as he pondered the rich meaning of the Christmas story, “Why would the Lord of all the universe care enough about us mortals to take our flesh and share our woes”

We learned from our teachers in school that there is no such thing as a bad question. While this may be true, it is also true that some questions serve a greater purpose than others. By asking ourselves, during the season of Advent, why God would care enough about us mortals to take our flesh and share our woes, two important purposes are being served.

First, the connection between the manger and cross are brought into closer companionship. Luther would often say that the manger and the cross are made of the same wood. That is to say that they are both made by wood stained with the blood of the sin and disobedience of God’s creatures. They are also stained with the sweat and tears of our personal God who cares about his entire creation. His care is shown in his action to send his Son, Jesus and close the gap of distance and separation between him and creatures that have forgotten to hear, listen, and obey the good and holy Word of their heavenly Father.

The second purpose that is served by asking the question, “Why would the Lord of all the universe care enough about us mortals to take our flesh and share our woes?” is that it leads us to consider all the ways in which our God comes to us. Since the season of Advent occurs during the four weeks prior to Christmas Day, it can be easy for us to focus our eyes only on the baby Jesus cradled in the manger. But if we pull back the curtains a little farther we can bring into view all the ways that God comes to us.

Our God splits the heavens and comes down not just during the event that we celebrate one month from now on Christmas morning. The purpose of the season of Advent is not so that the church can transport itself back two thousand years ago and pretend to be first century Jews who are waiting for their Messiah to be born. We live in the twenty-first century. So let us believe more firmly the truth that God has already come to us, is continuing to come to us, and will come back to us.

We certainly take time within our congregation and within our families to celebrate God’s coming to us on Christmas morning. However, at the same time we embrace the fact that our God  who is beyond time and space comes down to us in time and space every Sunday morning to deliver the fruit of his Son’s crucifixion and resurrection over two thousand years ago through his Word and Sacraments. He comes to us through his instruments: the water and the Word of God, the bread and the wine, the mouth of the pastor who forgives our sins, and the Bible which contains all of God’s promises in Christ. In these ways we receive, Immanuel, “God with us,” now! As we live in a world where the evidence of the sin, suffering, and brokenness of creation is all too evident, we receive God’s peace on earth as he comes to us “hidden” in the Word and Sacraments. We also embrace his promise of Christ to restore his broken creation and to completely “reveal” his victory over suffering and death in his coming again to us in glory, just as he said.

The truth that God cares enough for us mortals to take on our flesh and share our woes is shown to us in the wonderful Christmas story which we eagerly wait to celebrate. But take comfort now in this truth as it is made known to you now through God’s Word and his Sacraments. As members of his church we should equip ourselves to share this good news with others who live among us and are confused in their questioning, suffering, and despair. And as you equip yourselves this Advent season and share the reason for the hope that you have in Christ, rest assured that he is coming again soon.

In Christ,

Pastor Doug

November 2024

All Saints Day

Deeper understandings

There is a lot of meaning packed into the word all in All Saints. Let’s explore the day through this simple word.

All includes some most beloved to us. All Saints calls to mind specific individuals: particular beloved faces, names and memories. On All Saints, our congregation names in worship your loved ones who have died in the past year, alternating the names with a bell or a sung prayer of thanksgiving. Some congregations set aside places for photos of loved ones among candles and images of other saints. We may be all too aware of the particular names we are now carrying with us toward All Saints this year—names of those who have died in the past year.

All includes those beloved by others. All Saints creates a space that embraces with honor the multitudes of individuals among the beloved dead. We see their faces, say their names, and recognize in the worshipers around us others who carry their own memories and litanies of saints. All Saints sets out a place for all of them—an assembly the book of Revelation describes as “a number no one could count” with saints “from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages” (7:9). All Saints brings into focus our own beloved dead while also stretching our imagination toward the whole company of saints, more diverse and populous than we can fully comprehend.

All are saved by grace. The festival originally honored those who were considered especially holy: heroic figures from the Scriptures and martyrs who had given their lives nonviolently in witness to the faith. However, it is an especially Lutheran accent for the feast to honor not only those who lived exemplary lives, but all who have been baptized into Christ’s death. For Lutherans, All Saints resonates with the conviction that in Christ every saint is a sinner and every sinner a saint, simul justus et peccator. Lutherans especially remember on this feast that it is God’s grace, apart from our works, that makes us saints. We find lasting rest only in the mercy of God.

We share a mortal, earthy nature with all humans and all living creatures on the planet. Death is an inevitable part of life for all of us. It is part of our citizenship as earth creatures. In the Bible’s wisdom literature, the word all is like a bell ringing to remind us of the lesson of Ash Wednesday: The fate of humans and the fate of animals is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath …. All go to one place; all are from the dust, and all turn to dust again (Ecclesiastes 3:19-20). John’s Gospel uses seed imagery: Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit (12:24). All Saints proclaims a mystery. We remain in communion with those who have returned to the earth ahead of us.

We wait with all creation. All Saints is commemorated when much of the North American landscape appears to be dying down. Days are shorter, tree branches are becoming bare, the air is colder and fields have been stripped of their harvest. November begins a cycle of readings extending through Advent in which the themes of death and danger are in dialogue with our deepest hopes. As the sun sinks lower in the sky each day, our Scripture texts help us seek answers to a searing question: “How can we live in hope and integrity when it looks like the end of the world?” All Saints begins a season in which we contemplate the hopes and fears of all creation, watching and waiting for signs of a new day dawning for all of us.

The themes of All Saints extend into all of Christian life. We call to mind every Sunday the great company of saints as we join their unending hymn around the communion table. We bear witness to new saints being born from the baptismal waters. Perhaps we visit a cemetery on the anniversary of a death or on other church festivals. Many congregations include every week a final petition in the intercessions giving thanks for the lives of saints who died during the week in this or a past year. Some Christians are rediscovering natural burial as a way to honor our return to the earth in hope alongside all living creatures. And every time we see the sign of the cross or trace it on our bodies, we remember the one whose death and resurrection has formed this company of all the saints, hallowing all our lives and deaths.

All Saints reimagines the world—all of it. Even in death, God is making all things new.

For All the Saints, Pastor Doug