_ 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” (Roland Bainton (ed.), Martin Luther’s Christmas Book (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1948), 5)?

We learned from our teachers in grade 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 Josh

_On the evening of Saturday, October 15th I was reminded that we as God’s creatures cannot help but live all our days in seasons. October 15th marked the end of a great season of baseball for the Detroit Tigers and for me and Talitha personally, as former residents of Michigan and big fans of the “Mo-Town” boys of summer (although the score of the game was very disappointing—a 15-5 loss to the Texas Rangers). This is just one example of the tendency that of us have to live by seasons.

The author of the article entitled “Marking Time is Making Time” in the September 2011 issue of the Lutheran Witness reminds his readers that “we live by the seasons of nature. We live by the seasons of our favorite sports teams and whether or not they get to celebrate festival days like the World Series or the Super Bowl. We live by the seasons of our favorite TV shows or the next must-see summer movie. We even live by the ever-changing Google logo marking the virtual days of the internet” (pg. 6). The truth that we intertwine our lives in the rhythm of seasons is probably more relatable for our grandparents and great grandparents of a more agrarian culture who worked closely with the land and depended deeply upon the changing seasons. Nonetheless, it is evident that there is a rhythm to the day—sunrise and sunset, work and rest. There is a rhythm to the year—springtime and harvest. There is a rhythm to our lives—birth and death. In the church, this rhythm is interwoven in God’s time.

The church keeps time differently than our culture. For the church, the last Sunday of the year is the fifth Sunday before Christmas (November 20th this year) and the first Sunday of the year is the fourth Sunday before Christmas (November 27th this year). Like in many parts of the world the changing of colors and the falling of leaves on a tree gives way to Winter and the first snowfall, so also the Last Sunday of the church year gives way to the first Sunday of Advent and the church begins a new year of keeping time.

As we roll into a new church year and shift from the parament and vestment colors of green to blue, from the season of Pentecost to the season of Advent, let us remember that the purpose of doing so is to tell the most important story of our lives. The purpose for keeping time according to a church year is to “tell the story of how a God beyond time acts within time to save and restore life” (“Marking Time is Making Time,” Lutheran Witness, pg. 5). The church year is interwoven in the midst of your busy life and mine to tell the story of how God acts today in the person of Jesus Christ to save and restore your broken, sinful life and mine. Indeed, God acts in history to save and restore a broken creation in its entirety. For, “The creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to sin and decay and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Rom 8:19-21). The church waits with patience and in hope (Rom 8:25) while she “fixes her eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of the faith” (Heb 12:2) of all her members.

The church waits with patience and hope in the season of Advent for the birth of Jesus Christ on Christmas morning. The church celebrates the birth of Christ and looks forward to the ministry of Christ for the world, inaugurated in the baptism of Jesus and the season of Epiphany. The church looks in faith to the one who was transfigured before men and was revealed in glory to be the beloved Son of God in whom the Heavenly Father is well pleased. The church travels together through a somber Lenten season in its pilgrimage to the cross of Calvary. The church praises the God who brings life from death on Easter morning and lives in Easter joy for the weeks to follow as she proclaims triumphantly, “Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!” The church adorns itself in red on Pentecost Sunday, fifty days after Easter Sunday, to remember that even though Jesus has ascended to be with the Heavenly Father, God has not left his church without his presence—the gift of the Holy Spirit, the comforter and helper for all Christians. And for the long weeks of the summer, while plants and flowers grow and flourish and many people prepare for the Fall harvest, the church and her members continue to live by God’s grace, through faith alone in the Spirit of God until the Last Sunday of the church year—and to be sure—until the very end of time. We revolve through the seasons of the church year and remember that all time revolves around the good news of God acting in history through Jesus Christ to save and restore all things.

As God’s creatures we live in time and we cannot help but keep time. As a baseball season ends, another football season approaches its conclusion, our favorite TV show airs the final episode of its season or series, or even as certain events remind us that we are in a different season of our lives, let us continue to fix our eyes on Jesus who envelops all time in the seasons and events of his life, death, and resurrection.

In Christ,

Pastor Josh

Over 500 Lutherans were surveyed and asked what they would like to see in a book about Lutheranism.  The result of that survey is Lutheranism 101.  Join us November 27th as we begin studying this book and answering the question of what it means to be Lutheran.