“THE SUNDAY AFTER CHRISTMAS 2023”
Saint Luke 2: 33-40
The Sunday after Christmas: 31 December Anno Domini 2023
Fr Jay Watson, SSP
One of your sins is that you are incapable of marveling. Oh, you might be awed, a bit, at how beautiful a newborn baby is—especially if it is yours. But most Christians today are jaded, cynical, and just so worldly. Even a gorgeous sunset is met with a quick glance—and then it is back to the smart phone, the sports Baal, or whatever is being shoved into your mouths or drunk.
Do you marvel when you read the very Word of God? Probably not. The sin that all struggle with is unbelief, or at least, weak faith. If one truly believed The Holy Scriptures were the Word of God, then one would daily “read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest.” I can’t make you read your Bible.
Do you marvel at your Holy + Baptisms? Sadly, some Lutherans never think about their new rebirth by Water and The Word—a regeneration into the everlasting Life and Life of Christ. The best I can do is make you tell me the date of your Baptism so it can be included on the Parish roster and address log.
Do you marvel at receiving The Blessed Sacrament? Here is where sin and rejection of Christ’s Word is manifest. Yes, even amongst so-called Lutherans. I remember being told by a reliable source that a former parishioner of a pastor, who was a leader and mover in that parish, said, almost with pride, “I never believed all that true Body and Blood stuff that the former pastor kept trying to make everyone agree with—I am not Catholic!” I wonder how many parishioners in the entire LCMS share similar Zwinglian or Calvinistic views about The Precious Body and Blood of God?
I can not even make you act in ways that truly reflect what you should believe about receiving The Holy Body and Blood. The best I can do is make men take off their ball-caps and communicants not approach with inappropriate tee-shirts. How the Society of God has fallen.
Saint Joseph and The Ever Virgin, mother of God, marvelled at those things which Saint Simeon had said; those things which Saint Anna had said. They were in awe of The Body and Blood of The Christ of God—they were holding It; holding Him!
Simeon was pastoring to The Holy Family. God The Holy Spirit had sent both him, and Anna, to the Temple that historic day. And this historic day they are placed with God’s Words on their lips into your ears.
The God baby Who was born on Christmas, Who was Circumcised on the 8th day, and Who then on the 40th day was taken to the Temple to be “Presented,” is the child, The Saving One “set of the fall and rising again of many in Israel.” And no, not the pagan Talmudic-tradition inventing Pharisees and Sadducees; not the Jews who were to reject and kill Messiah. No, the Israel is God’s New Testament people of The Way—The Christian Church.
Jesus is THE SIGN. He is both The Sign of God’s wrath against sin—your sin—The Law; and He is The Sign of God’s Mercy and Forgiveness—for you—The Gospel. This sign is The Cross, more specifically, The Crucifix. We the Church follow God The Holy Ghost as He gave St. Paul to proclaim: “we preach Christ Crucified!” It is the suffering and dying God/Man Who is spoken against. His believing followers are spoken against and persecuted. You will be harassed, attacked, and set-upon by those who have continued crucifying Christ for two millennia. Put on helmet, buckler, greaves. Be equipped with shield, breastplate, spear, and sword. Be armed by The Spirit with The Word and The Sacraments. The war is coming. The war is here, now. The war is not only external, to-be-sure it is; but the war is also internal—the daily battles against “old Adam” sinful nature. You need to be felled, to fall, by The Commandments so that you may be lifted up from the ash heap, the dunghill of contrition and repentance, to the safety and peace of sonship in The Son of The Most High.
The sword that would pierce Saint Mary of Nazareth’s “own soul,” is first and foremost her passion and grief, a grief only a parent could even begin to understand, when she beheld her tender Son’s suffering and death on Calvary. She was there when Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea removed her dead son from the tree, and laid Him in the hillside tomb. But also, her soul is pierced, in that, the truth of her relationship to The Lord, is pierced, each and every time a so-called Christian denigrates her or even mocks her. This is not the behavior of Christians to our Christian ancestors and “fathers in the faith.” And more importantly, this occurs whenever a Calvinist, or—actually most protestant non-denominationalists—teach and believe the Nestorian Heresy. To be an orthodox, catholic, Chalcedonian, Christian—genuinely Lutheran, one must confess and believe as our Symbols declare—it conformity to Scripture: “Mary is the Mother of God.” This not a statement about Mary but about Jesus—Who He is! And there is no salvation apart from Him—His Name—His acts and works. This is the scandal, the stumbling block of “particularity.” This is for the fall of the unbeliever but the Rock upon Which He builds your Faith.
“And The Child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom.” Strong to keep The Law. Strong to go to The Cross. Strong to die and take His life back again and to give it to you. “And the Grace of God was upon Him.” It is now upon and in you.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of The Holy Ghost
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