Dec. 24-Advent 4-A number of churches struggled with having two services today, with having the last Sunday of Advent on Christmas Eve. For us, the liturgical calendar is a good way to go through the flow of the Christian year, but it is not mandatory.I guess that it was 2006 the last time Christmas Eve was on a Sunday. So liturgical time will blur from Advent preparation to the sudden appearance of christmas, just as sudden as the birth in Bethlehem.
Many of us recognize the words from Isaiah more from Handel’s Messiah than from Isaiah 9 itself.I must admit that sometimes I feel many churches look more like Father time on the way out than the new birth moving into 2018. God makes an instead 3 times.
Is. makes a move to the future. Note that his authority will "grow"; it is not fully mature to begin with, but will not diminish, so it is an image of growth. The theme of endless peace, justice, and righteousness anticipates the creation wide change This future is possible because of what God has done and will do--the "zeal" of the Lord, that is, the passionate and unfailing commitment of God to work toward this future.Fretheim
Tull- Is. 9 marks a decided change from what precedes it. “distress and darkness with no daybreaks” (verse 22). Isaiah uses this one man’s experience as a proxy for the darkness that sets in over everyone, in a land filled with people like him on restless and frustrated searches Whether he looks up or down, darkness is the only reality he can see (8:22). This dark shadow falls over everyone living in the “land in straits” (verse 23). a degraded existence on the underside Isaiah states, “he will go about wretched and hungry; and when he is hungry, he shall rage ” (verse 21). Poverty and hunger change a person. Hunger breeds rage. The eyes see red. Isaiah sees life under the yoke as a network of injustice that creates enemies among neighbors, catalyzes conflict instead of cooperation, and intensifies boundaries that separate difference. Life under the yoke has everyone seeing red.Ingrid Lilly
Everything in our verses from Titus center on grace. I just heard a gentleman say he never grasped the idea of grace. That is no surprise, as it conflicts from our most basic ideas about how the world should work in terms of working toward a goal, without any help, without any favors.This is a perfect time of year for it. Grace is God’s gift with no strings attached; Grace is god’s gift of Jesus christ.grace falls as gently as a Christmas snowfall.Grace comes with a blast as bracing as a north wind.Grace is wrapped carfully in the swaddling of the infant of ?bethlehem with the care of a child with her tongue out tryhing to wrap a present for Grandma.
Look at the window a bit. At the bottom is o little town of bethlehem. Look at its center a cosmic manger intersects with our everyday world to help bring into our world the titles of Isaiah.the star at top picks up the natal star that rhew magi blundered about following. Look at what is added a it is a star of David, from whom the Messiah would emerge. A beam of light connects it to the heavens.Look at its top, a cross is in there, just as Luther said that a shadow rested on the manger along with the heavenly light.We try so to make things attractive at this time of year. In reality it is our attempt to match surroundings with the words of Scripture’s promise.
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