“On the eighth day, when it was time to circumcise Him, He was named Jesus, the name the angel had given Him before He had been conceived.”  Luke 2:21

Aller anfang ist schwer!  So states the old German proverb which means, “Every beginning is challenging!” 

That saying is doubly true for January 1^st.  In the world, of course, this day is celebrated as New Year’s Day.  On the church calendar it’s called the Festival of the Name of Jesus, the Day of the Circumcision of Our Lord.    In the world and in the church we focus our thoughts on something new.  That circumcision marked Jesus as God’s own Son and set before Him the new path of the Messiah, the “Chosen One”, to work our salvation.  New Year’s Day brings us a blank calendar filled with opportunities.

The new baby Mary and Joseph brought to the temple brings to all people the promise of new life through the forgiveness of sins won for us by His atoning death on the cross.  But with this newness comes challenge and often difficulties and pain.  During His earthly life, Jesus knew all of these.  Yet He lived with the peace of mind and heart that came from His close and abiding contact with His heavenly Father.  The New year invites us again to name Jesus as the Lord of our lives, to follow His example of living in a blessed relationship with God, and to rejoice in the knowledge that, whatever the New Year brings, He is there for us as our Savior, our Guide and our Friend!

A blessed 2025 to everyone as we together walk with Him!  Pastor Craig

If you’re like me, you have one of these “Keep Christ in Christmas” magnets stuck on your car.  It’s a message that we need to support with action during this season in the church.  How important for Christians to consciously and purposefully act on the religious aspects during Christmas-time.

But with a New Year ahead, our saying expands:  “Keep Christ Out of Christmas!” and may I add an “as well.”  You see, we must not keep Christ only in Christmas. For the birth of Christ is great news. Not because a baby was born, but that a Savior was born. To be the Savior means leaving Christmas, it means moving from Bethlehem to Calvary, from the cradle to the cross. As much as the world pushes against Christmas, it really has no objection to the babe in the manger, so long as He stays there, as long as we keep him stuck in Christmas.  Thank God the salvation story moves on and so do we!

With the Wise Men visit, Herod asked the chief priests and teachers where Christ was to be born, and they told him, “In Bethlehem in Judea.”  These folks knew the ancient prophecies well, yet having given the right answer, they weren’t even curious to follow through.  They returned to their routine without another thought.  They were folks who knew the price of everything but the value of nothing.

The irony is that these folks had prayed daily for the coming Messiah.  But is wasn’t a Savior they were looking for, a baby born to give Himself so that we might live.  They wanted a King to validate their way of life and empower their self-righteousness.  They missed the greatest opportunity of their lives because they were lost in themselves.

As we move in to 2025 together, we doing so carrying the Christ, whose birth we have celebrated, beyond Christmas!  A Savior has come!  He has not only been born long ago, He has been born through faith in our hearts.  We need Him in the coming year to save and to lead us!  The Lord will richly bless us as we carry Christ beyond Christmas into our worlds!

A Blessed New Year to All!  Love in the Christ, Pastor Craig

Christmas Eve is called by some the Feast of Adam and Eve.  Martin Luther, reflected by the “sin” tree in our sanctuary, observed it by placing apples on the Christmas tree.  That tree reminds us not only of Adam and Eve’s sin, but our own also.  That sin reminds us of God’s love for us that moved Him to send His Son to enter our world.  The white salvation tree on the right side of our sanctuary reminds us that Jesus is God’s answer to sin.  The red of sin is nailed to His cross (the red cross in the tree’s center).  His white righteousness is ours through faith.

The Good News of Christmas is that Jesus came for a world of sinners.  That’s why the angel(s) visited shepherds.  Yes, those stinky, sheep-smelling shepherds, not allowed in the temple, were the first to worship the Shepherd king in the midst of a stable’s aroma.  Micah once prophesied the Messiah would be a ruler to shepherd God’s people.  What better worship than shepherds, who needed cleansing inside and out, to welcome the coming of a shepherd.

Jesus was more than a shepherd, though.  He identified Himself as The Good Shepherd.  He promised to lay down His life for the sheep.  We are those sheep, stinky with the aroma of sin!  Without that recognition, there is no Christmas for us, and the truth that a Savior has been born means nothing.

“Hark, the Herald Angels” sing not only to the shepherds but to us.  The angel tells us not to be afraid.  We need not fear any consequence of sin, even death.  Our joy is in the Shepherd, who was born to cleanse us from the stench of sin.  He has defeated death at its own game.  He laid down His life for us and took it up again so that the words of that beautiful carol are especially true for us.  Just sing the third stanza with me:

Hail the heaven-born Prince of Peace!
Hail the Sun of Righteousness!
Light and life to all he brings,
risen with healing in his wings.
Mild he lays his glory by,
born that we no more may die,
born to raise us from the earth,
born to give us second birth.

The Christ born in a manger is our Good Shepherd, leading us through life to the “second birth.”  This Christmas, as we see and celebrate the baby Jesus, may we especially celebrate what Jesus came to do:  to bring us heaven.

Hope to see you in worship!  Christmas Eve at 5 & 8 p.m.  Christmas Day at 11 a.m.  Love this Christmas and always, Pastor Craig

Having just celebrated Thanksgiving in worship and family gatherings, it’s time to repay God.  I know those words are theologically dangerous.  Yet Psalm 116:12 poses the question, “How can I repay the Lord for all His goodness to me?” 

The psalmist surely knows we can never repay God for all of His goodness for us.  Pay Him back for sacrificing His only Son to redeem us from sin and death?  No way!  It just can’t be done, question closed, right?  Well then, why the question?

God doesn’t demand repayment.  But He does call us to live lives of thanks and service for Him.  Children can never repay their parents for the years of sacrificial caring they receive.  Parents ask for two responses: that their children love them as they are loved, and be willing to pass their love on to the next generation.  We children of the Heavenly Father “repay” or live our response in the same two ways: by loving Him and passing on that love to others through what we say and do!

When we slip in our love for God and our service to others, we need only remember “all His goodness to me!”  That goodness begins with His forgiving me over and over again for my sins through my Savior Jesus Christ.  It continues with so many blessings that flow into my life.  Just take a moment and count those blessings and you will from the heart exclaim, “How can I repay the Lord?”

God has no problem supplying us with opportunities for us to respond, that is, to be thanks-filled worshipers of our good God, to be thanks-filled examples to our families and the young ones around us, and to do good for the least, the last and the lost so that they too can know and live for Jesus!

I thank God for each of you!!  Love, Pastor Craig

How can I repay the Lord for all His goodness to me?  I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord.  I will fulfill my vows to the Lord in the presence of all His people.  Psalm 116:12-14

Can you believe it?  Ever since Halloween, media has been pushing pushing the world’s idea of Christmas!  I have a dear friend that often reminds me of how many days left before Christmas.  Yet in the church there’s still Thanksgiving and Advent ahead to prepare us to celebrate our Savior’s birth.

With November how important it is for us to remember Thanksgiving.  It becomes the heart-set to the Advent and Christmas seasons to follow.  This morning I read Psalm 116 in my devotion.  The question raised by the psalmist gives us Thanksgiving pause:  “How can I repay the Lord for all His goodness to me?”

During gift purchasing for the celebration of Christmas, many of us will jokingly complain about how hard it is to buy a gift for the person who has everything.  The joking pun (especially by the fiscally minded like me) is to then say, “I will just give them the gift of myself.”  With God, it’s not just a joking matter, but a serious challenge.  God does have everything!  Everything, including ourselves, is the work of His creative hands.  This puts us into a position of obligation.  We owe our lives and everything we have to God.  So, how do we respond to the psalmist’s question?  How do we express ourselves to the God who has given each of us life and eternal life in His Son, Jesus Christ?

Fortunately, we’re not left to guess.  The Bible tells us what God is looking for from us.  He is looking for nothing more than a sincere “thank you!”  God expects us to receive His generous gifts with a thankful heart.  That’s what Thanksgiving is all about.  How could we not be moved to gratitude when we think of the lengths to which God has gone to create us and then to redeem us in the death and resurrection of Jesus?  Our heavenly Father loves us so much He gives the gift of His Son!

God in His Word also repeatedly stresses that He expects our thanks be given to Him in worship!  I’m sorry to pop the bubble of all those who brush God off with the comment, “I can worship God anywhere, at home or on the golf course.”  Well, no, the psalmist says, “I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord.  I will fulfill my vows to the Lord in the presence of all His people.”  When we gather to worship, whether during the time of Thanksgiving or during Advent  or on Christmas or any Sunday, it is with the purpose of thanking and praising God, giving to Him the only thing which He really asks in return for His generous blessings:  grateful worship offered to Him in faith and love.  And then a life filled with thankful worship through loving acts for others

May our worship on Thanksgiving Eve (7:00 p.m. with a pie fellowship) throughout Advent and at Christmas (Eve:  5 & 8 p.m. and Day:  11:00 a.m.) swell with the hearts and voices of God’s thankful people who take time to thank God for all His goodness to us!  I give God thanks for each of you!  Love in Christ, Pastor Craig