Merry Christmas!

Here is a link to the sermon I gave at Trinity on Sunday for those interested in reading it.

http://www.trinity-ec.org/sermons.htm

Have a blessed holiday!

Semester 1 Done!

Well I survived my finals week! I felt it went pretty well. Overall I took one essay test covering 1400 years of Church history and wrote over 25 pages of papers. I still have to finish up my online Greek class, but that is not due until Monday. So overall, I am finished with the semester!

Its quite exciting. I will be home for over two weeks now. It will be great to hang out with Chad and spend time with family over Christmas. I will get to rest and take some time for reflection.

Onto Christmas now! Katie and I are working on a present for our parents. We are recording a CD (mostly for my mom). :) It will be fun. We are doing it at a semi-professional studio in Tomah.

I hope everyone has a blessed Christmas and holiday season.

Immanuel

After finishing classes this week, I am amazed by all the work that is left to do for finals next week. But I am also amazed that the semester is nearly over! It seems to have flown by. We are already in our second week of Advent, preparing for the celebration of Christ’s birth. Along with this preparation and finals, I am also preparing a sermon for the 4^th Sunday in Advent that I will be giving at Trinity for our 10:30 service.

The text for that Sunday is the birth story of Jesus from Matthew’s gospel. As you may know only two of the four gospels have a birth story for Jesus. Matthew and Luke. Matthew’s account follows the perspective of Joseph, while Luke’s account follows the story of Mary and the shepherds. In my sermon I am highlighting the story of Joseph and his role in the birth of Jesus. This story often gets pushed to the side in our Christmas celebrations. But it is a very interesting perspective.

God speaks to Joseph in a dream telling him he should not divorce Mary as he had intended. Rather, he should marry her and care for the baby, because the baby is of the Holy Spirit. Joseph demonstrates an amazing act of faith in God, choosing radical obedience over skepticism or doubt. Joseph is entrusted with the name that they shall call the baby boy. We know the name of course is Jesus. The name’s literal meaning is “God saves.” So in this text we have two names for this child of promise: Immanuel “God with us” and Jesus “God saves.”

In preparing for Christmas this year, Katie and I decorated our house with our tree and Christmas decorations. We made cookies and sang Christmas songs. And now I am also trying to remember that amidst these wonderful Christmas traditions, it all stems back to the joy of Christmas, which is Immanuel, God with us.