Holy Innocents

Christmas II

January 6, 2010

From Sunday, January 3, 2010 – The Second Sunday after Christmas Gospel: St. Matthew 2:13-23 There’s always a bit of a letdown after the holidays. The Bible stories that come after Christmas are no exception. From glad tidings of great joy to all people, we move to King Herod wishing to murder the infant Jesus. [...]

Read the full article →

Holy Innocents, Martyrs

December 29, 2008

Note: In an ordinary year, I would have likely observed the First Sunday after Christmas on the day this sermon was preached, 12/28/08. However, I will be away from Immanuel next Sunday and over the Epiphany holiday, consequently we are transferring Epiphany to the preceding Sunday, thus missing the readings for Christmas II, which also [...]

Read the full article →

Mystery in the little martyrs of Bethlehem

December 27, 2008

I’m struggling writing my sermon for tomorrow, Holy Innocents (Mt. 2.13-18), because I simply don’t know what to make of those little children who were killed. My mind keeps going to the still-born baby I buried a couple of years ago, the time I visited the hospital to pray with a woman about to have [...]

Read the full article →

The one and only Son

December 26, 2008

In an earlier post today, I wondered why Matthew renders “sons” in Jeremiah as “children” (tekna). Gibbs writes in his commentary on Matthew [thanks, Heidi!], “Matthew has taken ‘sons’ in both the LXX and the MT and deliberately rendered it as ‘children.’ His purpose in so doing is to emphasize that Jesus is the true [...]

Read the full article →

Matthean Mystery

December 26, 2008

Well, not a deep mystery; more a puzzle, really: What text of Jeremiah was St. Matthew working with? In the Gospel for the Holy Innocents (Dec. 28), Matthew quotes Jeremiah 31.15. The first thing I noticed was that both the ESV and NKJ translate bane (“sons”) as “children,” despite the LXX having huiois (sons). For some [...]

Read the full article →