The Baptism of Our Lord 2025

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Descending into the waters, the sinless One becomes sinner. For that was the content of the water. All the transgressions of all those coming to John, they were all in the water. And in that water, too, were the drowned bodies of Pharaoh’s army. And the sad horror of the infants Pharaoh cast there. The stench of corruption from Noah’s flood. The blood of the Nile. The blood of Abel. The rotting core of the fruit Eve tasted. It’s all there, in water unfit for bathing….

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YHWH Saves

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Do you not see your own peril, that the power of your own sinful flesh will rule you unless it is brought under subjection to the Name? And Satan comes against you, “in battle array like Goliath” [Müller]. How did David meet the giant? He said, “You come to me with a sword, with a spear, and with a javelin. But I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you and take your head from you” [1 Sam. 17:45f]. This David had fought with wild animals, and vanquished them, killing lion and bear. But he goes out not in his own name, not in his own strength, not in his own power. He goes out in the Name of the LORD, the Name YHWH….

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The First Sunday after Christmas 2024

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Outside the temple there is no peace. You have challenges in your family. You feel arthritis settling in, or some other part of you is aging. Friends turn against you. Irrational people will give you no peace.

But here, in Jesus …

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Glory to God in the Lowest

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Glory to God in the Lowest, for God deliberately falls into the low places. Jesus is God, in the flesh. But in entering the world, He sets aside the rights of divinity. He must learn the alphabet. He cannot walk, He cannot crawl. He must be nursed. And swaddled. He has become the lowest. And He goes down, into ditches, into loneliness, into hunger. He knows betrayal. A feeding trough is His crib. …

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Lo! He Comes with Clouds Descending

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Non nobis - “not to us [be the glory].” The world is filled with people who say the opposite: “To us be the glory; to me be the glory.” If we’re honest, that’s who we are, deep down. What a gift, to learn from early childhood to sing the opposite: Non nobis - “not to us,” Domine, “Lord” - Sed nomini tuo - “but to Your name” be the glory….

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Drain the Swamp

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“Drain the swamp” is either a threat or a promise. It depends on which side of the swamp you reside. Turning a swamp into solid ground would require significant upheaval of terrain.

When the prophet Isaiah says the valleys shall be lifted up and the mountains made low, there’s a similar political aggressiveness to it. The explosive power to bring down a mountain is not trifling. The mountains are the rulers – kings and emperors; the valleys are the little people who pay the taxes and are fodder for their masters’ wars. Kings on mountains don’t take kindly to threats….

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Beloved, Devote Yourselves to Holy Conduct and Piety

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“Beloved.” That’s how the Apostle Peter addresses his hearers. And it’s how God addresses you. Even when He reproves you—through me, the preacher whom He also reproves—He reproves you as His beloved.

“Beloved, do not forget this one thing.” It would be better to say, “Don’t let this escape your notice.” The Holy Spirit in the Holy Scriptures is telling us a hidden truth. He’s revealing to us a secret, or a mystery. It is the mystery of how time with God is not at all as we experience time….

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