GEMS FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT (Please read Ecclesiastes 2.) Many find Ecclesiastes rather gloomy. They think it says that life and everything in it are meaningless. What it actually says is that life is meaningless…
STUDIES IN THE NEW TESTAMENT “By faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they were encircled for seven days. By faith the harlot Rahab did not perish with those who did not believe, when…
READY TO GIVE AN ANSWER (GOSSIP) Passages that will help you respond when people say… As I write these words, I am seated at my desk, fully armed. I’m not expecting any trouble, it’s just…
The ROAD TO REFORMATION In observation of the 500th anniversary of the Lutheran Reformation, we are presenting a brief survey of the life of Martin Luther. The series continues with major events in the life…
A SLICE OF LIFE IN THE CLC SNAPSHOTS OF CONGREGATIONS FROM AROUND THE CHURCH OF THE LUTHERAN CONFESSION As I am writing this, Watertown is expecting a major weather system to be coming through in…
MISSION NEWSLETTER Every other month our CLC Board of Missions updates us with recent news from various mission fields. The CLC’s involvement in Togo began in September of 2001 when Missionary David Koenig began correspondence…
NOTES FROM THE FIELD In this series, thoseinvolved with CLC foreign missions profile one aspect of our overseas endeavors. From the Missionary’s Blog, December 11, 2011: “Today the entire congregation at Moi’s Bridge, Kenya, was…
TLH = The Lutheran Hymnal, 1941; WS = Worship Supplement 2000; LSB = Lutheran Service Book, 2008
Date Verse Reading Comments
Jan 1 TLH 347: Genesis 1:1-31At the start of the new year, we are reminded of God’s new creation, both the one at the beginning and the one yet to come.
Jan 2 TLH 54: Joshua 3:1-17 We do not know where the new year will take us, but we know that our God will go before us.
Jan 3 TLH 657: Psalm 2:1-12 Our Lord Jesus Christ is Lord of the nations, and we take refuge in Him.
Jan 4 TLH 118: Job 1:1-22 Our happiness is not in earthly things, but in knowing that whatever trials the Lord allows are for our good.
Jan 5 TLH 375: Isaiah 1:10-20How are our hearts made clean before the Lord so that we do not give Him “meaningless offerings”? He must make them clean (v. 18).
COVER STORY – EPIPHANY
If we could travel back in time, one of the many things that would no doubt surprise us would be the changes that have occurred in ecclesiastical emphasis. Virtually all Christians today would, for example, list Christmas, Good Friday, and Easter as our greatest Christian celebrations. Yet church historians tell us that many Christians in prior centuries regarded Epiphany as the preeminent Christian event. The change is difficult for modern Christians to grasp, especially given the fact that Epiphany receives so little emphasis or notoriety today. What caused such a dramatic shift in emphasis? In two words, ignorance and entitlement.
Christians today have no trouble identifying the basis for our modern celebrations of Christmas, Good Friday, and Easter: Jesus was born, Jesus died, and Jesus rose from the dead. Not so with Epiphany. While many could explain that the word epiphany means “manifestation” or “appearance”—and might even be able to associate Epiphany with the arrival of the Magi, the baptism of Jesus, and Jesus’ first miracle at the wedding feast in Cana—few could articulate the importance of those events. In the minds of most Christians today, Epiphany is encapsulated in Christmas. Jesus manifested Himself on earth at His birth. It seems illogical to us that God would send His Son into our world, but then withhold the revelation of that Son. The three events that are routinely commemorated in connection with the Epiphany simply tell us how God revealed His Son also to the Gentiles (the star that drew the Magi), how the Father announced to the Jews that Jesus was His Son (His Baptism), and the revelation of the miraculous powers that verified Jesus’ deity (changing water to wine in Cana). Given all of that, Christians today still find it difficult to grasp the significance that prior generations recognized in Epiphany.
DEVOTION – PRO-LIFE
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. (Psalm 139:6, 13-16 NIV)
Mankind is presumptuous. We are proud. We declare our wisdom as superior to all other wisdom, and if we cannot understand something, then we will do what we will do. And so it is with the issues of life. We behave as if we are the masters of our own fate and determine the outcome of all life, and as if there is no other authority or might or dominion over man in this world.
