12/21/17
Many churches throughout the world use a Bible reading schedule called a "lectionary." It's just a fancy word meaning "selected readings." Posts like this reflect on the readings for an upcoming Sunday or other Church holiday, as found in the three-year lectionary.
Our Epistle reading for this week is especially fitting to this year’s calendar. On the last Sunday of Advent, which is also Christmas Eve this year, we read from Romans 16:25-27. It points directly to the coming Lord, Jesus, the one whose “big” celebration begins in the evening.
Jesus is the fulfillment of all the Scriptures. He is the clear proclamation of God’s forgiveness. Through the history of the world he has been veiled in shadows and mystery, but at last, at the start of the first Christmas, he was revealed plainly. The Lord of all glory comes to draw all nations to himself. And, as we celebrate at Christmas, he comes in the person of a fragile newborn. Indeed, this is a great mystery, that the eternal God can be born, that the one who created and sustains all things by his powerful word can be an infant who doesn’t know how to speak.
In the incarnation of Christ, God does many impossible things, all at once. In short, he shows himself to be God. To him be all glory forever and ever.
If this brief meditation was helpful to you, I hope you will check out the other materials on our website at www.WittenbergCoMo.com and consider supporting us.
Many churches throughout the world use a Bible reading schedule called a "lectionary." It's just a fancy word meaning "selected readings." Posts like this reflect on the readings for an upcoming Sunday or other Church holiday, as found in the three-year lectionary.
Our Epistle reading for this week is especially fitting to this year’s calendar. On the last Sunday of Advent, which is also Christmas Eve this year, we read from Romans 16:25-27. It points directly to the coming Lord, Jesus, the one whose “big” celebration begins in the evening.
Jesus is the fulfillment of all the Scriptures. He is the clear proclamation of God’s forgiveness. Through the history of the world he has been veiled in shadows and mystery, but at last, at the start of the first Christmas, he was revealed plainly. The Lord of all glory comes to draw all nations to himself. And, as we celebrate at Christmas, he comes in the person of a fragile newborn. Indeed, this is a great mystery, that the eternal God can be born, that the one who created and sustains all things by his powerful word can be an infant who doesn’t know how to speak.
In the incarnation of Christ, God does many impossible things, all at once. In short, he shows himself to be God. To him be all glory forever and ever.
If this brief meditation was helpful to you, I hope you will check out the other materials on our website at www.WittenbergCoMo.com and consider supporting us.
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