Luke 2:1-20John 1:1-18Luke 2:22-40 Dear Partner, I’m going to offer just a few sentences on each of the three preaching occasions this week – Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and the 1st Sunday of Christmas. All are offered in the context of what a different, strange, and difficult Christmas it will be, attended by losses small and large, and yet they are also offered in the confidence that it is still Christmas and there is still much over which to rejoice. Christmas Eve While so incredibly familiar to us, Luke’s nativity story has the capacity not just to sound different in light of our present circumstances but also...

Knowing that this Christmas would be so very different than Christmases past, and knowing that so many pastoral leaders are not only having to make difficult decisions to keep their people and communities safe but then also explain and sometimes defend those decisions, and knowing that all of us are already pressed at this time of the year, even without a global pandemic… Know all of this, Ben Ciesik and Mary Pechauer (co-lead pastors at Bethlehem Lutheran Church of the Twin Cities) and I decided to publish some resources to help us keep Christmas amid the coronavirus in ways that are joyful, faithful, and safe. The site we...

Luke 1:26-38 Luke 2:1-20 Dear Partner in Preaching, Martin Luther loved Mary. You may already have known that. As a life-long Lutheran pastor, I have regularly been surprised by how few Lutherans know that. I suspect that’s because, while Lutherans often know too little about their Roman Catholic kindred, one of the things they do know is that Mary has a significant place in Roman Catholic piety and so assume Luther would not have been a fan. But he was; indeed, he was a huge fan. To Luther, Mary represented the typical pattern of God’s interaction with humans. Indeed, not just interaction, but election. That is, it wasn’t Mary’s...

Dear Partner in Preaching, Beginnings are so very important. And while there are many, many ways to preach the wonderful and well known passages for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, this year I was struck by how the first verses of the narratives of both Luke and John set a helpful context in which we may hear the Christmas story and promise anew. Christmas Eve: Luke 2:1-20 Over the years you’ve probably had one or two parishioners who believed – and told you! – that the King James’ Version is the only “real” translation – “if it was good enough for the Apostles, it’s good enough for me!” While I don’t normally share...