A Name Above All Other Names
The seasons come and go as do the seasons of our lives. That is a wonderful metaphor for the distinct phases of life, youth as spring, adulthood as summer, autumn as maturity and winter as the time for facing mortality which my wife and I are now facing.
Steven Paulson wrote a blog entitled What to Preach and Not to Preach at Christmas that set me to thinking about this metaphor. We can preach the history of Christmas over and over again, just as Martin Luther intended that we do as parents who teach their children Luther’s Small Catechism.
“Jesus Christ is true God, Son of the Father from eternity, and true man, born of the Virgin Mary.” Most who attend a church sort of believe the facts, but that the One who started out in diapers was the creator of the world? Not just a baby born in swaddling clothes in a manger but the Creator, Redeemer and Comforter of this world?
Let’s go back to Luther’s Small Catechism, Second Article, Paragraph One. “True God . . . True Lord . . . is my Lord.” Can you imagine a father or a mother so enthralled?
God did not become incarnate in Christ so that He could become thrilled over discovering who we are. At best our outward behaviors we hold up to others are just an ugly weed of something far more sinister, with deep, ugly roots that no other human being can extract.
Steven Paulson is telling us that we have become too busy in the seasons of our lives becoming sucked into the capitalistic accumulation called paganism to ever hear the promise.
Supposing a couple is getting married and the pastor asks the man if he will take this woman to be his lawful wedded wife. The man goes off on a tangent about the signs of love. The woman responds, “Thanks for the sermon on love, but all I want to know is whether or not you love me.”
This is about a love that is given, not acquired. This is what Luther meant when he said that “Christ is not only talked about, but springs up from you and me and is preserved.” That is to say that Christ is not just talked about but denotes His Name. He died for you and me and He owns us through His blood. As Martin Luther said in a famous Christmas sermon, “for you and for your benefit, not for your honor.”
That is why you can never doubt that He saved you, because He is the One who did.
