[Seventh is a series of posts on Martin Luther’s Small Catechism] Everything that we do as Christians ought to in some way relate to the Ten Commandments. It is through the Ten Commandments that we learn how to worship God and how to love our neighbors.
As you know, laws change each and every day. And that is especially true during times of transitions of power, even in our country. And we ought to be careful in our church too that we do not constantly change the rules, whether they are rules of membership or church meeting time or admission to the Sacrament or some other things that come up.
But I remind you that God’s Law never changes and the laws that He established apply to all people in all times and places. There is definitely an attitude today that the Ten Commandments are old and outdated or that I know what to do and how to be a good person without the Ten Commandments. But that is not how God sees it and neither do we. For each one of us wants to follow Jesus.
So to get started, let’s take a look at the 1st Commandment: You shall have no other gods. That’s simple enough. God is your God. But He shall not be shared. We cannot believe in God and believe in Buddha. And that might not be so difficult for us here in our community.
But it is this commandment that is the foundation of all the others. It is meet, right, and salutary that we obey our parents, but do we put our trust in them more than we put our trust in God? Do we put our trust in our teachers or our employers more than we put our trust in our God?
What about the political leaders? Is our President our Savior? Of course not. It does not matter who he is. Remember the words of the Psalm. Put not your trust in princes. Rather, let us remember God is the Lord of Lords and the Kings of Kings.
God is God, and we are not. And we fear, love, and trust in Him above all things. Remember the temptation of Eve in the Garden, when the devil says, “You shall be like God.” Eve believed that lie and everybody fell into sin that day. We are not God.
Encore Post: [Twenty-Fifth post in a series on the Divine Service] Upon the completion of the beautiful Nunc Dimittis, the pastor or the assistant chants, “O give thanks unto the Lord for He is good,” and the congregation respond with the rest of verse one of Psalm 107, “and His mercy (ESV translates: steadfast love; the Hebrew is חֶסֶד transliterated CHESED) endureth forever.” However, the hymnal committee could have easily put Psalm 136, 2 Chronicles 20:21, or even Jeremiah 33:11 as the biblical reference. These later two bible references, 2 Chronicles and Jeremiah 33, both imply worship taking place with the singing of this verse.
And in the same manner of the worship of the people of God in the Old Testament and those whom Jeremiah prophesies, we sing our thanks to our Lord who has manifested his mercy and steadfast love toward us in this Sacrament which we just received. It is as if each time we receive the Sacrament, we are participating in the fulfillment of the Lord’s word to Jeremiah: “For I will restore the fortunes of the land as at first.” If you keep reading Jeremiah, you learn the fortunes are restored by the Righteous Branch, whose name is: The Lord is our righteousness.
The typical prayer said is Luther’s collect, which he penned for his German Mass. This prayer is beautiful in its simplicity as it gets to the point of the Sacrament we just received from Christ. However, it might serve the congregation well if the pastor expand the prayer for catechetical purposes, or if he takes time in bible or confirmation class to explain the petitions embedded in this simple prayer.
The salutary gift for which we give thanks is the very body and blood of Jesus Christ. Then we literally ask the Lord that having received into our bodies the body and blood of Christ, we be made to trust in the Triune God. In other words, we are praying that we be made holy, sanctified by the eating and the drinking of Christ’s body and blood. We do not just ask that we fulfill the first table of the Law in this prayer but we also pray that by the same body and blood, we also love our neighbor in ways that are pleasing to our Lord.
Encore Post: [Twenty-Third post in a series on the Divine Service] As the congregation sings the beautiful Agnus Dei, the pastor likely takes his place at the rail or near the altar to welcome up members of the congregation to take part in the foretaste of the feast to come. But before that, it is customary for the pastor and his assistants (if he has any), to receive the body and blood of our Lord before distributing to the congregation. There is some debate whether the pastor can “commune” himself or if an elder of the congregation should “commune” him. Generally, this is best left up to each individual congregation. In the days of Covid-19, you might actually see the pastor wait until the very end of the distribution to commune, since he might be wearing a mask, etc.
In some congregations, there is a communion rail where congregation members kneel to receive the body and blood of their Lord. In others, members come forward and stand in a semi-circle “table”. In others, you might see a more continuous flow of people and less of a “table” experience.
However, the church “does” distribution, the pastor is given the direction (rubric) to speak very specific words concerning the body and blood. Likely, some pastors conflate the two and maybe say a bit more. LSB recommends two options: “Take, eat, this the true body of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, given into death for your sins.” “Take, drink, this is the true blood of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, shed for the forgiveness of your sins.”
There also has been debate from time to time about how one should receive the Body of the Lord. Should one hold out their hand and take the host to their own mouth? Should the recipient allow the pastor to place the Body of Christ into their mouth? Both are fine ways to receive the Body of Christ. Some early church fathers actually wrote rather long theological treatises on how one is preferred over the other. Some said that it was better for the pastor or priest to place the Host on the tongue, as this was the best picture of pure reception. For the other side, some argued your hands became the throne on which the Lord Jesus sat and so they offered directions on how to make your hands ready to receive such a gift.
The same can be said concerning receiving the Blood of Christ. In today’s age, many people use the individual cup rather than taking a drink from the common cup. However, the reasons for using individual cups seem less theologically based. Some churches actually have a chalice in which there is a spout to allow for a person to receive into an individual cup the blood from the “common” cup.
However, one receives the Body and Blood of the Lord, may it be done in all reverence, acknowledging the fact that the Lamb of God, Who Comes to Save, is what we receive in the bread and wine given to us by the Pastor at the Distribution.
Rev. Jacob Hercamp Christ Lutheran Church Noblesville, Indiana
Encore Post: [Eighteenth post in a series on the Divine Service] The Lutheran Service Book has the heading of “The Words of our Lord” but I imagine many of you also have heard them called either “The Words of Institution” or “The Words of Consecration,” or just the “Verba”. In all cases they the titles refer to the same thing: The words our Lord said on the night when He was betrayed, concerning the bread and then the cup. With this we have reached the climax of the Service of the Sacrament.
The pastor has removed the veil from over the chalice and moved the hosts to the paten (liturgical name for the plate which holds the bread), if they were not there already and either will speak the Words or will chant them. Unfortunately, fewer congregations hear the Words chanted. During the time of the Reformation, chanting the Verba was the way many people distinguished the Lutheran Church from the Catholic Church. In my congregation, the altar is set up and attached to the wall, so the words of our Lord are chanted over the elements facing away from the congregation. In some churches, you will see a free standing table/altar, where the pastor can go to the other side and say the words toward the people.
Every Sunday, we rehearse the night of Jesus “being handed over.” That word for being handed over or betrayed is παραδιδωμι which also means tradition/hand down. Jesus says to do these things in remembrance of Him, so the Church has always done it and continues to “hand it down to the next generation of the faithful” just as Paul says when he gives his account of the night in 1 Corinthians 11. By participating in the Sacrament, we proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.
But who do we hear when those words are spoken? You hear Christ’s living voice. Just like the Gospel reading being the “high point” of the Service of the Word, so also the Words of Christ concerning His Supper are the high point of the Service of the Sacrament. So you actually hear the living voice of Jesus in these words, for they are not the Pastor’s words but Christ’s words.
Next time, we will dive into the words themselves but we can know for certain that they are Christ’s words for us, bidding us to come to eat and drink the very things through which He redeemed us and now through gives us life everlasting.
Encore Post: [Sixteenth post in a series on the Divine Service] On the heels of the Sanctus, the pastor leads the congregation in the prayer our Lord taught us to pray. The Lord’s prayer, being the prayer of the baptized, takes its place in the Service of the Sacrament. And below, I suggest many if not each petition of the prayer gets answered by the Sacrament of the Altar the congregation is preparing to receive.
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be on earth as it is in heaven. We will discuss the introduction and the first three petitions together. We are calling out to our Heavenly Father as Christ has instructed us to do. He is our Father who desires to give us good things, and He has given us the very best thing: His very own Son that we might be reconciled to him by the blood which is poured out for us. God’s Kingdom is coming, we just sang about it in the Sanctus: “Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord! And He comes to save, which is His will, that all call upon the name of the Son and be saved. Also eschatologically speaking, we are eating a foretaste of the meal that is in His Kingdom that will have no end.
Give us this day our daily bread. Luther spends more time talking about our physical needs here with the 4th petition, but in connection to the Sacrament and Jesus calling himself the bread of life in John 6, we can see the connection between this petition and the Sacrament we are about to receive. It is what truly gives us life and encouragement for the days ahead.
Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. We will be going to the rail and kneeling to receive, with the body and blood of Christ, the forgiveness of sins which He won for us by his death on the cross and his resurrection from the dead. Having received forgiveness from God in the Sacrament, we are strengthened to forgive one another. Christ did not just die for my sins, but also for the sins that my neighbor committed against me. Having been forgiven and shown mercy by Christ, we, too, should show mercy to one another. We are strengthened to do that by the Sacrament of the Altar.
Lead us not into temptation. By the very eating and drinking of Christ’s body and blood, we are taking into ourselves the very person who is our advocate and fighter against every temptation of Satan, the world, and our own flesh.
Deliver us from evil. Christ promises in John 6: “Truly, Truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live.” Jesus does not lie, and it is the will of His Father to raise up to eternal life those who believe in the one whom was pierced and out of whom blood and water poured out.
This is a bit longer of a post, but I do pray that this has given you a different way to say the prayer our Lord Jesus has taught us to pray when you say it right before receiving the Sacrament of the Altar. See in the Sacrament the answer to the prayer.
I have been reflecting quite a bit on the book of Isaiah as I am teaching through it in my Bible study. We just came through Isaiah 25 and the feast that the Lord prepares for all people. But interestingly, Moab is singled out as a nation not welcome to the feast (Isa 25:1-12). At the same time, I was reading to prepare for the Feast of the Epiphany. I was reading Matthew 2, and I did more work around the Magi and the “Star.” Just do a bible search for wise men or Magi and you will find yourself in the book of Daniel. Daniel, remember, was the chief of the wise men in Nebuchadnezzar’s court. The wise men probably were men from Babylon. So that helps us get a better picture of where these men came from. But how did they notice the star? Daniel was much more than a leader of Magi in Babylon. He was a prophet of the God of Israel. Daniel most likely had access in some way to the scrolls of the Pentateuch. He preached the Word of God to the Babylonians who would listen. And listen they did.
But the star–where does the star appear in the Pentateuch? The gentile prophet Balaam prophesies of the star coming out of Jacob along with a scepter (Numbers 24:17). This star does not just come out of Jacob. This is where the Isaiah 25:10 passage comes in. The star is promised to crush Moab!
The word crush is the same word that is used to describe the act of the seed of the woman upon the serpent. The seed of the woman will crush the head of the serpent. So now this star will crush Moab. In the “oracles concerning the nations” in Isaiah, Moab is seen in a negative light. And in Isaiah 25, Moab is seen as the universal enemy of all the people of God. Though the word is not “crush” and not a verbal match, the idea is the same. However, it is not the seed or the star who will trample down Moab. It is the people of God who will trample down their enemies. Moab is said to be like the dung trampled into the ground.
Taking this into the New Testament, we can see Jesus crushing the head of the serpent at the cross and giving us the benefits of that victory. You and I have eternal life because of Christ’s coming into the world to be our atoning sacrifice for sin, defeating death and Satan for us by His death and resurrection from the dead. In the Gospel of Luke and Mark, we get the continuation and the language of that victory being something we too participate in, too. We get to trample down serpents (Luke 10:17-20 also see Mark 16:14-20 and Paul in Acts 28:3-6). Theologically speaking, this crushing and throwing down of Satan takes place when the word of God is preached in its truth and purity and the sacraments are rightly administered (AC V, AC VII). It is not us who do the crushing that is left to Christ, our Bright Morningstar. That is His principle work, but we, in Christ, get to trample under our feet the old evil foe.
Encore Post: [First post in a series on the Divine Service] We go from one activity to another, often without even beating an eye. This certainly can happen within the Divine Service. How much attention do we pay to what’s going on? Do we know why we do what we do in worship service?
Before confessing our sins as a whole congregation, we speak back and forth responsively, “I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord” and the congregation responds, “and You forgave the iniquity of my sin.” After those words, there are some important red words printed in the hymnal. They say, “Silence for reflection on God’s Word and for self-examination.”
There is a time of silence. It is a time to consider myself and yourself in light of God’s Law found in the Ten Commandments. Have I been the best father and husband I could have been for my children these past days? Probably not. I failed in my responsibility to my wife and children, breaking the 4th commandment not being a faithful to my calling as head of my household. Did I grudgingly congratulate someone who won the raffle or the lottery, when in reality wishing it was me? Yup, so I broke the 7th, 9th and 10th commandments. And oh, by the way, I broke the first commandment because I didn’t trust God to give me all that I need.
Lord, have mercy. I am a sinner. I deserve exactly what I am about to confess about myself. I deserve death. We plead for God to have mercy on us.
But God who is faithful and just forgives our sins. Thanks be to God that, for Christ’s sake, God forgives our sins. We cannot add anything to make God forgive us. Christ has done it all. Thanks be to Christ!
When we confess our sins and receive His forgiveness in the words of Absolution, we are prepared to sing our Redeemer’s praises. We are prepared to receive from His bountiful goodness the forgiveness of sins purchased and won for us by our Lord Jesus by his death on the cross.
So, take a moment slow down and brush up on the Lord’s Ten Commandments in preparation for Confession and Absolution as we begin the Divine Service where God comes to serve us His gifts of forgiveness, life, salvation given to us on account of Christ, our Lord.
Rev. Jacob Hercamp Christ Lutheran Church Noblesville, Indiana
Encore Post: It’s true that some churches use blue for Advent and some use violet. Which one is right, which is better?
First, neither is right and the other wrong. In Christian freedom, we have options of saying the creed before or after the sermon, collecting the offering before or after the prayer of the church, and using blue or violet in advent.
The use of blue for Advent is often attributed to European Marianist cultish worship or pseudo-worship of St. Mary, the Mother of our Lord. To some degree, that may contain truth. But I suspect the source is a little deeper than that. Some will also point to a Byzantine tradition of blue signifying the empress. But, there may be a deeper meaning still.
[Light blue paraments are used Eastern Orthodox, Eastern Rite Catholic, and Russian Orthodox Churches. Their use dates back into antiquity. This significantly precedes the Modern Oxford movement in England, which is sometimes maligned as a Marianist source, or an exclusively medieval Marianist origin to the use of blue in Advent.] (2023 Update)
There’s a specific reference in Numbers to the color of the skins on the Ark of the Covenant as the congregation of Israel carried it from place to place. “When the camp is to set out, Aaron and his sons shall go in and take down the veil of the screen and cover the ark of the testimony with it. Then they shall put on it a covering of goatskin and spread on top of that a cloth all of blue, and shall put in its poles.” (Numbers 4:5-6)
For our benefit, Christian artists will often depict the Ark of the Covenant moving uncovered. They do this so that we can see the gold, the cherubim, and the mercy seat, and know what it is. But, in reality, the ark was always covered from our eyes while in transit. The coverings were of an unclear material (ram, goat, porpoise, or maybe dugong) that was certainly blue in color. Moreover, no one was to touch the ark. The unmitigated holiness of God is dangerous to us in our sinful state and uncleanness.
When King David sought to move the ark back to Jerusalem, he and his men saw the holiness of God in action. Uzzah died when he touched the ark to steady it after the oxen stumbled. “So David was not willing to take the ark of the Lord into the city of David. But David took it aside to the house of Obed-edom the Gittite. And the ark of the Lord remained in the house of Obed-edom the Gittite for three months, and the Lord blessed Obed-edom and all his household. And it was told King David, ‘The Lord has blessed the household of Obed-edom and all that belongs to him, because of the ark of God.’” (2 Samuel 6:10-12)
In his commentary on Luke, Dr. Arthur Just of Concordia Theological Seminary points out the parallel between 2 Samuel and Luke 1. Both show a going up into the hill country. The Israelites greet the ark with shouts of joys as does Elizabeth to Mary. The blessing of the house of Obed-Edom is reflected in Elizabeth’s being filled with the Holy Spirit, implying blessings for her and her home. Both the Ark and Mary remain for three months (Arthur A. Jr Just, Luke, Concordia Commentary (St. Louis: Concordia Pub. House, 1996, 1:72)).
St. Luke reports, “In those days, Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a town in Judah, and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and she exclaimed with a loud cry, ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.’” (Luke 1:39-45)
In the Western Christian tradition, we call St. Mary “the mother of our Lord.” The Eastern Christian church uses the term: “Theotokos.” Theotokos is a Greek term meaning: “God-bearer.” The Greek term is also a spectacular image for us to have in our minds. It pictures something like the Ark of the Covenant.
The ark was nothing but an acacia wood box, covered in gold and finely decorated. The presence of God upon the ark made it unique. The virgin Mary also had no special attributes compared with other Israelite women. Yet, the presence of the Lord within her caused great joy for Elizabeth and her unborn son, John.
The presence of God in the ark looked to the ecclesia of Israel like a clump of blue animal skins skewered on a pair of poles, and carried about. Artists have depicted Mary in a blue mantle. The blue doesn’t show her specialty. The blue shows us what’s in there: Christ the Lord, the Holy One of Israel. Advent blue shows us what’s coming.
[While violet and blue are certainly both acceptable, I think blue better serves our Christology in Advent. The two penitential seasons, Advent and Lent, are not the same. We treat them differently in our liturgy and hymnody. Lent is more austere. In it we put away our alleluias. This is not the case for Advent. A variation in the colors can reinforce the distinction between the penitence of Advent and the penitence of Lent.] (2022 update)
Blue serves to show us a new thing. While we prepare our hearts in the penitential season of Advent, God is delivering His Son. The Son of Man is born to die for our sins. Unlike the unmitigated holiness of God in the ark, God in human flesh is fully like us in flesh. He has the power to heal, even by the hem of His garment. But His touch does not strike down sinners. This blue points us not to Mary, the God-bearer, but to the God she bore.
Let the blue of Advent fill us with hope.
Rev. Jason M. Kaspar Mt. Calvary Lutheran Church & Preschool La Grange, TX
Savior of the Nations, come, Virgin’s Son, make here Your home! Marvel now, O heav’n and earth, That the Lord chose such a birth.
Jesus is the Savior of the nations. From the very first line, we realize that Jesus comes for more than Israel, but also for the Gentiles, also for sinners. The virgin birth is the miracle of Christmas. Though we do not understand it in our ways of thinking, we most certainly believe that God became man.
Not by human flesh and blood, By the Spirit of our God, Was the Word of God made flesh— Woman’s offspring, pure and fresh.
Walking through the Apostles’ Creed, we find the following line, that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit. This “Word made flesh” language is taken right from John 1, the Gospel reading for Christmas Day.
Here a maid was found with child, Yet remained a virgin mild. In her womb this truth was shown: God was there upon His throne.
Jesus’ birth appeared to the world like a peasant’s birth or a servant’s birth. But this stanza reminds us that Jesus is the King of all creation coming to redeem all creation.
Then stepped forth the Lord of all From His pure and kingly hall; God of God, yet fully man, His heroic course began.
Where is Christ the King? Firstly, in heaven with God the Father, the Son lived and reigned. So for Him to step forth from heaven to earth, we realize He has come to wage war for us against sin, death, and the devil.
God the Father was His source, Back to God He ran His course. Into hell His road went down, Back then to His throne and crown.
Now this verse refers to the descent into hell. If we consider this in terms of location, we might think that the descent is part of Christ’s humiliation, “going down.” But the descent into hell is the first act of the exaltation, that Christ declares the victory over the devil forever and it is finished and can never be changed.
For You are the Father’s Son Who in flesh the vict’ry won. By Your mighty pow’r make whole All our ills of flesh and soul.
This verse shifts toward us. It almost sounds like the prayer of the people, that by His suffering, He sympathizes with our suffering. But by His resurrection, we have the promise of redeemed and glorified bodies without suffering.
From the manger newborn light Shines in glory through the night. Darkness there no more resides; In this light faith now abides.
This verse makes clear that Jesus Christ is the Light of the World, and that darkness has no power anymore. Faith now abides in us.
Glory to the Father sing, Glory to the Son, our king, Glory to the Spirit be Now and through eternity.
Rev. James Peterson St. John Lutheran Church Curtis, Nebraska
Encore Post: I’ve been reading articles and watching spots most of my life, lamenting the earliness of Christmas-ish stuff every year. It doesn’t just seem as if the pre-Christmas shopping season has gobbled up all dates and times preceding it. The shopping season has done exactly that.
In the foggy early reaches of my growing memory, I recall days before there was a Black Friday shopping spree (the week of Black Friday, Cyber Monday/Weekend, Giving Tuesday…). The phenomenon appeared in the 1980s. I’m quite certain there was consternation in the decades before 1980 over the encroaching commercialization of Christmas. Those earlier and earlier mercantile sales dates scheduled on their way toward Black Friday weren’t welcome then either.
We, Christians, habitually grouse about symptoms. It’s as if symptomatic abatement cures the underlying illness. See my articles about fathers and the children’s future attendance here, here, here, and here. Christmas cheer getting sucked up before “the holidays” is a symptom, not the illness.
The illness is this: we are seeing civic festivals and pagan consumerism crossing the boundaries into the life of the church. Instead, let’s reset those boundaries and get our minds around the days of the church. Dear Christians, we are to be in the world, but not of it.
Halloween and Thanksgiving are not church festivals.
Halloween falls on the official church day of All Hallows Eve, October thirty-first. Lutherans more commonly celebrate Reformation Day on the same day, commemorating Martin Luther nailing his 95 theses to the door of the Wittenberg castle church, sparking the reformation.
All Saints’ Day is November First. Christians will often observe All Hallows Eve/Reformation and All Saints’ Day by shifting the former back and/or the latter forward to the nearest Sunday. Both days fall within the season of Trinity (Pentecost in the three-year lectionary) just ahead of the end of the church year.
Thanksgiving is the fourth Thursday of November and can fall between November twenty-second and twenty-eighth. That makes for seven variable relationships between Thanksgiving and Christmas being twenty-seven and thirty-three days apart. 2023 was an infrequent occasion, with Thanksgiving falling before the last Sunday of the church year. Thanksgiving is still always before the beginning of the new church year.
The pagan world would have us believe all of those holidays are part of the Christmas season. They are not. Those days and commemorations are not even in the same church year as the seasons of Advent or Christmas.
The church year ends with the last Sunday of the church year and the week following it. The day can also be called Ultima Sunday, after the last syllable of a Koine Greek word, or Christ the King Sunday, commemorating Jesus’s second Advent at the end of days. The last Sunday of the church year is always the fifth Sunday before Christmas Day.
After the first two civic holidays, the church year begins on the first Sunday of Advent, always the fourth Sunday before Christmas. Advent can consist of between twenty-two and twenty-eight days. It begins between November twenty-seventh and December third, always containing four Sundays. Advent contains three or four Wednesdays. The three Wednesdays are slightly more common, occurring in four of the seven variations, excluding Christmas Eve. Christmas Eve is a day of Advent. It is not typically celebrated as a Wednesday of Advent, when falling on Wednesday. When the fourth Sunday of Advent is December 24th, like in 2023, we observe Memento Nostri/Rorate Coeli (Advent 4) in the morning and Christmas Eve in the evening.
This means that those cute, pre-made, every-year advent calendars are seldom actually right. It’s a lot of fun to open the doors for the little prizes. But, Advent rarely has exactly 24 days. 2019, 2024, & 2030 are years in which Advent does have exactly 24 days.
So, a better Advent calendar would have 28 days, with six indicated as days that may not be in Advent (2023 & 2028), or may be in Advent (2022 & 2033). The same calendar could include the twelve days of Christmas, making an even 40 days, encouraging us to celebrate Christmas in its time. Perhaps something like this:
Like the Advent Calendars, Christians used to decorate progressively. By adding a bit each week heading into Christmas it adds to the excitement of preparation. This is opposite of the Christmas fatigue caused by all decorations going up the day after Halloween or Thanksgiving, before Advent even started.
The twelve days of the Christmas feast begin on December 25. They can contain two Sundays, but more commonly just one. The days of Christmas are December 25th through January 5th. On December 26th, we also celebrate the feast of St. Stephen, the first martyr. We celebrate the feast of St. John, the only apostle to die a natural death, on December 27th. December 28th marks the feast of the Holy Innocents, killed by Herod upon the magi’s visit to Bethlehem. The celebration of the Circumcision and Naming of Jesus on January first is also a named feast within the twelve days. Christmas ends on Twelfth Night/the Vigil of Epiphany, preceding the Epiphany of Our Lord, which is celebrated on January 6th.
It is suitable for Christians to decorate and sing seasonal hymns beginning on Christmas Eve. In decades past, we would have it no other way. Now, it may be impossible to forego all of the civic festivities around us. We should at least save the bulk of our revelry for the actual celebration of the incarnation of our Lord. We should not allow the pagan world to suck all of our Christmas cheer before we’ve even begun the Christmas feast.
The exceptionally short Advent of 2023 gave us a great example of our modern distortion of the Christmas season. In trying to cram all of the programs, “family Christmases,” professional parties, and church social activities into the Advent weeks preceding Christmas, how many of us considered for even a moment displacing the festivities into the eleven days of Christmas following Christmas day? Probably very few did. I’m also guilty of missing this consideration.
This year and in years to come, spend some time in thought and prayer concerning the harrowing of the End of Days, the preparation of our hearts in Advent, and the joyous gift of Christmas (the whole season of Christmas). There’s more to it than the Christmas shopping season. Beyond just thought and prayer, avail yourself of the Lord’s house, receiving His gifts for you.
Blessèd Advent preparation!
Rev. Jason M. Kaspar Sole Pastor Mt. Calvary Lutheran Church & Preschool La Grange, TX
