Baby Jesus is Much More Than Meets the Eye

Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church.

Kungsvinger is a beacon for the Gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern Minnesota.

We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith.

Alone.

And now, here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg.

The Holy Gospel according to St. Luke, the second chapter.

And when the time came for their purification, according to the law of Moses, they brought Jesus up to

Jerusalem to present Him to the Lord, as it is written in the law of the Lord.

Every male who first opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord, and to offer a

sacrifice according to what is said in the law of the Lord, a pair of turtle doves or two young pigeons.

Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon, and this man was righteous and devout, waiting for the

consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him.

And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ.

And he came in the Spirit into the temple, and when the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him

according to the custom of the law, he took him up in his arms and blessed God and said, Lord,

now you are letting your servant depart in peace according to your word, for my eyes have seen your

salvation, that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples a light for revelation to the

Gentiles and for the glory of your people Israel.

And his father and his mother marveled at what was said about him.

And Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and the rising of many in

Israel, and for a sign that is opposed, and a sword will pierce through your own soul also,

so that thoughts from many hearts will be revealed.

And there was a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel of the tribe of Asher.

She was advanced in years, having lived with her husband seven years from when she was a virgin, and then as

a widow until she was 84.

She did not depart from the temple, worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day, and coming up at that very hour,

she began to give thanks to God and to speak of him to all who were waiting for the redemption of

Jerusalem.

And when they had performed everything according to the law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee, to their own town of

Nazareth, and the child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom and the favor of God

was upon him.

This is the gospel of the Lord.

In the name of Jesus, amen.

Jesus is only a few days old and you'll note something here.

Normal practices that when parents have children, their lives change and a

few weird things happen that are kind of normal.

But our gospel text is far from normal.

So you'll note here, Mary and Joseph, their lives have completely changed.

And because Christ is born into a sinful world, things are not safe for him.

And so there's got to be a few things that happen in order to ensure Christ's safety and God

will make sure to take care of that.

Kind of sad if you think about it, that Jesus Christ, the very creator of all things, the one who spoke the

universe into existence.

In fact, nothing that was created wasn't created apart from him.

He was there creating everything.

He is our creator.

He comes to that which is his own and his own don't even recognize him.

If it were not for the Holy Spirit of God revealing to the people in Christ's time and to us,

across the pages of time, who Christ is, we would miss it.

Because you'll note that in the darkness that we are born into, enslaved

to the devil, enslaved to the world, enslaved to our own sinful passions, that

slavery cannot be busted apart from somebody, a mighty one coming to save us.

And so God hears our prayers for deliverance and he sends us exactly what we need.

He sends us a baby.

And you'll note that at this point in Jesus's earthly life, he's not really capable of doing

very many things.

He's capable of sleeping, crying, eating and feeding and filling his

diapers.

That's pretty much it.

He's not even to that age where he can look really cute and kind of goo and gah and do things like that.

It's not quite there yet in his development.

And as a result of it, well, you know, everything is changed for Joseph and Mary, you know, nighttime

feedings, not getting enough sleep.

And at the same time, well, in our gospel text, you'll note that they are busy doing something and that

something is obeying God's law.

I must remind us every time these texts come up every single year, that God's law has

commandments that must be obeyed actively.

You must choose to do either good or to do evil.

You must make the decision to do something or to not do something.

This is called active obedience.

Christ is perfectly actively obedient to God's law, but you'll note that there's another feature of God's

law and that is there are commandments that have to be obeyed passively.

And we find Mary and Joseph doing exactly what is necessary for Christ to

fulfill those passive commands because he's not capable of actively obeying them.

And so when we talk about Christ's sinless righteousness, we must note that he obeyed God's law

actively and passively and needed the help of his parents.

And if you were to kind of think through the history of Israel and the descendants of David, some kings who

were descended from David were pretty good fellows and the scripture has high praises for them.

They followed in the steps of their father David and they did what was right in the eyes of the Lord.

There was a whole nother group of descendants of David who were kings who didn't follow the ways

of David.

They followed the ways of the world and they worshiped Baal and things like this.

And they cannot be described in any way as being faithful or righteous.

They were wicked and unjust.

And so who is Joseph?

Is Joseph, you know, the legal father of Christ?

Is he going to be one of these good guys or bad guys?

If he were a bad guy, then we've got a problem because Christ will not be able to fulfill the passive

requirements of the law and thus fall short and our salvation not be secured.

By him.

Keep that in mind.

So we'll work our way through this text and then we'll get to kind of the weirder, weirder bits because there's some strange things happening here.

So when the time came for their purification, according to the law of Moses, they brought Jesus up to Jerusalem

to present him to the Lord.

As it is written in the law of the Lord, every male who first opens the womb shall be called holy

to the Lord and to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the law of the Lord, a pair of

turtle doves or two young pigeons.

So this is a commandment that goes all the way back to the book of Exodus.

And in fact, this is the very same text that Robert Morris twists regarding

his claim that we've got to tithe and things like this, that we've got to give the first, the first of our

fruits have to go.

Otherwise, you know, it's just crazy what he does with this text.

But this is not about tithing at all.

This is about the fact that every single firstborn male who opens the womb of

his mother is holy, must be consecrated before the Lord, and they have to be redeemed,

redeemed through a sacrifice.

And the normal sacrifice would either be a sheep or a goat or maybe even a bull.

But you'll note that neither sheep nor goats or bulls are mentioned here

in this text.

Instead, what's mentioned is a pair of turtle doves or two young pigeons.

This is where we have to consider the humbleness of Christ.

Christ being God in human flesh chose to be born to these parents.

And Mary and Joseph are poor.

I mean, really poor.

And you'll note that when you read the Greek regarding Joseph, he's described in scripture as a

carpenter, a carpenter from Nazareth.

Here's the issue.

The word carpenter in our modern day parlance, when we think of a carpenter, we think of a guy who's

studied under somebody who was a journeyman and became a carpenter himself, maybe a master carpenter.

And it's a high skill trade that can, well, yield a person a pretty decent

living.

However, the Greek word that often gets translated as carpenter is probably

better understood as construction worker.

Yeah, Joseph was one of these fellows.

If he lived in Southern California, we have the Home Depot in Southern California.

I know we have it here in North Dakota too, but you know, Home Depot and Lowe's and places like this in Southern California,

day laborers would hire themselves out on a daily basis.

And what they do is they gather in the Home Depot parking lot and contractors looking

for day laborers will hire guys on a daily basis, pick them up in their pickup trucks

and drive off to the construction site.

That's the kind of guy that Joseph is.

He's not even a high skilled carpenter.

He's a day laborer and you'll note business hasn't been booming for him.

And that being the case, we have to keep this all in mind because they are not rich by

any stretch of the imagination.

Instead, the only thing that they can offer to redeem Christ, the firstborn, is a pair of turtle doves

or two young pigeons.

And that kind of shows you just how bad the poverty is for them.

Now, here's where things get a little bit interesting.

And we'll note that anybody who's had a child, when they are first born,

newborn infants, and you take a newborn infant into the grocery store, you head over to Walmart, or maybe you go

over to the mall or you're at a restaurant or something like that.

Everybody wants to see the baby.

This is how this goes.

And so perfect strangers will walk up and go, oh, let me see the baby.

And they act really weird.

And so they, oh, this is so cute.

Oh, the baby.

And then they'll say, oh, the baby looks just like the mother.

Oh, the baby looks just like the father.

Oh, this is so great.

And they fawn and all that kind of stuff.

What's going to happen here isn't that.

In fact, we must know that what happens here is not normal at all and shows us

just how, well, you know, how special Christ is.

If it were not for these two prophets, it's good to think of Simeon as a prophet.

It's also good to think of Anna as a prophet, as in fact, she's mentioned as being a prophetess.

The Holy Spirit had revealed certain things to them.

Martin Luther, in his sermon on this text, likens them to the prophets of the Old

Testament, both of them being well -advanced in years.

He sees it as symbolic of the fact that the prophets of old have finally seen the fulfillment of their

prophecies, the things that they prophesied, oh, they long to see the fulfillment of it.

And here, Simeon and Anna are kind of the stand -ins for them.

It's fascinating reading Luther's sermon on this.

But he goes, the text goes on.

Now, there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon.

And this man was righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon

him.

A little bit of a note here, I don't normally key in on names that much, but I will note

that the gospels have these very frequent little hyperlink callbacks

to the Old Testament.

Stories.

You'll note that Joseph, the legal father, not biological father of Christ, he

has dreams.

Well, I know a guy in the book of Genesis whose name was Joseph, and he has dreams.

And what's really interesting is that Joseph's second dream is a warning to him to

flee town because Herod wants to kill Christ.

And so, that Joseph who has dreams ends up taking Jesus to Egypt.

You just sit there and go, what is going on here?

The types and shadows are finding their fulfillment in Christ.

And I would note, Simeon's name here is just screaming for an interpretation,

at least that fits with this text, because I think you can work it out.

And if you know the story of Jacob and his wives, Leah and

Rachel, talk about a messed up family.

Holy smokes.

I still keep coming back and thinking through the details of what had to take place at that first

wedding.

If you remember the story, Jacob had to flee home because, well, he had

secured his brother's birthright and then stole the blessing from

his father by dressing as his brother and deceiving his father.

Very interesting text.

And so, his brother is nursing a murderous grudge against him and his mother tells him to flee town because, of course, he's a

mommy's boy.

He flees town and he heads back to his family, extended family in Padana Rom.

And his eyes fall on a young gal by the name of Rachel, who happens to be a relative.

And boy, does he have the pitter -patter, heart -thumping love for her.

And he works for seven years in order to take her as his bride.

And because of his love for her, those seven years just flew by so quickly.

And the time came for the wedding.

And the time came for the wedding.

And Uncle Laban, who's going to be his father -in -law, pulls the old

switcheroo.

Although I would note here, I have never heard of switcheroo quite like this.

And you'll note that this is going to require Rachel's compliance and

Leah's compliance.

Now, Leah was not the gal that Jacob had the hots for.

In fact, scripture describes Leah, although she was the older sister, describes her as

having weak eyes, which is a polite and kind way of saying that she wasn't

very aesthetically beautiful, that it was not easy to look at her.

She was not, you know, she was not a runway model, in fact, quite the opposite.

And so what father does is he convinces Rachel to be quiet, convinces Leah to

put on the bridal gown and to put the veil over the face and walk the aisle.

And you can just see Laban thinking, man, you know, I'm hoping that Jacob doesn't lift that

veil too high when it comes to the first kiss or the gig is up, right?

And of course, poor Jacob, he's completely unaware of the

switcheroo until after he's consummated the marriage and in the morning when the sunlight is out, he can see what has happened and whoa.

And so it's crazy stuff.

But this then leads to one of the most dysfunctional families of all of scripture.

And that is the family of Jacob, Leah, and Rachel.

And they get into a baby making war.

And Leah is the one who's coming out on top on that particular war.

And you'll note that because of the circumstances of that marriage, she wasn't loved.

And as a result of it, you know, she frequently in that portion of scripture is

crying out to God for justice, crying out to God to have mercy, crying out to God to

hear her and to see her affliction and in the hopes that God would open her womb

so that her husband would finally love her.

And so, Leah is the one who gives birth to Judah, which means praise.

But Leah is also the woman who gives birth to Simeon, which is

eerily similar to the Hebrew word for he hears.

And that's kind of the meaning here, he hears.

And so, here in our passage in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus being

brought to the temple to fulfill for him the requirements he's required to fulfill in the

sacrifices, passive obedience to God's law.

And there is a fellow who's like one of the last of the Old Testament prophets, a fellow by the name of Simeon,

alluding to the fact that God hears.

And you just, you just sit there and go, this totally preaches, you just sit there and go, of course, because

you and I and all the world, we languish under sin.

And you'll note that Satan is not a kind tyrant.

Satan is a mean hearted tyrant.

I think back into the days, you know, back in the days when I was in Christian high school, there was a

very popular track that was, you know, that they would try to tell you to use for evangelism.

It was called the four spiritual laws.

And the first sentence in the four spiritual laws tract was, God loves you and has a wonderful

plan for your life.

But the reality is, is that it's the opposite when it comes to Satan.

Satan hates you and he has a terrible plan for your life and for your eternity.

And you'll note that the misery that we find ourselves in the world that is right now, it

really reflects the rebellion of Satan and the consequences of sin.

And all of us, every single one of us experienced these consequences and the suffering and the decay

and the death and the disease and the pain and the sorrow that is brought on by our

slavery to the dominion of darkness.

And so God has heard our prayers.

He hears.

And here we have Simeon and he's righteous.

He's devout.

Righteous means that he has faith in Christ.

He has faith in the one who will take away the sins of the world.

And he's also devout.

He has good works.

That's how it normally works, by the way.

And he was waiting for the consolation of Israel.

The Holy Spirit was upon him, which is a notable thing because the Holy Spirit hasn't been given generally to believers up

to this point.

That won't happen until Pentecost after Christ's death, burial and resurrection and ascension.

But this man, the Holy Spirit is upon him, which again shows the fact that he's acting prophetically.

And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the

Lord's Christ.

And so he came in the spirit into the temple.

And when the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him according to the custom of the law.

And here's where it's interesting.

He took Jesus up in his arms and he blessed God and said,

Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace.

Good paraphrases.

Ah, Lord, now I can finally die and not only die,

but die in peace, die in peace.

You're allowing me to depart in peace, not in conflict.

Why?

It says, according to your word, for my eyes have seen your salvation.

And you'll note that to the average onlooker there in Jerusalem on that day in the temple

complex, you know, on Mount Moriah there in Jerusalem,

Jesus wouldn't have looked any different than any other boy, any other infant

child that had just been newborn.

I mean, Jesus probably still has the remains of his umbilical cord still attached to his

belly.

And so all of that being said, if it were not for God speaking and showing this is

no ordinary child, we wouldn't know.

And so you'll note Simeon here is speaking to us as well.

These words are written for our benefit so that we recognize who Christ is and we do

not despise his humble, meek, and mean beginnings here in

the incarnation.

He doesn't show up fully grown swinging a sword.

He shows up as a completely defenseless and helpless infant.

But because of the Holy Spirit, Simeon sees Christ for who he is, knows that he

is the Messiah and knows that now he can depart in peace because his own eyes

have seen the salvation of God.

And that's what salvation is.

Salvation is a gift given by God.

It is, salvation is something accomplished by God for us.

Salvation is not something that you do.

You don't pull yourself up by your bootstraps, Baron Munchausen style, you know, you do

not climb up the ladder to heaven.

You do not ascend by your good works and by your obedience to God's

law and sit there and go, well, I don't drink, smoke, or chew, so I have earned my salvation.

In fact, salvation isn't even something you make a decision for.

God makes that decision for you.

The scripture is very clear on this.

And so his own eyes, Simeon has seen God's salvation and he goes on

to begin to peel back the great mystery that Paul talks about in next week's text, in the

Epiphany text.

And that is, is that, that the Gentiles are also included in the salvation.

Salvation is not merely for those who are the genetic descendants of Abraham.

My own eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples and a light for

revelation to the Gentiles and for the glory of your people, Israel.

Because we sing this so often, Simeon's song, the Nocte Minis, we all want to at this point sing glory

be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit.

Liturgically, we are well trained to do so.

And at this point, his father and his mother marveled at what was said about him, not marveling because they were shocked.

You'll note that at this point, it's hard to shock Mary and Joseph.

They know exactly who Jesus is.

And Joseph, you know, he had a run in, he had a conversation with an angel of God because Mary came

back from spending a few months with Elizabeth for the birth of John the Baptist.

She came back to Nazareth pregnant and showing, and he wanted to divorce her

quietly.

And so an angel of the Lord appears to Joseph in a dream and says, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife for that which is conceived in

her is from the Holy Spirit and she will give birth to a son and you will call his name Yeshua

because he will save his people from their sins.

And so Joseph takes Mary as his wife.

And I'm sure an encounter with an angel, either in person or in a dream is something that is a little bit

memorable, leaves a mark.

It kind of stands out.

Joseph knows full well who Jesus is.

And we don't even need to talk about Mary because she had a face -to -face conversation with Gabriel

and Gabriel was, is an angel who stands in the very presence of God himself.

And so she knows full well who Jesus is and what he's come to do.

But here now they're starting to get a little bit more information, marveling in the sense that

God, that other people are in on it as well.

This is, you know, you'll note Jesus being the Messiah is not a very well -kept secret and, and

that well -kept, not so well -kept secret will eventually lead to Jesus having to leave for

Egypt, but that's next week.

But all that being said, you know, Simeon now prophesies something and we need

to pay attention to it.

So he blessed them.

And then he says to Mary, behold, this child is appointed for the fall and the

rising of many in Israel and for a sign that is opposed.

And we'll note that this prophecy has absolutely come true and continues to come true

even to this day.

Among the children of Israel, Christ is absolutely the most

controversial Jew in all of human history.

And among their own Jews today, they despise Christ and those who come to faith

in Jesus find themselves unceremoniously, well, unfamilied

is a good way to put it.

I recently had a conversation with a fellow who did a sojourn in Judaism, a

kind of a strange thing.

You'll, you'll note that some of the people that come to us at Kongsvinger and Aletheia, they come to us

through some very surreptitious journeyings and strange portions of religiosity and spirituality.

And this one fellow actually did a sojourn in Judaism, attending the synagogue.

And then he realized he needed to be honest because he believed in Jesus.

And when he told his rabbi that he believed in Jesus,

fireworks.

He was shown the door and told never to come back, basically is the way to put it.

And that's so, that still continues to this day.

Christ is a lightning rod within, within those who are the genetic descendants of

Israel.

And then he says something very cryptic and here's where we'll note where the gospel comes into play.

Simeon then gives a foreboding warning to Mary that a

sword would pierce through her own soul as well.

Not a physical sword.

You'll note this is a sword that will pierce through her own soul.

And this is an allusion to the fact that she will be present when Christ is crucified

for her sins, for your sins, my sins, and the sins of the world.

And over and again, we are all familiar with movies or even people

that we know in our own lives, parents who've lost children, whose children have died

tragically or died young.

And it's over and again, you know, I say it is, it is never, it was God's intent

that a parent would have to bury a child and it is a horrible thing to watch.

It is terrible to see and the lament and the suffering and the guilt

and the pain that goes with losing a child is huge and immense.

And Mary is going to experience that and more because she was there at the

foot of the cross She heard the crowd jeering at Christ.

You saved others.

If you're truly the Messiah, save yourself.

Come down from the cross and we'll believe in you.

And oh, and she heard the crowds and the evil things that they were speaking about her son knowing

full well who he is.

And she watched as he suffered, bled and died.

He being the sacrifice for the whole world, fulfilling the prophecy of the angel Gabriel,

who said that he will be called, you will call his name Yeshua, Jesus, because he will save his people

from their sins.

And he did so by laying down his life and Mary being at the foot of the cross,

seeing and watching all of this, I cannot imagine the pain that she went through.

We can get a little bit of a description of it here when Simeon prophetically warns her that

this will result in a sore being pierced through her own soul.

She was prepared by God for what she would face and still it had to be painful to go through.

In fact, in all of Christian art, I think one of the most moving depictions of

Christ in all of Christian art is not Christ on the cross, but Christ's lifeless dead

corpse in the arms of Mary after they removed his body from the cross, it's called the Pieta.

And that is a beautiful, beautiful and horrible piece of artwork.

And one that shows the fulfillment of this prophecy of Simeon.

And then he says, a sword will pierce through your own soul also so that thoughts from many hearts will be revealed.

Indeed, they are.

But now another prophet speaks, prophetess Anna, the daughter of Phanuel of

the tribe of Asher.

She was advanced in years.

She's 84 years old.

And when she was a young lady, she was married as a, and then she was widowed seven years after her

marriage.

And then she remained as a widow for the rest of her years.

And at this point, she's 84 years old and she does not depart from the temple.

She is there worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day and

coming up at that very hour.

She began to give thanks to God and to speak of him to all who were waiting for the redemption.

Of Jerusalem.

And when they had performed everything according to the law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee

to their own town of Nazareth and the child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom and

the favor of God was upon him.

And so you'll note here, small things, big things come in small packages.

Our salvation comes to us in an infant, this baby helpless,

and yet he's busy fulfilling God's law and obeying God's commands.

And Jesus departs to Nazareth after a sojourn in Egypt.

We get from the gospel of Matthew that there was a little bit more to the story.

There was a unexpected trip to Egypt.

They had to wait for Herod to die, but we don't know much else about Christ's childhood.

And this is good that we don't because what was Jesus busy doing during his childhood?

Answer obeying God's law.

And you'll note the scriptures are clear that Christ is tempted in every way that you and I have been tempted and yet

is without sin.

And so Christ as part of his growing up, he was tempted to disobey his parents when they told him

to take out the trash, but Christ took the trash out.

Christ was tempted to do all kinds of evil and mischief from those

who were around him, tempting him to do evil, break the windows on old Mrs. McCreary's house and things like that.

But he didn't obey any of the false things and he did exactly what was right.

He's busy obeying God's law because in order to be the spotless lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world,

he must fulfill it perfectly.

And this is what he's about the business of doing.

And this is good news for you and I, because you and I, we've fallen short.

In fact, we were born and conceived in sin already with Adam's sin against us.

And as a result of it, we cannot free ourselves.

We cannot obey God's law perfectly.

We cannot do enough to save ourself.

But our salvation has arrived in Christ Jesus.

And we see that the direct connection, even in this text, between

Christ's manger and the cross itself, in the illusion to the suffering that Mary would go through

when she watches Christ bleed and suffer and die.

And so we thank God and we raise our voices and with Simeon's voice, thanking

God for the salvation that he has revealed to us, a salvation that we would miss if it were not for the word of God,

the word of God that was inspired by the Holy Spirit to give us the inside look as to what's

really going on with the life of Christ.

Because to the outside observer, it just looks like two parents raising

a baby boy, just like everybody else does, but it's not like anybody else.

So I think a good way to end our text would be to consider the accolades here given to us by the

prophet Isaiah, who gives us further insight into this amazing child that God has sent to us to

save us from our sin.

Isaiah writes, There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, a branch from his

roots shall bear.

Fruit.

And indeed, the stump of Jesse is a good way to describe what's happened to the Davidic.

Kingdom.

It's gone.

The stump of Jesse, it's just a memory of the great tree that it was.

But all of a sudden, Christ arrives, a branch from its roots shall bear fruit and he has.

The spirit of the Lord will rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might,

the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord and his delight will be in the fear of

Yahweh.

He will not judge by what his eyes see or decide disputes by what his ears hear.

We learned from one of the gospel eyewitnesses that nobody needed to explain to Christ what a person was like

because he already knew what a person was like.

He could see all the way into their hearts, every single person.

And he can see into your heart and to mine as well.

No point in putting on pretenses in front of Christ.

And this is why we confess our sins because rather than be pretentious and coy and act like that, we've still

got our act together or that we're good.

We instead speak the truth about ourselves that Christ already knows that we are sinful and unclean.

And Christ then upon that confession gives us what we do not deserve.

Forgiveness, mercy, life, salvation, inheritance in the world to come

all of out of his great love, his mercy as a gift.

So he doesn't decide disputes with his eyes or with his ears, but with righteousness he will judge the poor

and decide with equity for the meek of the earth.

And he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth and with the breath of his lips, he shall kill the wicked.

There's a day coming, a day of reckoning for those who persist in sin and unbelief and continue to oppress us

with the devil's ways.

Christ will bring that to an end someday because the Christ grew.

He grew and grew and became a man.

And he went to the cross, bore your sins and mine, suffered, bled and died.

But he conquered death, rose again on the third day and ascended into heaven.

And he's made it clear there's a day coming when he will return and bring all this wickedness to an end.

Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist, faithfulness, the belt of his loins.

What a great picture of Christ.

Hard to see it when all you see is a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes

and needing to nurse and to fill diapers, but it's all there.

But you have to see it with the eyes of faith and the eyes of faith are found in your ears.

You can only hear it through the word of God.

Merry Christmas.

In the name of Jesus, amen.

If you would like to support the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, you can do so by sending a tax -free donation to

Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, 15950 470th

Avenue NW, Oslo, MN 56744.

And again that address is Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, 15950

470th Avenue NW, Oslo, MN

56744.

We thank you for your support.

All of our teaching messages may be freely distributed as long as you do not edit or change the content of the message.

And again, thank you for listening.