the incarnation on joseph (jesus' father)

Pastor: Father, in this holy night Your Son our Savior was born in human flesh. Renew Your Church as the Body of Christ. People: Holy God, hear our prayer. Pastor: In this holy night...

Sometimes, even if we're "doing everything right," life just turns upside down and we're left scrambling to find our footing. This is one of those stories. In Luke's gospel, ...

An angel came to me And I was unprepared To be what God was using. Mother I was to be A moment I despaired, Thought briefly of refusing. The angel knew I heard According to God’s word, ...

Jesus loved the will of His Father. He embraced the limitations, the necessities, the conditions, the very chains of His humanity as He walked and worked here on earth, fulfilling moment by moment His...

Unexpected Circumstances Strange days,  unexpected  times: a belief-defying announcement of a pregnancy, a wearying journey to be taxed, an uncomfortable birthing bed in a hewn out cleft in the rock ...

Preaching Commentary Unexpected Circumstances Strange days,  unexpected  times: a belief-defying announcement of a pregnancy, a wearying journey to be taxed, an uncomfortable birthing bed in a hewn...

Ancient lens What's the historical context? Couldn’t See That Coming Powerful parents with a family pedigree derived from Judah and the Davidic line was the common narrative for how most peop...

Advent 2023: Make Some Noise! AIM commentary Ancient lens What's the historical context? Couldn’t See That Coming Powerful parents with a family pedigree derived from Judah and the David...

The Son of God did not want to be seen and found in heaven. Therefore he descended from heaven into this humility and came to us in our flesh, laid himself into the womb of his mother and into the man...

Jesus was a whole human who had a head and a heart and a spirit. I forget that Jesus came to this earth, not as a brain in a Mason jar floating in formaldehyde, but as an embodied, incarnate, integral...

He was created of a mother whom He created. He was carried by hands that He formed. He cried in the manger in wordless infancy, He the Word, without whom all human eloquence is mute.

“But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you a...

He by whom all things were made was made one of all things. The Son of God by the Father without a mother became the Son of man by a mother without a father. The Word Who is God before all time became...

Man's maker was made man that He, Ruler of the stars, might nurse at His mother's breast; that the Bread might hunger, the Fountain thirst, the Light sleep, the Way be tired on its journey; th...

He who abides always in a present now, in him doth God beget His Son without ceasing.

Heavenly Father, blessed Son, eternal Spirit, We adore you as one Being, one Essence, one God in three distinct Persons, for bringing sinners to the knowledge of you and your kingdom. O Father, you ha...

Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? Back to Bethany The trans-Jordan village of Bethany was the place in which Jesus’ ministry began. It is now the place in which our text...

I believe in God, the Father almighty,     maker of heaven and earth; And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord;     who was conceived by the Holy Ghost,     born of the Virgin Mary,   ...

He who wraps the heavens in clouds wrapped round himself a towel. He who pours the water into the rivers and pools tipped... water into a basin. And he before whom every knee bends in heaven and on ea...

The Child of glory,  The Child of Mary,  Born in the stable;  The King of all,  Who came to the wilderness  And in our stead suffered;  Happy they are counted  Who to Him are near. When He Himself sa...

Humble. Before Jesus, almost no pagan author had used “humble” as a compliment. Yet the events of Christmas point inescapably to what seems like an oxymoron: a humble God. The God who came to earth ca...

Even in another life, as St. John sees it in his vision, we do not rise to God, but he descends to us, and dwells humanly among human creatures, in the glorious man, Jesus Christ. And that will be his...

The nativity mystery “conceived from the Holy Spirit and born from the Virgin Mary”, means, that God became human, truly human out of his own grace. The miracle of the existence of Jesus, his “climbin...

Jesus learned how to walk, stumbled and fell, cried for his milk, sweated blood in the night, was lashed with a whip and showered with spit, was fixed to a cross, and died whispering forgiveness on us...

Enter John the Baptist John the Baptist enters the stage in Mark 1 as the “voice of one crying in the wilderness,” (Isaiah 40:3) whose message and ministry is to “prepare the way of the Lord.” Mark d...

Preaching Commentary Introduction John 1 contains some of the richest Christological passages in all of Scripture. It rewards deep meditation on its meaning. Its use as the Christmas gospel text is...

Pour your grace into our hearts, O Lord, that we who have known the incarnation of your Son Jesus Christ, announced by an angel to the Virgin Mary, may by his cross and passion be brought to the glory...

Hear the Good News. God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem us, free us, and make us children of God. In the Name of Jesus Christ, you are forgiven. Glory to God! Amen.

Pious souls can derive great confidence and delight from this sacrament, as being a testimony that they form one body with Christ, so that everything which is his they may call their own. Hence it fol...

Father in Heaven, we confess that we never knew you had come down. We confess that we were in the dark as to your light among us. Though the world was created through your Word, we could not grasp the...