Wade Johnston, Life Under the Cross: A Biography of the Reformer Matthias Flacius Illyricus, Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis: MO, 2025.
This ancient “tale of two mothers” concerns far more than theological semantics—it is the difference between a God who sends and a God who comes.
This story points us from our unlikely heroes to the even more unlikely, and joyous, good news that Jesus’ birth for us was just as unlikely and unexpected.

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Isaiah says in summary “liturgical ritual without works is dead” because we render the meaningful worship of God meaningless and even sinful when we do not love our neighbor.
Forty days after giving birth, Mary, along with her husband Joseph, presented their firstborn Son at the temple and "bought" him back with a sacrifice of two small birds. This is known as the "Presentation of Our Lord."
Even as he was dying, the heart of God poured itself out for the sake of sinners.
He has given us more than a surprise Gospel in our text. He has given us everything we need for life and salvation in Him.
I hope your people expect and even demand this of you. But how we proclaim the central message, that can (and probably should) vary.
I think the problem with the idea of eternity is that we do not have any direct experience of it, but we encounter enough of its possibility to be unsettling.
All of Scripture, every last syllable of it, is meant to drive us to "consider Jesus," the One who comes to "make us right" by gifting us his righteousness.
Morons though we all have been, there is nothing we need that Christ hasn’t given us.
Though it may feel to us like the darkness is winning, God’s Word reveals the darkness is waning. The Light of the world has come.
He will safely birth us from this world, which is like a womb, into Heaven itself. On that day we will truly see the creation as it was made to be, restored and perfect in eternity forever.
When all the people had been baptized, when all the people had washed the filth of their sins into the water, Jesus went into the water to draw their sins unto Himself.
The usual acclamation when one becomes King is: “Long live the King!” But this King of kings, this son of David, has come to die.