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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When God cancels you, it is an occasion for all of the canceled who are in heaven and earth to rejoice in that one more is added to our number.
But Jesus comes to us today and reminds us that He has the power to make disciples in the midst of conflict and suffering.
Because this life is transient and we already live in the new and eternal age restored in Christ (at least in part), our preoccupations are different to those bound to this world and life.
We like to close with something great. We even have a saying for this behavior: “Saving the best for last.” God Himself has a way of saving the best for last.
What does being free from sin, which is obviously a good thing, have to do with being free from the Law, which sounds dangerous?
Jesus is our sympathizer, our propitiation, and our advocate. We will be tempted but God will provide the way out, the way out is Jesus, the one who died for our sins.
John has been preaching a radical vision of God, where God holds people accountable for their sin and calls them to repent. What will Jesus do?
In Scripture, to be "in Christ" is nothing but living in the light and reality of one’s baptism.
The setting for Luke 2 is the first century analog to my backyard. The stage is dressed with rust and decay, guilt and shame, sin and death.
We begin in ignorance and we end in ignorance. But, in the midst of our ignorance, Jesus is walking with us.
Here is Paul’s repacking of the Christmas gift in terms of the personal and corporate implications of God so loving the world that He gave His only begotten Son.
As Simeon sang, you might lead your hearers in a song of defiant and hopeful confidence to close out a year characterized by death and despair.