In Jesus, God acted first, even when we were dead in our trespasses and sins (Eph. 2:5).
Yahweh who is pierced and mourned in prophecy is Jesus who is pierced and mourned in fulfillment.
There is indeed a responsibility for the church to share the gospel in the world, but never at the expense of the church’s charity and mercy for those neighbors who are nearby.

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I bet you have seen this verse pop up in Bible study before.
In the midst of suffering, hate, and sin, Jesus sets a table for soldiers. He feeds the fearful with forgiveness and eternal life.
What comes to us at Christmas is not a great seasonal bargain to enhance our happy holidays. It is the priceless gift of God’s Son.
No one twisted Jesus’s arm to make him enter Mary’s womb. No one tricked him into being born into a world strung out on the meth of sin. He came in with his eyes wide open.
God graciously bursts our foolish plots by coming our way, into our very flesh, and being God with us.
In Christ, the Word become flesh, this is a concrete, real fact. It is the bedrock foundation of the Gospel.
For since it was not enough that the Lord of heaven and earth hung on our every word, the Word came down from heaven and hung upon the cross.
How strange and yet how comforting: God prays to God for us, the Spirit to the Father. He sees through the fog of our emotions to what we truly need.
This emphasis in Luther also applied to his understanding of the sacraments, and particularly comes out in his writings on the Lord’s Supper in his Large Catechism.
If this opening verse offers to us both door and doorkeeper, then the doorkeeper stands with the door held securely shut.
If God is God, He doesn’t need anyone to defend Him. Nor does He need anyone to march for Him.
When our sense of alienation from God is underscored and exaggerated by daily life we behave like tropical fish when their tank is cleaned.