1. Jesus stands before the disciples as the bridge between heaven and earth, and between Old Testament and New Testament.
  2. His love for you is so deep that in his mercy, while you were yet a sinner, God sent his only begotten Son to die for you.
  3. “So loved,” then isn’t about how much but instead simply how.
  4. We too are God’s baptized, beloved, blood-bought believers. And no one can ever take that away from us.
  5. Hidden beneath the sinner is a glorious saint. Jesus has declared it to be so in your baptism.
  6. Love is pointing to Jesus who said, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).
  7. 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."
  8. The sign of the cross, according to the earliest centuries of Christians, is “the sign of the Lord,” and every baptized Christian was “marked” with it.
  9. 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.
  10. As the writer to the Hebrews affirms, what makes the Christian gospel so much better is that we are no longer dealing with “types and shadows."
  11. Toy Story is indeed a Christmas story.
  12. Despite our best efforts to avoid him, King Jesus remains very much unavoidable.