1. God has a hall ready for us, for us and for so many more
  2. That is the task of preaching in these last weeks of the Church Year, to enable the people given to our care, to praise God from the perspective of the end when our Lord will return in glory bringing us into His Kingdom of glory.
  3. Increasingly, to forgive is seen as winking at evil, as shrugging one’s moral shoulders, and as being complicit.
  4. We did not say “Goodbye” to our son on the day of his burial. We said, “Luke, we’ll see you soon.”
  5. What the gospel promises is not escape from our humanity, but resurrection from the dead.
  6. I want the beginning of my funeral to be focused on Jesus, as well as the middle, the end, and every point in between.
  7. This is the patient love of God. He is stubborn about the salvation of sinners. He will not be rushed even if his name is mocked, and the trustworthiness of his promises are called into question.
  8. What we are asked to believe as we ponder the birth of this child is that in his coming, a new creation has dawned.
  9. The Advents of Christ (past, present, and future) elicit faith in the word of Christ, confirmed by his presence.
  10. Getting ready for Christ’s coming is a practice in humility.
  11. Each week during this year’s Advent series, we will take a look at a specific implication of Christ’s incarnation. This week, we will discover how God reaffirms the goodness of his creation by making all things new in the incarnation.
  12. “The days are coming,” and God said it. God, who kept his promise that Christ would come at Christmas.