Christmas 1 B: Christmas Courage

Luke 2:22-40 Dear Partner in Preaching, It’s amazing how quickly Christmas passes, isn’t it? After all the preparations – both in church and at home – after four weeks of Advent, after carols and service projects, special music and Christmas Eve services…. After all this, it’s suddenly done. The presents are opened, the wrapping paper put in the recycling bin, needles are falling from the tree, and it’s 364 more days until next year’s celebration. Of course, Christmas isn’t done. The church knew that there was no way you could really celebrate, let alone comprehend, the Incarnation in a day, so it recognized twelve days of...

Luke 2:36-38

There was also a prophet, Anna the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was of a great age, having lived with her husband for seven years after her marriage, then as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshipped there with fasting and prayer night and...

Luke 2:22-38

When the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the law of the Lord, “Every firstborn male shall be designated as holy to the Lord”), and they offered a sacrifice according to what is...