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[00:00:00] Merry Christmas. Dear Saints of St. Paul Lutheran Church, it's Pastor Wolfmieler. This is the Sunday Drive to Church podcast for the second Sunday after Christmas, January 4th, year of our Lord 2026.
[00:00:12] If you're looking at the bulletin cover to see what year it is, you're going to be living in last year, 2026, maybe it's gotten changed. Let's pray the collect and then we'll. Oh, it's beautiful. Absolutely beautiful text today.
[00:00:26] Let's pray. O God, our maker and redeemer, you wonderfully created us and in the incarnation of your son, yet more wondrously restored our human nature.
[00:00:38] Grant that we may ever be alive in him who made himself to be like us through Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
[00:00:49] Amen.
[00:00:53] Restored us by the incarnate man. It's like that prayer could be written by Irenaeus and Rembrandts on the COVID I'm telling you, I'm excited.
[00:01:04] A week of. It was a rest week this week, and I'm feeling ready to go. But the vicar's in the pulpit. That's all right. It's all right. I'm going to. I'll get this energy out of me.
[00:01:13] In Bible class, we have the. We're in the.
[00:01:16] Okay. This is an interesting selection for readings because we had last Sunday, the Holy innocence, which is December 28th. And remember, we have these three great feast days that follow after Christmas. So incarnation, December 25th. Then December 26th is the feast of St. Stephen, the first martyr. December 27th, the feast of St. John, St. John's Day, the one who died of old age. And then December 28th, the Holy Innocents.
[00:01:46] That's the babies that Herod martyred trying to kill Jesus. What a wicked fool Herod was, man.
[00:01:55] So we had that in a beautiful sermon on that from Pastor Smith last week. Well, the second Sunday after Christmas normally would have that text.
[00:02:07] So the readings that we have today are really the readings for the first Sunday after Christmas. Did that make sense? I bet that didn't make sense.
[00:02:17] Last Sunday, first Sunday after Christmas, we didn't have the normal first Sunday readings. We did Holy Innocence. The second Sunday after Christmas has readings that are a lot like Holy Innocents. So we're going to hear today the readings that were appointed for last Sunday, which includes Isaiah 11.
[00:02:34] Now, Isaiah has kind of two parts, Isaiah 1:39 and Isaiah 40, 66. Someone noted at some point how Isaiah is like a miniature Bible. So, like The Bible has 66 books. So Isaiah has 66 chapters. In the Old Testament is 39 books. And the first 39 chapters of Isaiah are kind of like that, the Old Testament. And then Starting with Isaiah 40, you have the last 27 books, a kind of New Testament in Isaiah.
[00:03:03] And it's that New Testament comfort, comfort my people. And a voice crying in the wilderness. And then in the New Testament of Isaiah, we have all of the prophecies about the death of Jesus, the suffering servant, the one who bears the Spirit by his stripes. We're healed. Isaiah 53, and the new heavens and the new earth. Isaiah 66, all those beautiful texts. In Isaiah's Old Testament, we have a lot of the Christmas promises.
[00:03:29] So Isaiah 7, the promise of the virgin birth, Isaiah 9. His name is wonderful, counselor, Prince of Peace, that one. And then today, Isaiah 11, which is the root from the stump of David? Jesse. I'll read verse one.
[00:03:48] And following there shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse. A branch from his roots shall bear fruit. And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him. The Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by what his eyes see or decide disputes by what his ears hear. But with righteousness he shall judge the poor and decide with equity for the meek of the earth. He shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked. Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist, and faithfulness the belt of his loins.
[00:04:24] So this is the promise. This is probably the Rose of Sharon promise. This is the promise that there will be a shoot from the stump of Jesse. Now, what we. And that this shoot, it's a man that's talking about the Messiah, will bear the Spirit in its fullness, the sevenfold anointing of the spirit, like Psalm 45, 6, and 7. You bear the oil of gladness above all your fellows.
[00:04:50] That's the promise here. But notice the picture. A shoot from the stump to get a stump means that the tree has to be cut down.
[00:05:00] And imagine that. So it's always bad news before it's good news.
[00:05:04] And if you're part of that family, if you're there in Jerusalem and Isaiah is preaching, and you've seen the Assyrians on the way, and you've heard all these promises of doom, and. And then you hear that, that there's going to be a shoot from the stump of Jesse. You think Wait a minute. A stump.
[00:05:24] Jesse's going to be. The tree of Jesse is going to be cut down.
[00:05:28] That's exactly what happens when Nebuchadnezzar comes along and chops off that lineage from David. But then Jesus comes as the. It's. I mean, I suppose it's the picture of when you cut down a tree in your front yard, but then the little shoots come up from the root. That's what Jesus is. He's not a branch off the tree. He's a shoot from the roots that you thought were dead.
[00:05:51] It's an amazing picture. It's beautiful.
[00:05:54] That's Jesus. Then we have the Epistle lesson from Galatians 4. This is what the sermon's on. I've read it. It's nice. You're gonna love it. It's a very complex theological argument that Paul's making. Let me read you the text.
[00:06:08] I mean that the heir, as long as he's a child, is no different from a slave. Did I tell you? It's Galatians 4:1:7. Though he's owner of everything, Lord of everything, the text says in Greek, he's the owner of everything, but he's under guardians and managers until the date set by his Father.
[00:06:26] In the same way, we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world.
[00:06:34] But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, abba, Father, so you are no longer a slave, but a son. And if a son, then an heir through God.
[00:07:01] That word air is amazing. So what Paul is saying there is that we are.
[00:07:08] It's a picture of a house in the ancient world. And there's the sons and the slaves. But they all go to school together, and they have teachers and masters over them. There's no difference. If you went to the school, you can't tell who's the children of the workers and who's the children of the master. They're all under the same authority. Even though the children of the master will one day rule the whole house.
[00:07:30] But not yet. But then when the right time comes and he graduates, and then he's given that authority.
[00:07:35] And Paul uses that picture to talk about the law and the Gospel so that the law was appointed for a time to govern and to rule until the. Until the law has done its work and brings us to the fullness of repentance, to know our own sin so that Christ can come and take over and forgive our sins.
[00:07:56] So that the repentance is like graduation. We become free and we become co heirs with Christ. It's a beautiful promise. There's a very famous Luther sermon on this text. In fact, it's one of my favorite stories because Luther preached it on New Year's Eve there in Wittenberg. And then after he finished preaching the sermon, he collapsed and had to go on bed rest for like two, three months till Lent.
[00:08:20] And it's good to have life goals.
[00:08:24] That's what I'm going for. But anyway, CFW Walther used that Luther sermon as really the backbone of his distinction between law and gospel. And Luther in that sermon says, look, we have to know that the law and the gospel have different vocations and callings.
[00:08:41] The law has the vocation of telling us what to do, telling us what God wants us to do. But it does not have the vocation of telling us where we're going to spend eternity. That belongs to Jesus.
[00:08:51] That's the job of the gospel. But the law always wants to do more than it's supposed to.
[00:08:57] It wants to coerce our hearts. It wants to tell us what God thinks about us. That's not the law's job.
[00:09:04] You go too far, law. You say too much.
[00:09:08] The gospel reading is Luke 2. The visit of Jesus with Mary and Joseph to the temple when he's a child. When the time came for the purification according to the law of Moses, Mary and Joseph brought Jesus up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord. As it is written in the law of the Lord, every male who first opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord. Remember in the Old Testament, the Lord said that every firstborn man was basically a priest, but then he accepts all of the Levitical men in place of all of the other firstborns.
[00:09:44] So if you're a firstborn of Reuben, or firstborn of Judah, or firstborn of Benjamin, you don't have to go into the priesthood because the Lord takes all of the children born of Levi. It's already a redemption that's there. But there's a special offering that Mary needs to make in the temple. So they go up to the temple to make the offering and they meet especially Simeon, this old man Simeon, who had received from the Lord this promise that he wouldn't die until he had seen the Messiah.
[00:10:14] And so in the Spirit he's led into the temple and he takes Jesus up in his arms and blesses God and says, lord, now you're letting your servant depart in peace according to your word.
[00:10:27] This is the Nunc Diminish. For my eyes have seen your salvation that you've prepared in the presence of all people, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and glory to your people Israel.
[00:10:39] So this is the last of the four great canticles that come at the beginning of Luke. We have the Angelic song, the Gloria, we have Mary's song, the Magnificat, we have Zechariah's song, the Benedicamus, and we have Simeon song, the Nunc Diminus, so great, and his father and his mother, that's Mary and Joseph. Marvel at what was said about him. Simeon blessed them. And then he says to Mary, oh, behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel and for a sign that is opposed. And a sword will pierce through your own soul also, so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.
[00:11:14] That's where you see that sacred heart of Mary picture with the heart and the sword going into it that comes from that text.
[00:11:22] Anna is also there. You know, Luke, when we think about Jerusalem in the time of Jesus, I think we mostly think about how it was filled with scoundrels. I mean, you have tax collectors and sinners, those scoundrels. And then you've got the Pharisees and the high priests and those scoundrels. You know, at this time, you've got Herod there, and presumably all of the of the scribes who were going to direct the wise men to go down to Bethlehem, they're hanging around.
[00:11:53] But there's also this faithful remnant, starting with Elizabeth and Zechariah and then Joseph and Mary. There is this faithful group that's waiting for the Lord to keep his promises.
[00:12:06] It's beautiful.
[00:12:08] When they had performed everything according to the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth. And the child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom, and the favor of God was upon him.
[00:12:20] Luke omits the flight to Egypt and the return. But it's amazing to see how Jesus is growing.
[00:12:27] It's also, and this is going to be a major theme in the sermon, so keep an ear open for this.
[00:12:34] How Jesus is perfectly keeping the law, and he doesn't even need to. I mean, it's his law, he's the one who wrote it.
[00:12:44] And yet he subjects himself, like Paul says in Galatians, born under the law to redeem those who are under the law, so that Jesus perfect Keeping of the law is also for us.
[00:13:00] It's for our salvation. It's for our redemption. It's beautiful.
[00:13:06] I forgot to talk about the psalm. The psalm is the first eight verses of Psalm 89.
[00:13:14] I will sing of the steadfast love of the Lord forever. Remember that word.
[00:13:19] Steadfast love in the ESV is that Hebrew word with my mouth. I will make known your faithfulness to all generations. For I said, steadfast love will be built up forever in the heavens. You will establish your faithfulness. You have said, I have made a covenant with my chosen one. I have sworn to David, my servant. I will establish your offspring forever and build your throne for all generations.
[00:13:46] So pair that promise. This is David himself. Well, is this David?
[00:13:51] I should know if Psalm.
[00:13:54] I just made a note to myself just a few minutes ago that I need to memorize the first lines of all the psalms and who they're by, but I haven't done it yet. Let me see if Psalm 89 is a Psalm of. Nope. Psalm 89 is a contemplation of Ethan the Ezrahite.
[00:14:15] So it's reflecting on that 2nd Samuel 7 promise. Remember in 2nd Samuel 7 when David is going to build a house for the Lord, he's going to build a temple, because they're still in the tabernacle.
[00:14:27] And David says, I got to build the Lord a house.
[00:14:30] And Nathan the prophet says, okay, do whatever you set your heart to do. And then the Lord comes to Nathan, the prophet, that night in a. In a dream and says, whoa, go back to David. So the next day he says, the Lord says to you, David, did I ask for a house? I did not ask for a house. And in fact, I don't want you to build me a house. And in fact, I'm going to build you a house, and your seed will sit on the throne forever. And David is. So the Lord promises that. That moment that the Messiah is going to be born of David, and he can't believe it, and he goes and he falls on his face in the tabernacle, and he praises the Lord for this promise. Well, this psalm is reflecting on this promise, but we have to put it next to the Isaiah 11 passage that talks about the root from the stump of Jesse. So the Lord's going to keep his promise that the Messiah is going to come from the seed of David.
[00:15:24] But that lineage, that kingship of David is going to end 600 years before the Messiah comes around. It's amazing to think about and really quite beautiful. All right, we really continue our thinking about Christmas today with all of our hymns. We've got From Heaven above to Earth I Came.
[00:15:44] We think that's Jesus talking, but it's really the angels talking. That's that Luther Christmas pageant hymn that he wrote for his family.
[00:15:51] We have let our gladness have no end.
[00:15:54] Lord, bid your servant go in peace. That's an uncle to menace angels from the realms of glory.
[00:15:59] You so good.
[00:16:01] So we rejoice in all this that we continue to know and consider how the Lord Jesus is here and he's here for us. He's here to save us. He's here to rescue us and to redeem us.
[00:16:18] All right, that's Sunday Drive to Home podcast. Sorry we haven't had one. Last week wasn't. Oh boy. It's pretty sick, but should be back into it this year.
[00:16:27] Blessed. Happy New Year to all of you. Can't wait to see you in a few minutes. God's peace be with you.