Pastor Sullivan's Blog

In the Name of the Father and of the Son + and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. Throughout the Epiphany season Christ reveals His power over creation. Last week He changed water into wine. Next week He will calm a storm. Today two men approach Christ, a leper and a centurion. By all these miracles for the leper and centurion Christ demonstrates His almighty power which He possess because He is the only-begotten Son of God. But He demonstrates far more than almighty power. He reveals His mercy toward the infirmed and afflicted who put their trust in Him. Without mercy and compassion His almighty power would be no good to us. He also reveals to us the kind of faith He seeks to cultivate in the heart of every believing soul. Jesus comes down the mountain. He had just finished preaching the Sermon on the Mount. Even though great multitudes follow Him, a leper comes to Him and worships him. His prayer is simple. “ Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean. ” He brings his afflicti...

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. Typically the wedding isn’t about the guests. This particular wedding in Cana of Galilee was like any other Jewish wedding, bride and groom surrounded by family and friends celebrating the fact that the Lord had once again given an Adam his Eve. Jesus and His disciples were there and by His presence there Jesus sanctified the estate of marriage as something good, holy, and God-pleasing. It was a joyous occasion, that is, until the wine ran out. It may seem like a paltry problem to us, an embarrassment at worst. It’s not a problem like leprosy or death. But it was a disaster nonetheless because the lack of wine threatened to end the joy of the newlywed’s beginning of a life together in the blessed estate God had established in the Garden of Eden. Mary, perhaps a relative of the bride or groom, goes to Jesus. “ They have no wine, ” to which Jesus brushes her off, “ Woman, what does your concern have to do with me...

In the Name of the Father and of the Son + and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. The evangelists give us a few stories of the first months of Jesus’ life, but tell us almost nothing about the childhood or early adult life of Jesus. Today’s gospel lesson is the only glimpse we have of Christ before His baptism and public ministry. And while in the early church curious individuals wrote infancy gospels imagining what His early life might have been like, the few texts we have of Christ’s infancy and today’s gospel tell us everything we need to know. On the eighth day of His life He was circumcised according to the Law of the Lord. On the fortieth day after giving birth, Mary goes to the Temple to offer the sacrifices for own purification and to present Jesus in the Temple according to the Law of the Lord. Jesus’ life, from the beginning, is lived under Mosaic Law so it should come to no surprise when Luke tells us that Mary and Joseph went up to Jerusalem every year for the Feast of the Pass...

In the Name of the Father and of the Son + and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. Up to this point Jesus’ identity had only been revealed to the Jews. On the night of Christ’s birth the angel appeared to lowly shepherds dwelling in the Hill Country of Judea. The angel told those men about the savior born for all people, not just the Jews. Last Sunday St. Luke told us that Jesus identity was revealed to elderly Simeon and the aged Anna. Simeon holds the child in his arms and says, “ Mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared before the face of all people; A light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel ” (Luke 3:20-32). The Holy Spirit had revealed this to Simeon so Simeon confesses that this child is the salvation promised by the Lord. Today Simeon’s words come true. The Lord has prepared this salvation “ before the face of all people; a light to lighten the Gentiles. ” That’s precisely what the Church celebrates on the day after the twelfth day of Chris...

In the Name of the Father and of the Son + and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. The world is finished with its Christmas celebration by now and has moved onto its celebration of the new calendar year. But for the Church today is the sixth day of Christmas and the Sunday after Christmas. The appointed gospel lesson jumps ahead forty days after Jesus’ birth to Mary’s purification in the temple at Jerusalem. The text picks up in the middle of things. “ And Joseph and His mother marveled at those things which were spoken of Him. ” The words at which they marveled were the words of the aged priest Simeon, who had taken the child in his elderly arms and spoken the words which we now sing every Sunday in the Nunc Dimittis after receiving the Lord’s Supper where we see the salvation of the Lord prepared for all people.   In the Lord’s Supper we, like Simeon, receive Christ physically, but under bread and wine, and our sins are once again forgiven. After saying that the Lord can now let him d...

Grace and Peace be unto you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. The prophet Isaiah wrote in his ninth chapter, “ Unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given .” The child that is born for us, this Son that is given to us is no mere child, just as His birth is no ordinary birth. The child born of the Virgin Mary, wrapped in swaddling clothes, and laid in a manager is God the Word, the one of whom St. John says, “ In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God .” The Word is eternal, being with God from the beginning. The Word was God, John says. He does not say that the Word became God, or that the Word was created by God in the beginning to stand alongside God or next to God. The Word was not fashioned like the rest of creation. The Word simply was. He has always existed, being eternally generated from the God the Father in a way that is ineffable and indescribable and unfathomable. Paul describes Him in a similar fashion in this...

In the Name of the Father and of the Son + and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. The birth of Christ the Lord is preached first not to princes or priests but to lowly shepherds. It matches the lowliness and humility of Christ’s birth. No room in the inn among civilized folk, only room among the animals. No crib for a bed, only the animals feeding trough. It makes sense that this good news would be preached first to shepherds who were generally poor and held a rather low station in life. But in spite of their lowliness they get quite a preacher. “ Behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid. ” Of course they were afraid. You would have been, too. When an angel of the Lord appears, shining in heavenly glory, fear is the only proper response. In the Old Testament when Balaam sees the angel of the Lord standing before him, “ he bowed his head and fell flat on his face ” ( Numbers 22:31). When Samson’s parents realize...