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Art has always been an important way to communicate the Christian faith. The use of music helps believers understand their hope and confidence in God. Other works of art have been used from the beginning to help express various aspects of Christian doctrine and life. Colors, altar paraments or coverings, and banners are some of the most important visual objects Christians have used to express their faith in worship. The objective in covering the Altar and other furnishings with cloths of various colors was to focus the attention of worshippers on the special nature of Christ as the Perfect Sacrifice.

For a long time in the history of the Church, the traditional color of Advent was violet, the same color used during Lent, because both seasons had a theme of preparation. This color also made a connection to royalty, since Jesus is the King. Many churches still use violet during Advent.

A relatively recent development – about 60 years ago – was the usage of blue in the Advent season. Blue has long been used to represent hope, love and faithfulness throughout the history of the church, so it was introduced as an alternate color for the Advent Season. Blue paraments represent our joyful hope and anticipation as we wait for our Lord to return.

Lift up your heads, ye mighty gates! Behold the King of Glory waits;
The King of Kings is drawing near, The Savior of the world is here
Life and salvation He doth bring; Therefore rejoice and gladly sing.
To God the Father raise Your joyful songs of praise.

A righteous Helper comes to thee, His chariot is humility,
His kingly crown is holiness, His scepter, pity in distress.
The end of all our woe He brings, Therefore the earth is glad and sings:
To Christ, the Savior raise Your grateful hymns of praise.
(Lift Up Your Heads, Ye Mighty Gates  Lutheran Service Book LSB#341 v. 1-2)

When you see blue today, remember the hope we have because of Jesus.

“The whole earth is at rest and is quiet;
They break forth into shouts of joy.
“Even the cypress trees rejoice over you,
and the cedars of Lebanon (Isaiah 14:7-8)
“The glory of Lebanon will come to you,
The juniper, the box tree and the cypress together,
To beautify the place of My sanctuary;
And I shall make the place of My feet glorious. (Isaiah 60:13)

In many churches, Advent begins with a service known as “The Hanging of the Greens.” I think this tradition comes from England. They will include a responsive reading like the words above. While many will decorate their sanctuary before the first Sunday in Advent, some churches actually do the decorating as part of a worship service. In those services, they talk about the symbolism and meaning of many of the decorations.

Something you see almost everywhere at this time of year is greenery, especially evergreens. Among ancient Greeks and Romans, evergreens were an emblem of peace, joy, and victory. They would make laurel wreaths to put on the heads of winners, like they still do in the Olympics. Holly and ivy, along with pine, and fir are called evergreens because they never change color. They are ever – green, ever – alive, even in the midst of winter. These have come to symbolize the unchanging nature of our God, and they remind us of the everlasting life that is ours through Christ Jesus. Early Christians placed evergreens in their windows to indicate that Christ had entered their home.

Holly is an evergreen that has both thorns and berries. The thorns can serve as a reminder of the crown of thorns Jesus wore in His passion, and the red berries remind us of the blood He shed for us.

As you look at the greenery around you today, remember that it is a reminder of Jesus is alive and that you have everlasting life because of your faith in Him.

A star in the sky, carols in the evening air, a candle in the window, a wreath on the door, mistletoe hung high, poinsettias aflame with brilliant color, gifts beneath a lighted tree, friends around the holiday table, families reunited in love, church bells ringing. All these things are part of Christmas in America! And as far as most of America is concerned, we are now in the Christmas season. But you and I know better. It is not yet Christmas. This is Advent, the Intro, the prep time, the waiting period. Today marks the beginning of Advent, the four Sundays before Christmas. Advent is designed to help you prepare for the coming of your Savior, the Messiah.

Advent means coming. It is to remind us that the celebration of Christmas is coming and that our Lord Jesus is coming back again. These are to be days of anticipation and expectation and preparation for Christ’s arrival.

It is hard to observe Advent in our world today. People want to jump forward to Christmas. People talk about the holiday season. It begins with Thanksgiving, which is immediately followed by “the Christmas season” in the minds of most people. But some don’t wait that long. People start putting up Christmas lights in October these days! We want to jump ahead.

Yet Advent has a purpose. There is a reason for this season as well. Through the centuries, Christians have observed a time of waiting and expectation before celebrating the birth of the Savior at Christmas. The Advent season is to be a time for reflection and preparation, but the mood is not meant to be sorrowful. This is a time of joyful anticipation. We know that Christ is coming again, but He has not yet come. Advent is a representation of that: it is not that we don’t know about Christ’s birth! It is just not yet the celebration of it! That will come eventually, just as our Lord will return eventually.

Advent is something we should embrace and value in the church. It proclaims the revelation of God’s love expressed in Christ’s birth in a humble stable, His sacrificial death on the cross, and His victorious resurrection! It points to the hope of Christ’s coming again as the King of kings and Lord of lords. Advent makes innkeepers out of all of us, asking each of us to make room for the arrival of Christ the King.

In the days ahead, I will share some thoughts about traditions and some of decorations we see during this season of preparation. I hope this will help you anticipate and prepare room for Jesus in your hearts, your lives, and your homes!

Today has been known as “Black Friday” for as long as I can remember. It even has that designation on my Facebook calendar, and I did not put it there. Traditionally, it marked the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. Retailers would have sales with huge discounts to get people into their stores the day after Thanksgiving and jump start their yearend profits.

I learned a long time ago not to shop on that day. The Thanksgiving before our middle daughter was getting married, my wife saw that one store had the mixer she wanted to give her marked down 60% on Friday only. The store opened at 5 a.m. and she told me I was to go and get one for her. I did as I was told, found the mixer, and waited in line an hour and a half to pay for it. I’m not sure it was worth the savings.

Today, Black Friday sales start long before the day after Thanksgiving, and even are available online. But there will still be a lot of folks observing this event today.

When I hear the term “Black Friday,” it reminds me of something else, the day we usually call Good Friday. It was a dark, black day when Jesus willingly put Himself in the position of being the sacrifice for the sins of the world. And that day marked the biggest savings ever: God was saving the world. Jesus was the substitute, taking our sins and giving us His righteousness. From God’s perspective, it was totally worth it. It was not a small price, no minor inconvenience that earned our salvation. Yet Jesus endured it willingly for our sake.

What better way is there to start what the world calls “the Christmas season” than to remember why Jesus was born? And we should take a hint from the retailers and expand this remembrance to much more than just one day. In fact, it should be everyday that we remember the Friday that brought about the Good of our forgiveness and life and salvation.

2 Corinthians 5:17–21 ¹⁷ Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! ¹⁸ All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: ¹⁹ that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. ²⁰ We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. ²¹ God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

May this be the message we share with the world as we prepare to remember Christ’s birth.

“O, give thanks unto the Lord, for He is good and His mercy endures forever” is the way many of us learned to return thanks after a good meal. Based on a common refrain in the book of Psalms (106, 107, 118, 136), that was the after meal prayer used in my home as I was growing up.

Giving thanks is something that we are encouraged to do on this National Day of Thanksgiving in our country. It is good that we join with millions of others on this day to give thanks to our God for all His blessing on us and our nation.

It is good to give thanks to the Lord and to sing praises to Your name, O Most High. (Psalm 92:1 NASB)

While a national holiday can be a good reminder to give thanks, Jesus instructs us that this should be our attitude every day. That is why He included a petition in the prayer He taught us saying, “Give us this day our daily bread.” Writing about this petition in his Small Catechism, Dr. Martin Luther explained it this way: “God gives daily bread indeed without our prayer, also to all the wicked,  but we pray in this petition that He would lead us to know it and to receive our daily bread with thanksgiving.”

 Luther went on to explain what is meant by “daily bread” with these words:  “Daily bread includes everything that belongs to the support and wants of the body, such as food, drink, clothing, shoes, house, home, field, cattle, money, goods, a pious spouse, pious children, pious servants, pious and faithful rulers, good government, good weather, peace, health, discipline, honor, good friends, faithful neighbors, and the like.”

 It is good for us to pause more than occasionally in our busy lives and reflect on what we are really saying when we pray those simple words, “Give us this day our daily bread.”

God is the giver of all our blessings, more than we can enumerate. And we are all God’s stewards or managers who daily receive these blessings from His gracious hand.  The greatest blessing we have received is the gift of salvation through faith in His only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. But God does not stop there.  He knows that we also have physical needs and so He provides for them, and He provides lavishly.

What is our appropriate response?  Simply put it is to receive God’s gifts with thanksgiving and use them as He intends. We do well to remember that Christian stewardship is the free and joyous activity of anaging all of life and life’s resources for God’s purposes.

May this National Day of Thanksgiving be a reminder to be thankful for all the blessings God gives and to use them all in a way that honors Him and blesses those around us.

As Thanksgiving arrives, lots of folks will be traveling to see family and friends and loved ones. Togetherness is important on holidays. In November, we have two grandchildren celebrating birthdays, and we would like to be with them for that and for Thanksgiving Day. But that won’t happen this year. We will not return home from Germany until the first part of December. While we have frequent contact with our children and grandchildren through texts and phone calls and video chats, it is not the same as being there in person. Sitting next to someone, being physically present, allows you to touch and hug and interact in a way not possible otherwise.

I was reminded of the imposed isolation four years ago during the Covid-19 lockdown. Everyone became acutely aware of the importance of being with other people because that was taken away for a while. At that time, I started doing almost Daily Devotions for my congregation in a video format to try to stay in touch with them, and I did one on this very topic (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDSC3mvC2yc&t=11s).

I mentioned that while we sometimes have to be separated from each other, we have the assurance that nothing can separate us from God’s love.

Romans 8:31–39 What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

I hope all of you get to spend some time with family and friends over the holidays. And I hope you will also hold onto the Good News that for those who have been brought to faith in Jesus as their Savior from sin and death, nothing can separate you from the love of God in Him. We all need that comforting assurance in our lives on a regular basis.

My last devotion was on about how Law and Love are intertwined in God’s way of thinking. I want to share some more thoughts on that today.

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.   1 John 4:7-12

God didn’t say, “I love you so the Law doesn’t matter.” Instead, He said that His love led Him to send Jesus to keep all the law for us and then take our place in punishment as “the atoning sacrifice for our sins.”  Jesus did what only He could do: live a perfect life and pay for our sins. And in the process, He was showing us what love is all about. Since God so loved us, we ought to love Him first and foremost. We also ought to love one another.

A big part of the message to the Pharisees in Jesus’ day was that God’s emphasis is not about how well we keep the rules. That was the mindset of the Pharisees. They had a checklist of laws and rules and regulations that they developed from their study of the Old Testament. They thought that if they kept all those rules that God would love them. But they had it backwards. God already loved them. He wanted them to obey Him for their own good. Obedience to God and His Laws is not in order to be saved, but because you know you have been saved by what Jesus did for you.

This message needs to be shared still today because we all have some Pharisee in us. So let me say it this way: Your behavior does not make you a Christian. Faith in what Jesus did through His life and death and resurrection makes you a Christian. And when you believe in Jesus and know His love, your behavior will change as a result of your faith.

What does that look like? It is really very simple. We need to move from saying that we love everyone in general to showing God’s love to individuals. It happens in everyday encounters and interactions with others, and not just the people you know.

• When someone is rude to you, will you respond in kind, or will you show the kind of love God has shown you in Christ?
• When you see someone is upset, will you try to ignore them and pass by on the other side, or will you offer an encouraging word and offer to pray with him or her?
• When you see that car broken down on the side of the road, will you zip past like everyone else in hurry to get somewhere, or will you try to help in whatever way you can?

Something I have discovered in my life is that the most effective way to show God’s love in this world is not through big events and grand gestures. It is through one on one encounters with those people you meet throughout the course of your day.

Love the Lord your God and love your neighbor as yourself. As those who know and have experienced the love of God in Christ, we understand that Jesus is telling us how to respond to His love that saved us from sin and death. You and I live in the conviction that our sin has been forgiven and we will spend the rest of eternity with our Lord. Therefore, as a result of and in response to the Love God has already shown you, love God and love your neighbor. What will that look like in your life?