Pastor's Monthly Message
Reflections on various topics that seek to inspire, inform and comfort the reader
December 2024
O come all ye faithful…wait…who is faithful?
by Pastor Ben Dolby
We enter the month of December with joyful expectation. I am about to break one of my personal rules I strictly adhere to every year…I am going to share a Christmas hymn in the Season of Advent.
O come, all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant!
Who is faithful? When we assess the past year, the past decade, and all our lives…what we confess early in the Divine Service each week admits that we are anything but faithful.
I invite you to marvel at the incredible declaration of faith we sing in the opening words of this Christmas hymn. Thank God for the Good News of what he has accomplished when the Word became Incarnate. We are declared faithful because God has washed our sins away. Jesus’ death and resurrection are a joyful and triumphant victory he shares with us, as our Heavenly Father always desired from the beginning (see Genesis 3:15, Deuteronomy 18:15, and Ezekiel 18:23-32 for the proof). We are no longer enemies of God in our sin; instead, we are made right with God!
Consider one of our recent Epistle lessons from Hebrews chapter 10, Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, 20 by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, 21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. – Hebrews 10:19-22
Did you hear the declaration here, especially in verse 22?! We can draw near to God with a true heart because of the full assurance God gives to us in the gift of faith through the gift of his Son, Jesus!
O come ye, O come ye to Bethlehem. Come and behold him born the king of angels: O come, let us adore him, O come let us adore him, O come let us adore him, Christ the Lord!
May we receive and gladly respond to God’s invitation to come and see what he has done to make us new again. May we take this month to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest what it looks like to adore Christ as King over everything in our life.
O Come, all ye faithful, Joyful and triumphant!
Who is faithful? We are, because of what Jesus Christ has done for us in his Incarnation! Amen and Amen.
I want to give you our monthly memory work as an Advent and Christmas gift that you can begin memorizing and reciting out loud for your own benefit and the benefit of others. In him (Jesus) was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. – John 1:4-5
In Christ,
Pastor Dolby