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Greetings in the name of our incarnate Lord Jesus Christ,
Megan, our children and I would like to say to you Crăciun fericit or Merry Christmas. I pray that you do feel merry and happy today, but the truth is the holidays and Christmas can be a tough time for many. There is increased stress as we try to make everything perfect. There can be loneliness as we either can’t be around the ones we love, or we mourn those that have died. Even on Christmas the news and social media keeps up its barrage of negativity. That is not too mention a second Covid Christmas affecting everything. I was blessed to preach the Christmas sermon in our Bucharest congregation today. I preached on our text from John 1:1-18. It is a text of such hope and joy.
Because Christ has taken up our fallen human nature in the incarnation and redeemed it and sanctified in in His death and resurrection we as Christians have hope. We have hope because that same redeemed humanity has been given to us in the waters of Baptism. So, you are not alone! Jesus now lives in you, and what’s more He lives in your fellow Christians uniting us into one body and family. We have hope because the One who conquered death now lives in us. Death may stalk us and try to frighten us, but it has been defeated. There is nothing that death and the world can do to you that Jesus won’t fix at the resurrection. That includes reuniting us to all of our loved ones who died in the faith! We have hope because the Light that the darkness can not over comes shines in us. This fallen world with all its sorrows and evil can feel overwhelming at times. It feels like it is too much to bear. It feels like that because it is too much for us to bear, but Christ can bear it and His light continues to shine in you even in the deepest darkness.
I will leave you with these words from the Gospel of John.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light.
The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own peopledid not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. (John 1:1-13)
Merry Christmas/Crăciun fericit,
Pastor Andrew Fedder
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