Will Vaus

  Listen for God’s word to you from Luke 2:1-14… In those days Caesar Augustus   issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world.   (This was the first census that took place while   Quirinius was governor of Syria.)   And everyone went to their own town to register. So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem   the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David.   He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him   and was expecting a child   While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them. And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night.   An angel   of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone arou...

Today we are going to talk about the biblical person most often depicted in the visual arts, second only to Jesus. I am speaking, of course, about Mary. She is one of those unusual people that you can Google her first name and the Internet takes you right to her. The church teachings about Mary are perhaps the most debated among all doctrines. In my humble opinion, the Roman Catholic Church tends to overemphasize her role in salvation history and the Protestant Church tends to deemphasize that same role. As with all major biblical characters, we wish we knew what she looked like. Artists have been trying to picture Mary for 2000 years. One of the earliest depictions comes from one of the Roman catacombs of the second century… Then we have perhaps the oldest icon of Mary from the monastery of St. Catherine’s on Mt. Sinai which dates to the sixth century or perhaps earlier… And then there is perhaps the most famous depiction of Mary, carved in stone by Michelangelo in the fifteenth centu...

Once again, we are in the run-up to a presidential election year. It seems like almost every time this season comes around, we find politicians saying, “No, I have no intention of running for president.” But still there is speculation. “Will this person run? Will that person run?” Then the person who denied that he or she was going to run for president calls a press conference and says something like: “Friends and supporters have asked me to consider the presidency and so I’ve changed my mind. I really am going to run for president.”   In the verses we are going to read from John’s Gospel today, we see a person attracting a lot of attention in the public arena. He gains a large following. But then he really does refuse to accept any of the offices people want him to run for. The person I am talking about is John the Baptist. Listen for God’s word to you from John chapter 1…   There was a man sent from God whose name was John.   He came as a witness to testify   conce...