Christmas Leads To Apostleship

In her sermon today at church, our associate Pastor Alison Shane zeroed in on what Christmas can mean not only at this time of year, but also all year long. She painted, first, a broad-stroke view of the Christmas story as given in Matthew and Luke, but then she honed in on the apostle Paul's suggestion that Christmas provides “mission” for our lives.

What was amazing to me was that she took the wide-ranging topic of “Christmas” and navigated skillfully through all the “stuff” to offer a singular, cogent focus for us at this Holy Season.

After talking about the interesting perspectives of Gospel writers Matthew and Luke in relating the story of Christ’s birth, she turned to words by the apostle Paul in the first chapter of Romans, that was also a part of the Lectionary readings for this past week:

“Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ… set apart for the gospel… concerning his Son… Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith..”

Pastor Alison pointed out that Paul did not have the benefit of Matthew’s or Luke’s animated narrative of the Incarnation story. Based on what he knew, however, Paul linked the coming of Christ to our mission, with the above words. He understood the full implication of the Christmas story, but he took it to the next step and applied it to everyday living.

Lutherans look at “apostleship” mostly in terms of vocation, that is, how we live out our faith. Pastor Alison offered that Christmas takes on added meaning for us as we realize that, in addition to sending His Son, God has gifted each one of us for “mission”, or apostleship.

This season, as we contemplate the Christmas story, we can also know that God continues to equip us for the particular “apostleship” to which He has called us. In this way, Christmas is not only an event we observe and celebrate, but it is also the basis for mission and meaning for our lives.

Thanks be to God.