Today's Focus: The Gentiles' Christmas     Epiphany comes from a Greek word meaning "reveal." When the Savior was born, he was first revealed as love's pure light to Israelites: Mary, Joseph, the shepherds. Today we see the Lord miraculously guiding foreigners across countless miles so the Savior's holy face could be revealed to them as well. The Festival of Epiphany is sometimes known as Christmas for the Gentiles. We Gentiles (non-Jews) rejoice in the good news that this Jewish baby is a gift for all people, Christ the Savior of the world.

Today's Focus: The Lord's Redeemed Remember   As one year ends and another begins, we naturally pause and reflect on life. We ponder the changes of the last year, the changes of the last decade, and even the changes over the course of our lives. What a comfort it is to know that we have a God who never changes! And just as he himself does not change, so his word and promises do not change. As we end one year and enter another, we, the Lord's redeemed, remember the Lord's promise, "I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more" (Isa 43:25).

Today's Focus: Remembering the Holy Innocents     For centuries the Christian Church has commemorated the Massacre of the Holy Innocents on December 28, three days after Christmas. This commemoration, also called Childermas, recalls the sad events prophesied in Jeremiah 31 (First Lesson) and fulfilled in Matthew 2 (Gospel), when King Herod, in his hunt for Jesus, massacred the baby boys of Bethlehem. Innocent of crimes against the state, they became the first to die in the name of Christ. Today we remember these holy innocents and ask God to shine the light of his Christmas Gospel into our dark and violent world.

Today's Focus: Christ the Savior Is Born     Jesus has been God from eternity, holy and majestic. When we look tenderly at the holy infant, we are looking at the same God who once told the prophet Moses, "No one may see me and live." Yet, Mary, Joseph, and the shepherds all saw their holy God and survived. How? God became human, hiding his glory within flesh, so that he could come to us without instilling fear or dread. A famous thoelogian once said, "We are to think of the Lord's birth, where the Word became flesh, not as a past event which we recall, but as a present reality on which we gaze." It's not that Christ the Savior was born. It's that Christ the Savior is born.