Midweek Advent Commentary
Wednesday,
December 18, 2013
If
you're a Lutheran kid, there are only two days when you don't
want Jesus to come back: your birthday and Christmas. Maybe some of
us still feel this way. Toys and good feelings—why spoil it with
the end of the world?
But
our Master calls us to watch and pray and hope for His glorious
return. There is no greater gift for Christmas than Jesus in the
flesh, once and for all coming to take sinners, forgiven once and for
all, back home.
And
until His final coming, we do receive our Jesus in the flesh through
the blessed Sacrament. No earthly gift will ever surpass the heavenly
meal of Christ given and shed for us.
AUGUSTANA XVII
Christ’s
Return for Judgment
Our
churches teach that at the end of the world Christ will appear for
judgment and will raise all the dead. He will give the godly and
elect eternal life and everlasting joys, but He will condemn ungodly
people and the devils to be tormented without end.
Our
churches condemn the Anabaptists, who think that there will be an end
to the punishments of condemned men and devils.
Our
churches also condemn those who are spreading certain Jewish
opinions, that before the resurrection of the dead the godly shall
take possession of the kingdom of the world, the ungodly being
everywhere suppressed.
Concordia
: The Lutheran Confessions. 2005 (Edited by Paul Timothy McCain)
(40). St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House.
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