Catalyst Question

What constellations, comets, or other celestial objects can you identify?

Signs in the Skies

Happy New Year! Last year, many in the United States experienced a total solar eclipse. As this article details, 2025 forecasts a number of different events involving the sun, moon, stars, comets, and more.

We’re not the only ones who look to the heavens with interest. In today’s Gospel reading from Matthew 2:1-12, Magi from Persia follow heavenly body to Bethlehem and visit Jesus. Magi were priests and scholars who looked to the stars for divine wisdom. They asked questions about anything from the best time to plant and harvest crops to whether a natural disaster might visit their region. Magi sought the sacred in the stars. While Lutherans don’t typically look to the stars in exactly the same way, we do look to the heavens because we believe they reveal God’s wisdom and might.

This Sunday, we celebrate The Epiphany of Our Lord. The word epiphany means “reveal.” This festival celebrates that, in Jesus, God is revealed to all people. Jesus is not just for the polite, religiously acceptable people, but for the people who look for God in ways that seem strange to others. Jesus is not just for the insiders, but for the outsiders. In Jesus, God is revealed to all nations, all peoples, all sorts of all of us.

This year, as you look to the sky, remember that many other people will be looking at the same stars, the same comets, the same sun and moon. They might be very different from you, but the God in Bethlehem’s manger came for them, too.

Ask Yourself: Epiphany reveals that God for everyone. Who is it hardest for you to believe Jesus is here for? Why is that?

Ask a Friend: When you look to the stars, what do you learn about God?

Catalyst Question

When you think of words like “education” or “school,” what comes to mind?

Witnessing a New Era

Merry Christmas!

Now, you might be thinking, “How was Jesus forn was just a few days ago, and now already he’s a 12-year-old?!” Rather than a mutant-like growth pattern, a la Marvel’s X-Men, this is simply a reflection of how little scriptural material addresses Christ’s childhood.

Even so, it’s remarkable how normal this childhood appears. In Luke 2:41-42, we find Jesus in school. Not exactly like the middle school that today’s 12-year-olds attend, but a school quite common for the day: religious instruction. At the temple, Jesus learns from the teachers, probably rabbis with the possibility of priests chiming in as well. He both listens and asks questions.

One fascinating thing about this story is that, apparently, the adults welcome Jesus as a student. They gave Jesus the gift of time. Jesus finds welcome and support amongst his elders as he seeks to grow. Today, we might call that mentorship. It sounds like this article, which describes how having mentors increases the likelihood of success among adolescents as they grow intellectually, socially, and psychologically. Similarly, research from the Springtide Institute found that an interested adult in an adolescent’s faith life led to a more robust spiritual experience for the young person.

This Christmas (and don’t forget, Christmas lasts for 12 whole days), give the gift of time to someone younger than yourself. To mentor someone can be as simple as knowing their name, taking an interest in their life, sharing your passions, and taking their questions seriously. It made a difference in Jesus’ life and can make a difference for people today, too.

Ask Yourself: Who is someone older than me that took an interest in my life? Take a moment to reach out to that person and thank them for the impact they made.

Ask a Friend: Jesus, our greatest teacher, took the time to learn. How can we help one another stay humble enough to learn as we grow in our own callings?

Catalyst Question

How do you define success?

Witnessing a New Era

This week, a new era in began in college sports: a twelve team playoff to name the national champion in collegiate football. For many years–in fact, for more than a century–champions were determined through voting of either coaches or media professionals. In 2014, a four team playoff format began. This week, this playoff expanded to include twelve contenders, with teams from Indiana University and the University of Notre Dame inaugurating this new era.

With more games, there will be more fans who witness the plays on the field, and likely more who will watch on television as well. Given the size of these stadiums, hundreds of thousands of people will experience this first playoff in person, and millions more at home. At the end of the whole process, we’ll witness one winner amongst the field of 134 contenders.

It’s odd that this new method of crowing a champion begins during Advent. Advent is also a new era of victory, but one where God prioritizes a very different sort of success. As we hear in this Sunday’s reading from Luke 1:399-55, God isn’t interested in crowing one winner. Mary’s song reminds all who hear, or read, that God lifts up the lowly, that all might become winners. Rather than a playoff to crown one true champion, Jesus arrives in Bethlehem to share divine success with all who play the game of life.

It’s interesting that, rather than a stadium full of adoring fans, God arrives among us through a backwater town. Born into a feeding trough, there was no live stream to witness Christ’s arrival. Especially because Jesus is God’s victory for all people.

In Advent, we await the successful culmination of Emmanuel with God’s arrival among us in Jesus. Jesus is the victorious presence of God in Christ. This divine arrival, which successfully brings divine blessing to all creation, is starkly juxtaposed this week with a very different kind of winning.

Let’s remember, as we approach the manger this week, that Mary reminds us God’s success is defined in profoundly different ways than our own. There is no tournament to God’s blessing, for in Bethlehem, God chooses to bless us all.

Ask Yourself: How can I encourage others with the Christmas reminder that there is no competition needed to earn God’s blessing?

Ask a Friend: Who are the “lowly” people, mentioned by Mary, who God lifts up? Who are those that the world looks at as losers but God welcomes into the winners’ circle?

Finally, this is the last week to take this survey and give your feedback about Faith Lens as we determine the format for the next season of this resource!

Catalyst Question

In some situations in life, we know the right thing to do and yet don’t do it, even in the simplest of circumstances. What do you think prevents us from taking action to do the right thing?

Active Waiting

Sometimes Advent can seem a bit boring. People can treat this powerful season of life like it’s the waiting room for Christmas. They endure these four weeks as though there’s nothing to do but scroll through the lectionary until the heavenly doctor arrives.

That approach clearly doesn’t take the Advent readings seriously, especially this week’s Gospel. In Luke 3:7-18, John the Baptist tells his followers that Christ is arriving soon. With Jesus on the way, John suggests, there’s no time like the present to make the necessary changes they’ve been avoiding in their lives. Have you been greedy? Stop it. Have you been selfish? Stop that too. Have you used your position of power to take advantage of others? Definitely quit that nonsense.

Advent isn’t a boring waiting room. This waiting for the Messiah is the months or years of intentional practice that lead up to a major performance. Advent is active waiting.

Consider the 2026 Winter Olympics, scheduled for Italy. Athletes have already been training to give themselves a chance to win. Amateur and professional athletes are competing against their national teammates for an opportunity to represent their country. At the same time, Olympic officials are scheduling backup locations in case of facility problems or weather interruptions.

Waiting without changing isn’t at all what the Advent season is about. Advent is the season where we wait on God while both listening to God’s call for justice and shaping our lives around that call. While this season is defined by waiting for Christmas, it is not a season that waits on change. It is a season that expects change without delay.

Ask Yourself: What are three things I can do to live God’s justice in my own life?

Ask a Friend: What is something we can do together to help change the church or our community so it better reflects God’s love?

One last reminder: please take this survey and give your feedback about Faith Lens as we consider the path ahead for this devotional resource!

Catalyst Question

What’s your favorite remake? It could be a song, movie, or other piece of art. How does it compare to the original?

What’s Wrong with a Remake?

In Luke 3:1-6, John the Baptist cries out, “Prepare the way of the Lord!” Straight paths. Leveled hills. Smooth roads.

It’s all so unoriginal.

Hundreds of years before John’s wilderness prophecy, another prophet said the exact same things. In Isaiah, after Jerusalem is overrun by enemies and God’s people are forced into Exile, the prophet similarly calls for leveled trails and paved streets.

But is there anything wrong with a remake? Recently, the film adaptation of Wicked–a massively popular Broadway musical–became quite successful in its own right. Story continuations in the Moana and Gladiator universes saw similar support. Remakes are also quite popular with music. Somewhere Over the Rainbow, from the original Wizard of Oz, was recast as a ukulele lullaby by Izzy. Luke Combs’ recent cover of  Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car” reignited appreciation for Chapman’s talent by today’s audiences. It seems there’s something essentially human in connecting our current lives with stories from our past.

In that light, John the Baptist doesn’t appear lazy. Instead, he seems deeply connected with the human condition. And of course, getting connected with the human condition is just what God is up to in Jesus.

Advent is a time when we can appreciate the present relevance of ancient stories. Isaiah was a prophet who saw his homeland conquered by an outside empire (Babylon). John the Baptist was a prophet who saw his homeland conquered by an outside empire (Rome). Both of them saw the need for God in the midst of that suffering. Both of them wanted any obstacles removed that might prevent God’s quick arrival. John remembered Isaiah’s prophecy. John found resonance with Isaiah’s ancient words for his present situation. And so, John recast those words for his own life.

Just like John’s prophecy, your prayer life doesn’t need to be original to be meaningful. Sometimes, the words of scripture sum up just how we feel. At other times, worship lyrics give voice to the depth of our hearts. Not only can we learn from the faith of those who came before us. That faith can carry us in moments when our world seems to fall apart.

Ask Yourself: What is one example of a Bible story, a piece of spiritual art, or a person from church history that can help strengthen your faith today?

Ask a Friend: In this Advent season, as we wait for Jesus to arrive among us as a baby in Bethlehem, what obstacles might be preventing us from finding our way to the manger? What can we do to follow John’s (and Isaiah’s) encouragement to remove those roadblocks?

Finally, remember to take this survey and give your feedback about Faith Lens as we consider the path ahead for this devotional resource!