Book: Luke

Is Baptism just a symbol, or is there more to it? Listen as the Rev. Nathan Stomberg explains the Sacrament of Baptism from an Anglican perspective.

What is the significance of Jesus’ Baptism? The Rev. Galloway answers this question in light of Luke’s words: “for God was with him” (Acts 10:38). The Baptism of Jesus had tremendous importance for his earthly ministry, and it modeled our own call to righteousness that begins in Holy Baptism.

God’s eternal Word, the Logos, Jesus Christ, who existed in the Godhead from eternity past, who participated in the creation of the world, who is the ground and pinnacle of all truth, humbled himself and took on a body like ours, flesh and bones and all, and so manifested His glory to us on the stage of human history. And in that enormous moment, in that greatest paradox of all time, God’s infinite glory and perfect Truth met our dirty, humble, and broken existence. In that moment, God was fulfilling His promise to provide us a Savior to help us bridge the chasm between the profane and the divine.

The Nativity of our Lord marks the beautiful mystery of the Incarnation, the Word made flesh, Emmanuel, God with us. This Christmas Eve, the Rev. Mark Galloway invites us to wonder and worship at the miracle of Christ’s blessed birth – God dwelling among us.

We are all familiar with the story of the angel visiting the Virgin Mary to announce that she would give birth to our Savior, Jesus Christ. But one woman in the Christmas narrative who is often overlooked is Elizabeth, and we have much to learn from her remarkable wisdom.

Saint Thomas often gets a bad rap as “Doubting Thomas”. Are we really any better than Thomas ourselves? Listen as the Rector examines Saint Thomas in Luke’s narrative and what we can learn from his life and ministry.

We rejoice because the Lord is near to us. We do not serve some faraway God who sits up in an ivory tower, nor do we serve some “divine clockmaker” who wound up the gears of space and time and then stepped back to watch without any involvement. We are instead blessed by a Lord who knows each and every one of us intimately, who took on our very flesh to dwell among us, and who promised to come again one day and redeem all of creation.

There is the expectation that those to whom we are accountable will eventually visit us, and we should want to have our very best prepared to make a good impression. The same is true of our preparation for the coming Day of the Lord.

The season of Advent prepares us for the Second Coming of Christ. It is a season of anticipation, and of expectant waiting. Yet our waiting in life is not a mere waiting to die. All of us are tempted to live out our days as if we were waiting to die, but our time on earth is much more than that. For Christians, we are not waiting, worrying until the clock runs out, but instead preparing for the dawn of eternal life in Christ Jesus.