December 19, 2023 -- I Corinthians 4:1-2 -- Christians: Stewards of the Divine Mysteries

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This is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. 2 Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found faithful.
I Corinthians 4:1-2 ESV

My wife and I enjoy a cooking show. It is from Australia and contestants are home cooks competing against other home cooks. You meet some pretty kooky cooks around the table who are sampling and judging each other’s food. In one instance there was a fortune teller at the table. Immediately the others around the table were impressed and asked questions. They acted as if she were a steward of the mysteries of the universe. She was a fraud. One by one her predictions were publicly proved wrong. And yet people treated her with a respect she did not deserve or earn. We are not that kind of steward of God’s mysteries.

As with any time of the year, though most especially at Christmas, we are stewards of the mystery of the Incarnation. Christ came to earth, born a babe, wrapped in swaddling cloths and placed in a manger. Though He’d created the heavens and the earth, He became human so that humanity ruined by sin and wickedness, would be rescued. He was truly God and truly human. He will return in glory and punished all the wicked of the earth and to take His people to the New Heavens and the New Earth.

There are scoffers and nay-sayers. There are efforts made in our world to stamp out the Truth of Christ the King. It was so when Jesus was born. Within two years of His birth King Herod tried to stamp out Jesus’ life by killing all the baby boys born around Bethlehem—just before this happened, Joseph was warned in a dream. So he got up in the night, and he took his little family to Egypt. It is so today. Efforts to stop people from saying “Merry Christmas” or the nonsense reports rewriting history that Christmas is part of a colonial heritage. No. We are stewards of the mystery of God.

Jesus was despised. Today He is despised still. People do not want to acknowledge they are sinful. In fact, even avowed atheists cannot adhere to their own standards and whatever rules they believe should determine right from wrong. Their moral compass is always crazily spinning. Christians, however much we will suffer for it, are stewards of the mysteries of God. We speak to any and all who will listen. As stewards of the mystery of Truth we declare: Christ has come. Christ has died. Christ will come again. Maranatha—return quickly, Lord Jesus!

ALMIGHTY GOD, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life, in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last days, when he shall come again in his glorious Majesty to judge both the quick and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, now and ever. Amen.
"ADVENT" Divine Service Book for the Armed Forces. 1950

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