We don’t have to worry about deserving, earning, or reciprocating his gifts. Our Lord doesn’t give us what we deserve. We are given what he deserves, what Jesus has won for us.
The Spirit who inspired the prophets and apostles to put God’s Word into human language has guided and guarded their transmission in the course of human history preserving them for the sake of the Gospel.
Our Advent anticipation of the coming of the Savior to liberate us from sin and its wage of death, from the condemnation of God’s Law and the wrath of a loving heavenly Father, is indeed a daring and defiant stance.
Big or small, potential or certain, the despair we may grapple with during this time of year tends to find its end in the fact that things are not as they should be.