Dear Christian friends:


We have just celebrated Christmas, the birthday of God's Son who became our blood-brother that He might teach us God's plan of salvation and suffer it through. For Jesus not only taught God's way of salvation, He Himself was it.

When He preached God's way of salvation He had to talk about Himself. He did not say, "I" will do this or that, but referring to Himself, He said, "The Son of Man" will do this and that: "The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost."

When it was time for Him to suffer and die He told His disciples: "Behold we go up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man shall be accomplished."

So the Son of God at Christmas became the Son of Man too. As such He is our light and salvation. At Epiphany we are told what we are to do about this light and salvation that has come to us. Isaiah, foreseeing the birth of God's Son, tells the church what it is to do. He says:


Two plain words which mean action! "Arise, shine! Get up lift up thy voice. By His birth in human flesh and blood God has manifested Himself to us. His own eternal Son, who made heaven and earth and gives life to all, became our brother to save us from darkness and death.

This is the Light that God has given to us and this is the Light which Isaiah exhorts us to let shine. There is a great need for this Light to shine. Isaiah says, "Behold, the darkness shall cover the earth and gross darkness the people."

He says, "the darkness" not a darkness as any old ignorance. But a certain special darkness. The darkness is man's ignorance of his God. Man is born without knowledge of God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost. He knows there is a God, but he doesn't know that God is three in one, Father, Son and Spirit.

Man is in darkness concerning his relationship to God. His conscience tells him that he has sinned against God, so man does not fell right and comfortable with God. He is in darkness as to how he can again become right with God. Some try to hide sin and excuse it. They say sin is not sin or like the Christian Scientists, "there is no sin."

Others admit that there is sin and evil, but they say there is no God. If there is not a God they can do as they please and not be punished. Many others think, "Yes I have sinned, but I will fast and suffer and God will forgive my sin because I suffered." Hindu holy men, Monks etc.

Others and there are many in America and in American churches who say, "Yes we sin, but if we are sorry, God will forgive, especially if we try our best to improve. All these ideas about God and how to get right with him are false. This is the darkness that covers the people.

A noted psychiatrist states that society's moral code places unnatural restraint on a man's activities. He acts abnormally because of early legalistic training. But there is no guilt, and a man should accept his deviation as natural. A well know educator claims that all people are naturally good in spite of the fact that God's Word states, "There is none that doeth good." "All our righteousness are as filthy rags."

And this darkness of man's is so great that even when the Light comes the darkness comprehends it not. John tells us that Jesus the Light of the world came unto His own and His own received Him not. He was in the world and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. Man is so far gone in darkness that he is unable to recognize God as God and truth as truth.

A godly man will naturally recognize God when he sees Him and a true man will automatically recognize truth when he hears it. The very fact that man did not recognize Jesus of Nazareth as God and His Word as truth shows how great man's darkness was and is.

Even today many accept Jesus of Nazareth as son of man, born of Mary and Joseph the carpenter's son, a great teacher, perhaps the greatest. But they do not accept Him as Son of God and Son of Man conceived by the Holy Ghost and born of a virgin. Nor do they see the need for such a drastic step on the part of God to effect mans reconciliation.

Thus when it comes to proclaiming the Christmas gospel all they can say is: "peace on earth good will town men." They vainly imagine that men can make peace with one another without making peace with God and self.

That's why so many wear out verse 14, "peace on earth good will toward men." and ignore the very heart of the Christmas Light, "Unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord." So we see the great need for the Church to "Arise" and "Shine!"

And this need points out what our message is to be, namely, a clear cut proclamation of the Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit; Plain talk about the sinfulness of mankind with emphasis on this fact that he is by nature sinful and unclean, a poor sinful being under the death sentence of a holy and mighty God; the glorious proclamation that although Man deserved damnation God in His great mercy prepared and executed a plan of salvation with His own eternally begotten Son as the goat, or more exactly, the lamb of sacrifice.

That this Lamb of God has made good for all men, both Jew and Gentile, as the star of the Gentile wise men show us again this Epiphany Sunday, that all who accept Jesus of Nazareth as Son of God and Son of Man the Lamb for sinners slain have forgiveness of sin and life everlasting; and that those who believe not are eternally lost.

This is the Light that God has caused to come to us in the Gospel account of His only begotten Sons birth, life, death, and resurrection. This is the glory of the Lord that has arisen upon us. The Holy Spirit through the Word and Sacraments has enlightened every member of the Church with this Light. With this light He has replaced the darkness of sin and death, ignorance and unbelief in our own lives.

And so He asks us to Arise and shine! God will have all men to be saved and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. "As I live saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live.

So we who have been lighted by the glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ must shine clearly and unceasingly. This should be the highest and ultimate goal of every child of God in 1959. Not chiefly earthly advancement, financial success or a better standard of living.

My task, your task our joint task as a Christian congregation and Synod, is to preach Christ. And all the things that we do at home or in the church should have this aim and goal.

And we have God's own promise that while the work is difficult nevertheless it will be successful. (Verses 3-6) In New Guinea 298 were baptized on June 6, 1957. All of them at one time practiced black magic, page 31, Mission Digest.

Ghana Rev. Samuel R. Asante of Accra, capital city, of new nation. Converted to Lutheran by Luther film. Started church in that city now asks our Synod to help. Rev. Omar Stuenkel in Fairbanks, Alaska.

So during the new year let us not be interrupted and entangled with the affairs of this world, but keep our eyes on Jesus' Light and watch and pray, give and work to let the Light Shine. In 1959 let it be said of you: "He arose; he did shine!"

Amen.