The Saints Days

Treasury of Daily Prayer is such a great help in observing the Church's calendar. Today at our morning prayers, we were immediately reminded that this is the Festival of St. John the Baptist's Beheading. The writing from Luther pondered the Lord's odd way of seeming to be of little use to his people in this age, but how in the age to come He will show Himself great indeed. The beautiful collect for the festival thanked God for giving us St. John as forerunner to our Savior in both his preaching of repentance and his innocent death, and asked that we who have died and risen with Christ in baptism may daily repent of our sins, suffer for the sake of the truth, and fearlessly bear witness to our Savior's victory over death.   And tonight we cap the day off with a trip up to St. Paul's where we will receive into our very mouths and souls that same Lord to whom John bore witness so long ago and we'll still sing John's words: Lamb of God, You take away the sin of the world! John's voice is anything but silenced just because Herod wickedly cut off his head. The voice of John rings on every week in the Church's liturgy, and of course, he still preaches to us come each Advent-tide. I love these saints days and am so thankful for a parish and a pastor who delights to celebrate them.