I have gone to see two different optometrists in the past few months. I wasn’t seeing so well, so I went to get my eyes checked. I wasn’t really concerned. I figured I just needed a new prescription. The first optometrist said my prescription hadn’t changed, but I might think about getting bifocals.

So I admitted to myself that I am getting older and got bifocals for myself. They helped a little, but my vision still seemed blurry. That made me nervous. So I went to the second optometrist.

Jason stared at the makeshift barricade against his door. He rubbed his back and shook his head. “Will that keep them out?” Jason had been afraid when he heard the crowd gathering outside his window. He was scared when he heard them pounding on the door. The hinges started to shake. Then, BOOM! And just like that, they were inside, and the nightmare begins.

Keara O'Neill went shopping for a dress she could wear to an upcoming wedding. When she hesitated in buying an outfit, the salesperson insulted her size-eight figure and said she and her friends "were a joke."

O'Neill wrote a letter of complaint to the folks at Gasp, a chain of boutiques in Australia.

It was O'Neill's expectation that the salesperson would be disciplined for his insult or, at the very least, would be taught how a salesperson should wait on a customer.

Have you ever walked into a place and immediately felt like you didn’t belong?

I had lunch this week with a pastor who told me that before he met with me at the restaurant, he had stopped at the funeral home. He wanted to stop by the visitation for the grandfather of one of his members. He went into one of the rooms at the funeral home. He greeted people and shook hands. People were looking at him strangely. He quickly realized his member wasn’t there. He was at the wrong visitation.

When I was a kid, my two younger sisters and I would ride in the back of our parents’ blue conversion van. It had wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling blue carpeting. The back seats had been removed to make three benches around the back. There was a round pedestal table in the center of the benches for drinks, food and cards. There were no seat belts in the back. It was totally unsafe! But that was OK. It was the 80s!

Several years ago, I baptized a baby boy in our church. Later, at the baptism party at the parents’ home, I was introduced to the baby’s grandfather, who is a Lutheran pastor and missed his grandson’s baptism because he was preaching that morning. He shook my hand and asked me one question.

“Did you get the boy wet?”

You will all be failures in 2020.

Isn’t that a cheery statement to hear from the pulpit to begin the New Year?!

But it’s true, isn’t it? We don’t need prophets or prognosticators to reveal this to us. Just stand in front of the mirror. Is the image staring back at you the same image that’s always been there?

New year, same you. The same you that’s failed in big and small ways, your entire life.

Galatians 4:4-7 is one of the great texts of the Bible. It teaches the incarnation of Christ, the two natures of Jesus as God and Man, and that through Jesus as the Son of God and Son of Man, we are made heirs of the heavenly Father.

These four verses are used in our Lutheran Catechism to teach to our youth and adult confirmands why Jesus had to be true God and true Man. I’m sure your pastor drilled the meaning of these verses into you in Catechism class.

It is common to be given a nickname when you are in college or the military. Think about some of the nicknames of your college friends or military buddies. Do you remember why those names were given?

My college friends had nicknames like Max, Zod, Wierval and Digger. Mine was simply Z. Max was from the movie Max Duggan. Zod was from Superman II. Digger was the cute little mole character on Shirt Tales. Wierval was some weird mash-up of last names given by upper classmen. Mine is pretty easy to figure out.

We still call each other these names decades later.

Over the years, I have talked to lots of pastors and people about the benefits and blessings of celebrating the Lord’s Supper every Sunday. I tell people that at Epiphany we celebrate communion not just on Sundays, but also festival services like Epiphany, Ascension, Thanksgiving and Christmas Day.

At one point I was asked why we receive the Lord’s Supper on Christmas morning This dear person felt it was a little strange for a service celebrating the birth of Jesus to transition into receiving this baby’s body and blood. And I get it — the juxtaposition is a bit jarring.