It was an earlier morning for me today. Yesterday, the new modem for the church arrived, so I left a little early to get it set up. It's a good thing I did, too, because the set up did not go smoothly. Thankfully, the customer service technician was able to push the necessary information to the router from her end; she was much more helpful and knowledgeable than the man I dealt with on Friday, even if she didn't know what linux was.

When I finally got to my real work, I pondered the Transfiguration. Sunday is the Transfiguration on the One-Year lectionary.

Upon getting back home, I had to plow through the snow at the end of our driveway that was deposited there by the plow. It must have been about three feet high. So, that called for the use of the snow blower. The driveway cleared, I headed inside to relax a bit. I played a few more games in my NHL 14 Be-a-GM; I'm now four away from the end of the regular season.

Supper was tacos. I was craving them, and Genevieve was kind enough to get the fixings for it while she was shopping.

After supper, I did a little more work on the next version of this site. I did some work with hidden scrollbars and got something of a frontpage put together for the blog. I think it's looking pretty nice, but you'll have to wait to see it in all of it's glory.

I slept in today, as it was my day off. My alarm went off at 5:30, but I fell back asleep and was out of bed at 7.

Upstairs, I watched some news, then went to play some NHL 14 again, edging ever closer to the end of the regular season in my Be-a-GM mode.

Most of the day was spent working on an update and redesign to my site. I got some fonts sorted out and got most of the visible header created. There's still a good ways to go, but I'm getting closer to making this change a reality. I'd give a sneak peak, but I don't want to give anything away, other than, like I said before in a post a long time ago, I am making the switch to HTML 5 from XHTML 1.

Just over an extra inch of snow overnight necessitated the removal of snow from our front steps and a path to the garage. Having done so, we went to church. There, the gifts were given and received—sins were forgiven.

After church it was time for some catechesis. First, a young lady who eagerly desires to be a communicant member. Next, after some lunch, my son and the son of a couple of other members, who are maybe not as eager to receive the Sacrament.

From the second session, we went to a violin recital put on by a young lady from the congregation. She is a magnificent musician who gifted us with a couple of pieces by Bach and some Russian guy whose name escapes me.

We didn't get home in time for the Super Bowl kickoff, so Robert got to miss the beginning of the debacle that was the Broncos' blowout loss.

Otherwise, the night was uneventful.

Sermon Audio

Dear hearers, when we first encountered this text 36 days ago, we heard of the presentation of Jesus at the temple as being part of His redemption from Himself as a remembrance that the Israelites were led by the hand of YHWH out of slavery in the land of Egypt following the Tenth Plague—the death of all firstborn sons of man and beast. Leviticus 12 was cited as the method by which firstborn sons were redeemed from YHWH, by the sacrifice of a lamb or a pair of small birds. Upon closer reading of that text, though too close of a reading is unnecessary, it becomes apparent that the sacrifice is not intended to be on behalf of the son, but for the mother:

When the days of her purification are fulfilled, whether for a son or a daughter, she shall bring to the priest a lamb of the first year as a burnt offering, and a young pigeon or a turtledove as a sin offering, to the door of the tabernacle of meeting. Then he shall offer it before the LORD, and make atonement for her. And she shall be clean from the flow of her blood. This is the law for her who has borne a male or a female. And if she is not able to bring a lamb, then she may bring two turtledoves or two young pigeons—one as a burnt offering and the other as a sin offering. So the priest shall make atonement for her, and she will be clean. (Leviticus 12:6-8)

The priest makes the sacrifice on the mother’s behalf—a lamb and a turtledove or pigeon, or two turtledoves, or two young pigeons—and she will be clean, or purified.

So, when Mary offers the pair of birds for the sacrifice, unable to afford to bring a lamb (yet still bringing the Lamb), the sacrifice is made for her purification, for having given birth. The sacrifice does not redeem Jesus from Himself, as you heard this man in the pulpit proclaim just over a month ago. For preaching a fact which was in error, he begs your forgiveness. You, however, are still a firstborn son of God by way of His only-begotten Son’s sacrifice on your behalf, reconciled to the Father by the Son, who came in the likeness of your flesh, placing Himself under His law, in order to redeem you to life from death.

We got another 3 or so inches of snow overnight. It was still snowing, too, when I got up. At about 9am, I finally braved the elements (ha!) to clear the driveway and sidewalk.

It had been a while since I did anything resembling a marathon session of NHL. So, I played several games in my Be-A-GM mode. There are now 10 games left in the regular season in that mode.

As I did that, it was time to start supper preparation. I found an old beef rump roast in the freezer earlier in the week, and I made a Sauerbraten with it. It turned out delicious, along with the potato dumplings and red cabbage.

While supper was cooking (it takes 2 hours for the roast to simmer), we got another inch or inch and a half of snow. It looks like I'm going to have to do a quick shovel in the morning. No problem.

It was predicted that we were to get 6 to 10 inches of snow by this morning. I woke up to 2.

I went to the church to write the sermon. When I got there, though, I cleared some of the sidewalk along the side and front for the ladies of the office staff since they would be coming in to prepare the bulletin. When I had finished that, I stepped into my office and noticed that my phone had failed to obtain an IP address from the church modem. "Not a problem," I thought, since I had been doing stuff outside, I may have walked in and out of the range of the modem. I tried again in the office, and the same thing happened. I guessed that the modem needed to be restarted, but that didn't solve anything. Nothing connected to it, wired or wirelessly, could obtain an IP address. The DHCP server simply wasn't working.

So, I spent 45 minutes this morning trying to figure that out and calling tech support. I got the typical response from the tech support: making sure all of the lights were on, etc. I don't know how many times I tried to tell the tech that the modem was not assigning IP addresses to devices connected to it, that I could tell that they were handshaking—sending the wireless key successfully—but beyond that, the modem wasn't cooperating. "Well, I can see you IP address from here." Okay, the modem is connecting to the internet, but nothing is connecting to it on this end. "Well, if you think the modem is defective, we can send you another one." Fortunately, it's still under warranty.

I finally got to the sermon.

When I got home, I loaded up the kids and we headed to Castle Rock to finish the month's WIC shopping. I decided to go out that way to give Genevieve some extra time without kids so that she could recover from a headache. We also made it out and back before the snow picked up again. Another six inches was predicted for tonight; I don't think we're going to get it.

Shortly after returning, it was time to head to Bible Study for game night. Mikaela was claiming to be sick, and Molly was needing sleep, so only Robert and I went. We played Hearts. I was winning for so long, then things went downhill once I finally pulled in the Queen of Spades. I ended up finishing third out of six. Getting home was interesting; I couldn't make it up a hill, so I went via another route.

A Thursday morning finds me going to Parker for Breakfast Bible Study. Last week was called off the night before on the threat of inclement weather. Best not to try the roads which may be icy. I had the same thing I had last time: the crepe passport, with German crepes.

From Parker, I had to head into Centennial to go to World Market. I needed to pick up some potato dumplings for Saturday's supper. We're supposed to get a lot of snow tonight and into tomorrow, so it was the best opportunity I had to get them.

I got there early, and the only store that was open was Office Max. I browsed a little, and noticed that the printer I had been looking at for the office was on sale.

10 o'clock, and World Market finally opened. Dumplings procured, and it was time to start making my way back to Elizabeth. On the way home, I stopped at Sprouts. Last week, they had a tea on sale that I really liked. This week, not so much; $8/box is a little too pricey for me. After that, the next stop was Best Buy. They also had the printer on sale. After phone calls and texts, I was authorized to purchase it and be reimbursed.

I stopped at the office to drop off the printer, briefly set it up, and pick up my belongings.

Back home, I finished LEGO Marvel Super Heroes, earning the platinum trophy. I let the kids play after that (though I did need one of them to help me get the platinum trophy). Then, it was movie night—Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2. It was a food-y retelling of Jurassic Park 2, in my opinion.

My morning time in the office was spent doing a little more sermon study. I was able to get a little more direction for Sunday from the Old Testament lesson appointed for the upcoming feast. I also did some work on Introit and Gradual inserts through Pentecost.

A little time was spent at home working towards completing LEGO Marvel Super Heroes on the PS3.

Then, it was back to the church for Vespers and Book of Concord study.

Genevieve made delicious roasted chicken. I was able to eat a little before heading to church, so I was eager to get back home to eat some more. Accompanying the chicken was mashed potatoes, brussel sprouts, and croissants.

So, we got a little snow overnight. I checked outside when I got up to see if I had time to stay in or if I had to dress and do some snow removal. Two inches or so, so I didn't have to do anything.

It was below 0 Fahrenheit when I left, but the old truck started wonderfully.

I got to the office, and started doing some study for Sunday's sermon. Sunday is the Purification of Mary and the Presentation of Our Lord. The Gospel lesson is the same as the First Sunday after Christmas. Back then, I made the connection between the presentation of Jesus and His redemption as Mary's firstborn with the sacrifice of two small birds. In doing more reading today, I discovered that I was mistaken—the sacrifice was for Mary's purification. The redemption of firstborn sons, as prescribed in Numbers 3, is 5 shekels. So, I'll be preaching to make a correction and a different connection on Sunday.

Back home, and I played a little LEGO Marvel Super Heroes on the PS3. I'm close to finished with the game on this system.

Today's meal project was beef stew in the crockpot. Ingredients include stew beef, carrots, onions, chili sauce, beer (gluten free, of course), brown sugar, basil, and thyme. It's a delicious recipe. I used this recipe, minus the celery and flour.

It was my day off today. I did nothing of any consequence. The big kids were supposed to clean their rooms, but were grumpy for having to do it; as a result, Molly and I spent most of the morning downstairs with Genevieve and Tirzah to avoid the bigs. When I was upstairs, I played a little LEGO Marvel Super Heroes on the PS4. When I finished that, I decided that I wanted to finish the game on the PS3, first; earn the platinum trophy on that system. I also watched some Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis. I made salmon patties for supper. Everything really likes them. Day over, time for bed.