I woke up with a headache. Took some drugs for it, and it went away quickly.

I tried to spend some Christmas monies. I want to get a PlayStation 4. They were sold out. They expect to get a few more this week; hopefully, I can make it there quickly enough to pick one up.

I played some NHL 14. I played some LEGO Marvel Super Heroes.

And that's the day.

My time in the office this morning was spent writing the sermon I had rambling through my head for the past week. As you'll see on Sunday, the wedding at Cana is not about the wedding.

Then, it was time to go home and do some cleaning. We were the hosts of Bible Study tonight, and our house was a wreck. Dishes were done. Rugs were vacuumed. Toilets were scrubbed. Backs are aching.

For our Bible Study, we continued through the Apocrypha. We started the Wisdom of Solomon.

The morning began early. I was aroused from my sleep by the sound of the floor above me creaking. Someone was up there. It was a few minutes before my alarm was to go off, so up I was and up I went. Mikaela had a bloody nose. Back down to shower.

Then it was off to IHOP in Parker for Bible Study. For the first time since changing the valve cover gasket on the truck, I drove it beyond Elizabeth. There was a little smoke coming from the engine; the oil that had leaked from the broken gasket leaked onto the exhaust manifold cover. That gets hot in engines, so the oil on it was burning off. Anyway, I had German crepes for breakfast over the Bible study, covering a little more of Daniel.

From Parker, it was time to drive to Golden. The third Thursday of the month means that it's time for the CCL conference—Colorado Confessional Lutherans. We like to study the Book of Concord. Last month, we finished the Formula of Concord, so we started over again, studying what we have called the Confutation Sandwich, where we look at the Augsburg Confession, the related article in the Pontifical Confutation, and the related article in the Apology to the Augsburg Confession. It is interesting to delve into the intelligence of the Lutheran Reformers compared to the adversarial Papists.

Our study concluded, it was time to run some errands:

• To Ruff's BBQ Shop to buy some cherry wood chips and shop barbecue supplies. I got a tequila lime rub in addition to the wood.
• To Golden Recycling to turn in some soda and beer cans for recycling. This place offers the best prices in the Denver metro area.
• To Costco for some wipes and heavy duty aluminum foil.
• To Penzey's Spices to get our free mug and some spices and recipes.

Finally home, 12 hours after waking up, I'm tired and will be heading to bed soon.

Office, home, office.

In the morning, I did a little more sermon prep. I decided to go in a totally different direction with Sunday's sermon than I had given thought to yesterday. The key word is "sign."

I left to go home, but first a stop at the town hall. The 15th is the day that the water bill needs to be paid.

When I got home, I started hacking at the ice on our driveway. I cleared the end of our front entryway, but it has frozen over again. Our downspout is buried and goes under the front walkway; I think the buried part is clogged with ice, so it flows out at the seam right next to the walkway. Now, there's a bunch of ice that forms there, which, when it melts, flows down to the end of the driveway and freezes there. I hurt my wrist trying to clear it some.

I hung out with Robert and Molly after that. There wasn't much going on at that time. I watched some of the shows that I had on the DVR, so I was able to clear some space on there.

In the evening, it was time to start the Lutheran Confessions Study, again. We break for Advent/Christmas and Lent/Easter, with mid-week services taking the place of the study. When last we had met, we just finished the Formula of Concord, article II, so this evening, we started article III. I enjoy reading the Formula of Concord; it's probably my favorite of the Confessions.

When I got up this morning, it was just starting to snow. All the models I saw on the morning news were predicting up to an inch of new snow. So, I drove to the office without a second thought as to footwear. It wasn't long into my time there that I wish I had worn my snow boots. We got about 5 inches that ended at about noon, the time that I leave the office to go home.

While at the office, I started "watching" Eureka, again. I usually have some video or music going as a distraction while I work. I find that I work better with something going on, even if only in the background. When I'm typing out my sermons, though, I keep the distractions to music, and this usually only instrumental. As for the work I did, it was mostly sermon study. I'll be preaching on the wedding at Cana, and Jesus' first miracle. I also got some hymn inserts ready for the next two Sundays.

When I got home, I started up the snow thrower to clear the driveway and sidewalk. Afterward, I took some salt to the end of our drive way, hoping to at least soften the ice that has built up down there, giving me a better chance of scraping it off.

The afternoon was spent with a napping infant and toddler on my lap. Once they woke up, it was time to prepare supper. Spätzle was on the menu again, as we try to finish up the pork roast and gravy from New Year's Day.

The night should be uneventful...

Today we made homemade pizza!

The morning was slow, more-or-less. I played the gold medal game in my Sochi Olympic hockey simulation, and trounced Canada. Now, I can get back to my Be-a-GM mode, but I think I'll take some time to catch up to it in games played in my Live-the-Life mode.

I had to run up to Walmart to get some more flour for the pizzas. So, off I went, with Mikaela in tow. I needed more ground pork, too, but Walmart was out. Next stop was Safeway. We got what we needed there, and I had a taste for red birch beer, so we stopped at Big-R to get some.

The time came quickly to start making the pizzas. Genevieve made her's (and Tirzah's) first as the regular dough rose. Then, as is usually the custom, I let the older kids top their own. They all tried to be a bit artistic with the toppings, but I think Molly's turned out the most artsy, even without her trying. As you can see in the picture, she made a smiley face out of pieces of American Cheese; air bubbles in the crust gave the face cheeks.

While the evening got a little stressful with the kids, in the end, it turned out alright. Pizzas were made. Sarsaparilla and red birch beer were sipped. A good meal was had by all.

The kids were sent to bed, and Genevieve and I watched the first three episodes of the new season of Community. It's a pretty good show.

It was a morning teaching and preaching baptism, though not only a baptism of repentance, a la John. Western churches normally celebrate the Baptism of Our Lord on the first Sunday after the Epiphany, though there are propers for the First Sunday after The Epiphany of Our Lord. ...to fulfill all righteousness: read about it here.

We spent some time at Safeway doing a little shopping. I told the family that if they could clear the table, we'd make homemade pizza tomorrow.

When we got home, Robert wanted to watch the Bronco game. So, the afternoon was spent doing that. Broncos beat the Chargers 24-17 and will host the Patriots for the AFC Championship Game.

It was slow after that. I did some file transferring from DVD and CD to our fileserver harddrive. Then from the fileserver to my phone.

Sermon Audio

The people flock out to see him. He preaches repentance to them. They meet him in the river. There they are baptized by him, a baptism of repentance. Sinners flock to John the Baptizer and hear the Law of God:

Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance, and do not think to say to yourselves, “We have Abraham as our father.” For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones. And even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees. Therefore every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. (Matthew 3:7b-10)

Many do bear fruit in keeping with repentance as they are baptized by John. Down into the Jordan they go, one after another, to be washed by him, crucified, as it were, by his preaching of repentance. From John, the greatest of the prophets and that preacher sent by God, they receive the forgiveness of their sins. But then he says it:

I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor, and gather His wheat into the barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. (Matthew 3:11-12)

They all look up, and that’s when they see it. “Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan to be baptized by him.”

I slept in this morning. It felt good. Normally, I'm up at my alarm (or earlier) at 5:30. I turned it off this morning and fell back asleep. I finally got out of bed after 8.

When I got upstairs, I caught up on a new television series that I missed: Helix. I'm not sure if I like it yet or not, but I'll give it a few more tries.

I played a few more games in my NHL 14 Olympic simulation. I have just one more game to go—the gold medal game against Canada.

Once I got those games finished, I rushed off to Napa to pick up a gasket. A member called me today to say that he had time to guide my repair of the truck, which I had asked him to do. He said it was a very easy repair, but I was expecting to do it when it warmed up enough. It wasn't a terribly cold day, with highs in the upper 40s, so we did it today. A short while later, and the valve cover gasket was replaced and the truck running again (not that it wasn't running before, but it shouldn't be run without the valve cover on it).

The sermon is prepped, dinner is almost ready, and it should be an uneventful night.

By now, my routine may be boring you. I don't blame you. I do seem to do the same things almost every day. Tuesday through Friday: office, home, sleep—with some variation.

So, it was an office day. I got Sunday's sermon written. Of course, I will review it again tomorrow and probably make a few changes. I still had some time left, so I created more introit and gradual inserts. I completed most of Lent. I may skip them completely, but I didn't do Holy Monday, Holy Tuesday, and Holy Wednesday; the rest of the season is completed, though.

Back home for a bit, and I played my NHL 14 Sochi Olympics simulation for a bit.

Then, it was back to church for Bible Study. We finished Judith in the Apocrypha, but before we did that, we discussed a potential concern with the inerrancy of Scripture given the impending published of the 28th edition of the Nestle-Aland Greek Text, and the fact that there are, currently, 27 editions. The discussion was prompted by an article in Christian News, a "Lutheran" rag that I think tries to stir controversy where none should exist.