Today is the last Sunday of the church year (already!!!) Custom has it that we look toward and thank God for the promised second coming of Christ when all that has been fulfilled and promised in Christ’s earthly life (John 19:30; Luke 24:25-27; Acts 1:11) will be enacted for the life to come. God’s word contains a little detail about some of this (for example John 14:1-4; 1 Corinthians 15, Matthew 25:31-46), yet much we don’t know. But as ever, the most important matters God wishes us to focus on are crystal clear and we hear them today in our sermon text from Luke 1. There Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, proclaims in praise: ‘… [The Lord] has come and redeemed his people… he has raised up a horn of salvation for us… to rescue us from the hand of our enemies and to enable us to serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all our days’ (Luke 1:68-75; selected verses). This is good news indeed!