Palm Sunday

Matthew 21:1-9 - Palm Sunday/Confirmation - April 13, 2014
Daughters of Zion

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ and especially you Aubreigh and Caragan; grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen. 

When you were baptized, God became your Father.  Of course, he was always your Father in this sense: inasmuch as he is God the Father almighty who made heaven and earth.  That means that he made you with your eternal well being in mind.  He knit you together in your mothers’ wombs and has cared for you ever since, because he loves you.  Through earthly means he has made sure that you have been fed, clothed, sheltered, disciplined, and otherwise loved by those who make it their joy to do so.  These loved-ones of yours are God’s earthly means.  Your parents, grandparents, and families take care of you because they love you.  And God takes care of you through them because he loves you even more. 

Lent Midweek

Matthew 27:11–26 - Lent I-V Midweek - March 12, 19, 26; April 2, 9, 2014

The King Condemned

The office is greater than the man.  This is true.  We honor the President of the United States, not because he deserves it in his own person, but because it is right to honor his office.  He is God’s instrument for good despite any and all the evil he might do besides.  Likewise, we honor our pastors even if their personal idiosyncrasies annoy us, not simply out of charity, although this alone is enough to treat them well; but we honor them because the Office of the Ministry is worthy of our respect and obedience.  Through it, God accomplishes much good.  It is the Means of Grace Office through which God saves us from our sin.  We honor our secular rulers, because we honor good order — we thus consent to the authority that God has given them.  We honor the pastor because we honor the gospel — we thus consent to the word that God speaks.  The office is greater than the man. 

Lent 4

John 6:1-15 - Laetare Sunday - March 30, 2014
God Tests the People He Loves

Jesus did signs.  We usually call them miracles or wonders.  They are the things that Jesus was able to do because he is God.  He healed the sick, cast out demons, gave sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf.  They are the things that we cannot explain according to natural causes.  But we don’t have to.  Jesus did not exercise his power and authority as the eternal Son of God made flesh in order that we might figure out how he does what he does — no, but rather why he does what he does.  Jesus did miracles for two reasons: 1) to have compassion on the people God loves, and 2) to direct them to where this love of God is constantly accessible to them.  That is why St. John calls them signs. 

A sign points to something.  A sign draws your attention to itself only for long enough to draw your attention away from itself and on to something else.  Take, for instance, the signs on the side of the road. 

Lent 3

Luke 11:14-28 - Oculi Sunday - March 23, 2014
Blessed Jesus, King of Grace

After Jesus had been tempted by the devil in the wilderness for forty days, God sent angels who came and ministered to him (Matthew 4:11).  They strengthened him for his long journey to the cross where he would do even greater battle with the devil.  When Jesus prayed in the garden of Gethsemane that, if it be his Father’s will, the cup might pass from his lips, an angel came and ministered to him and strengthened his resolve to drink it up (Luke 22:43).  So much was his resolve strengthened to fulfill what God wanted that he sweat drops of blood as he prayed, “Thy will be done.” 

His angels served him.  They served him in the weakness of his human flesh by strengthening him with the word of God for the mission he was sent to fulfill.  This mission was for the Son of God to suffer and die on the cross in order to save sinners.  Nothing could stop him.  His angelic servants fought for him by keeping him in all his ways (Psalm 91:11). 

Lent 1

Luke 10:17-20 - Invocavit Sunday - March 9, 2014
Rejoice in This!

This morning we give special attention also to these words from the 10^th chapter of St. Luke’s Gospel, after Jesus had sent out seventy men to the places where he himself was about to go.  We read in Jesus’ name:

Then the seventy returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in Your name.”  And He said to them, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you. Nevertheless do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven.” 

These are your words holy Father; sanctify us by the truth; your word is truth.  Amen. 

The reason we are sinners is because the devil is a liar, and because our first parents believed his lie.  Now, we could curse them and complain about the misfortune they have caused us.  But before we do, we need to understand the proper definition of original sin.  We call it original sin not simply because it was the first sin committed by man.  We call it original sin because it is the origin of all the other sins we commit.  Original sin is the sin that all sinners of all time are equally guilty of.  We inherit sin not as a genetic defect that is not our fault.  No, we inherit sin as rebels who conspired with our first parents against God and his word.  Spiritually speaking, we were there with Adam consenting to what the devil was saying, and rejecting what God had spoken.  In other words, if it had been any one of us in the Garden with the devil, the story would be the same. 

Sexagesima

Isaiah 55 - Sexagesima Sunday - February 23, 2014           
What It Pleases God to Accomplish

“Now it came to pass, afterward, that He went through every city and village, preaching and bringing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God.” This is Luke 8:1, which is just a couple verses before our Gospel lesson begins. What a wonderful thing to consider: Jesus going all over the place – not to select cities and villages that have somehow earned the honor of his visit, but to every city and every village around. This is because what Jesus had to give was not just for some; it was for everyone — just as the sky opens up and pours rain and snow on the earth with no concern as to where it lands.

Septuagesima

Matthew 20:1-16 - Septuagesima - February 16, 2014
The First Shall Be Last

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.  Ephesians 2:8-10

The fact that we are saved by grace through faith is not of ourselves.  It is not our work; it is God’s.  Our salvation – from God speaking his promise, to the faith that the Holy Spirit creates in our hearts through this promise – is entirely the gift of God.  He is gracious.  The good works that we accomplish as Christians are also gifts of God.  We are his workmanship.  The faith that God creates to trust in his mercy is the same faith that springs forth into action.  The faith that does not produce fruit is a false faith – one that God has not created.  The faith that has no desire to please God is the faith that does not trust God.