Allen Lunneberg

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Text: Matthew 3:1-12
Date: Advent II + 12/5/10
Lutheran Church of the Incarnate Word, Rochester Hills, MI

Where did we come from? What was the beginning of creation? “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth…. And God said…” (Gen. 1:1, 3). Whether you imagine a big bang or a series of smaller ones the creative force behind the “bang” was this: “and God said,” the Voice, the Word of God. For the Word of God is His creative power in the universe. “In the beginning was the Word.” And this Word is not just a thought but a Person, a power, an action. “Without Him nothing was made that was made.” Everything has its beginning with a Word, with THE Word of God. The greatest mystery is, in every generation, every living thing, every new person born is, ultimately, the result of “and God said, let there be….” (more…)

Text: Matthew 21:1-11
Date: Advent I + 11/28/10
Lutheran Church of the Incarnate Word, Rochester Hills, MI

“And the crowds that went before him and that followed him were shouting, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!’”

“Hosanna” is the word. It’s the word for the First Sunday in Advent. It’s the word for Palm Sunday of Holy Week. It’s the word with which we join our voices Sunday after Sunday as the promised King, the Messiah, the Christ, our Savior comes into our town, into this very place as He promises in the humble means of the Sacrament of the Altar. Hosanna in the highest! Blessed is He that comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest. Hosanna is the word. It’s the word to sing that looks by faith to Jesus Christ alone for salvation. (more…)

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Text: Luke 1:39-45
Date: Advent IV + 12/20/09
Lutheran Church of the Incarnate Word, Rochester Hills, MI

Who was or were the first to worship the Christ Child? Not the wise men of the Epiphany which could have been as much as months or even years since His birth.  Not even the angels or the shepherds of Christmas Eve, nor even Mary or Joseph. It was Mary’s relative Elizabeth when the Incarnate Word had barely, newly come on the scene, becoming incarnate in the womb of His mother Mary. “Blessed are you among women, and blessed in the fruit of your womb.” “And blessed is she who believed that there will be fulfillment for the things spoken to her by the Lord.” That’s liturgical, worship language, that is, the language of praise at the awareness of the real presence of God working and speaking right in front of your eyes. (I mean without that spiritual awareness the liturgy in itself is no worship). It is the language of praise blessing God who has blessed Mary and, thereby, the whole world in sending His only Son; sent not as a mighty warrior or heavenly apparition, but as a human being, the offspring of the woman—Eve and Sarah and Hannah and Ruth and Mary, mother, fair maiden, full of grace, according to “the things spoken by the Lord.” (more…)

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Text: Luke 3:1-6
Date: Advent II + 12/6/09 (12/7/03)

Christ came for one purpose: as the world’s Savior from sin. John came on the scene for one purpose: to proclaim a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Anyone who would follow Jesus, then, does so because they have been made aware of the slavery of their sin and of Jesus as the only One who can free us from sin. The baptism of John that prepares the way by repentance is completed in the baptism of Jesus that brings the forgiveness of sins. (more…)

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Text: Luke 19:28-40
Date: Advent I + 11/29/09
Lutheran Church of the Incarnate Word, Rochester Hills, MI

Probably the most important and most unknown and unexpected aspect of the Gospel of salvation is the fact that people think they have to somehow look for God, try to find God, or come to Him. The surprising truth is, however, that God is the One who looks for you, who finds you, who comes to you. People really don’t get that, or agree with that. This is true of the beginning of the life of faith in a person as well as its continued life in authentic worship where the issue is never about us doing something for God, and certainly not about us doing something just to entertain ourselves, but is all about listening to God and receiving God who comes and speaks, who blesses, forgives, feeds and sends us. So also then with the end of faith. At death or on the Last Day, we are not shot out into an out-of-body experience to appear before a mysterious God all the time wondering what the final verdict with be, rather the Lord comes to us individually to receive us to Himself because we belong to Him already and, at the end of days, He comes with glory to raise us from our graves and judge the living and the dead. He already knows His own and His own know Him. There are no surprises with faith other than the sheer beauty and joy of it all. “Advent” means “coming,” God coming to us. Advent: God has come to our world, in our geography and history and time in the Person of His Son, born of the Virgin, crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate, risen and ascended into heaven. Since then, Advent: God continues to come to us in His Word and Sacraments by His Spirit. And finally, Advent: God will come again at the Last Day. So we emphasize and describe the Savior’s three-fold coming on this First Sunday in Advent by meditating on His “Triumphant Entrance” into Jerusalem at the beginning of the Great and Holy Week as recorded by St. Luke. For it’s all summarized there: the Lord’s first advent, the incarnate, in-the-flesh Messiah named Jesus; the Lord’s coming to individual hearts by faith in Him; and the majestic accolades due to the King of Glory and of eternity. (more…)

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Text: Luke 1:26-38
Date: Advent IV + 12/21/08
Lutheran Church of the Incarnate Word, Rochester Hills, MI

It’s not Christmas yet. It’s still Advent. In today’s Gospel there are still nine months to go. First there is John the Baptist, then Jesus, six months apart. It is the sixth month with John the Baptist’s mother, Elizabeth, when the angel Gabriel “was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary.” Galilee, Nazareth, virgin betrothed, Joseph, house of David. Did you get all that? Are you confused yet? The angel told Mary that she has been blessed and favored by God to serve as the mother of the Messiah, the Savior, the Son of God whose name will be Jesus. (more…)