Month: June 2011

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Equipped for Peace

Text: Matthew 10:34-42
Date: Pentecost II + Proper 8 + 6/26/11

Our Lord Jesus Christ chose twelve men whom He appointed to follow Him, learn from Him, and tell others what they had learned. They were to be the eye- and ear-witnesses of “all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning, from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us” (Acts 1:21-22), witnesses of the resurrection. All of them would be missionaries and preachers. Some would write parts of the inspired New Testament scriptures. However, in addition to them, all believers also serve in a missionary activity of witness, “always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you” (1 Peter 3:15). Such is the burden of Jesus’ great Missionary Discourse of Matthew chapter ten. The first part concerns especially the outreach of the Twelve to the Israelites alone. The second part has in mind the outreach also to the Gentiles, all nations, and as such the task that is before us to this day through the twenty-first century to our Lord’s return on the Last Day. Continue reading “Equipped for Peace”

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Kimberly Grzesinski and Rick Herda Wedding

Text: Genesis 2:24
Date: June 24, 2011

Dear Friends,

It is the way God originally intended things to be. He created man and a helper fit for him. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” Marriage was God’s idea, invention and creation from the beginning. Marriage is so natural that there is no magical ceremony that makes it happen. It just happens when a man leaves his father and his mother and “holds fast” to his wife. That holding fast, that vow of faithfulness, is what marriage is all about.

I am truly honored, Kim, that you have asked me to be here and officiate at your marriage. It was, after all, as many years as since you were born that I first was honored to usher you into the Kingdom of God by your Holy Baptism at Grace English Lutheran Church on the corner of Laramie and Parker in Chicago. It is also because of your baptism, Rick, that this Christian marriage is such a joyful occasion and filled with all joy and hope, because together, as children of God, you know the grace and mercy of God in the forgiveness of all your sins by faith in His Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord.

That, of course, is what ruins our lives and the lives of everyone in the world, sin and the division and death it brings. It was to deliver us from all that that Jesus came to pay the wages, the price of all sin by His blood on the cross, and to open the kingdom of heaven to all believers. In Christ we are given new life and new hope, daily. He restores life and hope and our future back to what God originally intended for us in the first place, but even better!

Our Christian prayer for you today and all the days to come cannot be said any better than in the words of the apostle Paul when he wrote to the Ephesians:

I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

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A Parting Blessing

Text: Matthew 28:16-20
Date: The Holy Trinity + Pentecost I + 6/19/11

Back in “the day” when I began my studies at the seminary it was the tradition for each incoming class to adopt a motto or quote from the Bible as their class theme. I don’t remember who made the choice but ours, the class of 1975-1979, was what was called The Great Commission, part of today’s Gospel, “Go and make disciples of all nations.” Those words, I suppose, were intended to emphasize our enthusiasm to prepare ourselves for this, what we assumed was THE main task of the ministry and of the Church, to get going and make disciples for Jesus. Continue reading “A Parting Blessing”

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You Have Received the Holy Spirit

Text: John 7:37-39
Date: Day of Pentecost + 6/12/11

Of all the other feasts appointed by the Lord in the Old Testament two alone are fulfilled, completed and included in the Christian calendar, that is, they have achieved the goal for which they were created and commanded only with regard to the earthly ministry of the promised Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. Those two feasts are Passover and Pentecost. The Passover or Paschal feast prepared for, pointed to and was fulfilled in the death and resurrection of Jesus. The Day of Pentecost prepared for, pointed to and was fulfilled in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the Christians fifty days after Jesus’ resurrection. The Passover with its sacrifice of a lamb, the sign of blood protecting God’s people from the angel of death and the resulting deliverance from the slavery of Egypt was appointed by God with the goal of proclaiming His deliverance of people from the slavery of sin and death through His own sacrifice of blood in the Person of Jesus. Pentecost, a harvest festival of first fruits, was appointed by God with the goal of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the preaching about Jesus on a day when people from all over the inhabited world were in attendance in Jerusalem. The first fruits festival was a thanksgiving to God as a sort of guarantee that the rest of the crop will come in in its time. As St. Paul proclaimed the risen Christ as “the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Cor 15:20), our risen Lord’s resurrection is the guarantee of your resurrection and that of all who believe in Him. Continue reading “You Have Received the Holy Spirit”

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Una Sancta

Text: Acts 1:12-26; 1 Peter 4:12—5:11; John 17:1-11
Date: Easter VII + 6/5/11

The first time there was a Seventh Sunday after Easter the disciples were quietly waiting to see what would happen next. It was, after all, only six short weeks ago that the most tragic and horrific thing they had ever seen in their lives had been completely reversed as with an earthquake. For their Lord who had been cruelly treated and murdered, whom they themselves had shamefully denied and abandoned, suddenly appeared alive, first to the women at the cemetery, then behind closed doors, then on a road to Emmaus and a number of other times, appearing, then disappearing, then appearing again and disappearing as quickly. Then, just this past Thursday, the fortieth day since Easter, He appeared one more time. But this time He did not just vanish from their sight, but was lifted up into the air, going up until a cloud hid Him from their eyes. Our Lord ascended into heaven, to the right hand of the Majesty on high, there to rule and reign as King of the Universe forever. Continue reading “Una Sancta”