Month: March 2012

Text: Jeremiah 31:31-34
Date: Lent V + The Annunciation of Our Lord + 3/25/12

We are getting closer, closer to the main celebration of the Christian faith, the climax and central focus not only of the New Testament but also of the entire Bible. The whole history of salvation hinges on this, the Great and Holy Week, made “great” and “holy” by the passion, the suffering, death and resurrection of the Son of God, Jesus the Christ and Savior of the world. It is, to use the language of our Old Testament reading for today, the apex between the old and the new covenant. Today those who would be disciples of Jesus learn that saving faith is always a gift, and repentance is a change of heart leading to a whole new perspective on life and service to God and neighbor. Continue reading “New Covenant, New Life”

Text: Numbers 21:4-9
Date: Lent IV + 3/18/12

The season of Lent is the traditional time (from ancient days) for the making of new disciples of Jesus, as He commanded us, saying, “make disciples of all nations.” With the command He also gave us the means by which to do it, first with the institution of the sacrament of holy baptism “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” and then the task of “teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Mt 28:19-20). Infants are baptized and then taught what their baptism means. Adults, on the other hand, are first instructed in the faith, as through the weeks of the catechization of Lent leading up to baptism at the Easter Vigil. The entire Christian life, of course, is one of daily renewal in your baptism and constant learning the faith, the life, the hope and the love of being a Christian. Continue reading “Look and Be Saved through Faith Alone”

Text: Exodus 20:1-11
Date: Lent III + 3/11/12

I remember a church where the usual procedure during the Sunday morning Divine Service was, among other things, when the offering plates (or “collection” as some call it) were brought forward and placed on a shelf on one side of the chancel, a little door behind the shelf opened and the “money counters” would get right to work counting even as the service continued! I have had the experience, I will say in my last parish (to preserve the integrity of the first three I served), that often the person designated to count the offerings would show up after the service without attending that service him or her self, which always struck me as embarrassingly hypocritical. They didn’t seem to be embarrassed or think it at all unusual! These are some of the thoughts that go through my mind as I consider our Lord’s “cleansing” or driving out the money-changers and merchants from the temple. Continue reading “Contemptible Worship”