Text: St. Mark’s Passion | Mark 15:39
Date: Passion/Palm Sunday + 3/29/15
This year St. Mark has been hurrying us to understand the gospel; that the gospel is about the vicarious suffering of Jesus Christ the Son of God (Mark 1:1). So today we begin to understand. But it is only a beginning. Continue reading “Truly This Man was the Son of God”
Text: Mark 10:35-45
Date: Lent V + 3/22/15
It always strikes me as a little odd, strangely out of place and out of step when, as we come nearer in preparation for the Great and Holy Week of our Lord’s Passion, Death and Resurrection, we hear this Gospel reading, this incident of James and John suddenly getting the big head and talking about places of power and prestige in Jesus’ coming kingdom. But then how could they know, really know what really lay ahead of them in Jerusalem in a few days? Continue reading “The Servant's Way”
Text: John 3:14-21
Date: Lent IV + 3/15/15
It is night time, but that in two different respects. Today our Lenten journey to the cross leads us closer to dark Gethsemane, the judgment hall, the mournful mountain of Calvary. The darkness looms as we draw nearer to the sacrifice. But there is another sort of darkness; that of a fallen, sinful soul who cannot see, cannot perceive the love of God in it all. Through the darkness, however, a light shines and we will discover the light of love, joy, peace and hope. Continue reading “Where Love and Sorrow Meet”
Text: John 2:13-22
Date: Lent III + 3/8/15
It is partly because of the shortness of Mark’s Gospel that those who designed our three-year lectionary decided to share some time especially in Lent and Easter with the apostle John. Though the lectionary, the particular choice of scripture readings, is not divinely inspired nor inerrant like the Bible, it for the most part has been assembled with careful thought. Continue reading “The Temple of God”
Text: Mark 8:27-38
Date: Lent II + 3/1/15
Before I begin I feel I have to make it very clear that the sermon title, “God Saves Everyone,” does not mean to fall off the doctrinally pure wagon to begin to preach “universalism.” God has made it possible for the whole world to be saved. God so loved the world. Yet those who reject the gift of His salvation make it necessary that, in the end, they also will be rejected, as our Lord says at the end of today’s Gospel reading, “For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.” This title was simply meant to contrast last week’s title: “God Tempts No One,” but “God Saves Everyone,” that is, there is no salvation except that worked by God. Continue reading “God Saves Everyone”
