Author: Al

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Times of Refreshing

Text: Acts 3:11-21
Date: Easter III + 4/22/12

Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed! Today we heard St. Luke’s report of our Lord’s appearance to His disciples on that first Easter Day. As John reported so Luke tells us that Jesus “stood among them.” Then He said, “Peace to you!” Luke tells us a little more of the emotional response of the disciples how “they were startled and frightened and thought they saw a spirit.” He showed them His hands and feet and invited them to touch Him to prove He wasn’t a ghost. Then one more proof. He ate a piece of broiled fish in front of them. This is the risen, glorified Jesus Christ, just as divine and just as human as before, and even more so. Continue reading “Times of Refreshing”

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Testimony with Great Power

Text: Acts 4:32-35
Date: Easter II + 4/15/12

Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed! The resurrection of the Lord Jesus is the big thing, the main event, the heart and center of the entire Christian message. Resurrection from the dead is what’s behind everything else that is taught, believed and goes on in the Church, everything else in the Christian’s life. It is the Lord’s resurrection that makes for and defines Christian faith and Christian unity and community. We could say that the apostle Thomas didn’t become a Christian until a week later than everyone else because at first, “on Easter Sunday” he didn’t believe the testimony of the rest of the Apostles that the Lord is risen (John 20:19-31). Without their testimony there is nothing much to believe. And without faith their testimony remains an idle tale (Lk 24:11). Without the risen Christ all theology is empty and powerless. Like Thomas, you and I cannot claim to be Christians unless and until we have been changed and made new by faith in the risen, living and reigning Lord Jesus. That’s what your baptism is all about—actually dying to self and being buried, buried with Christ by baptism into death, “in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life” (Rom 6:4). The Lord is risen and we are made to be new people because of it. Continue reading “Testimony with Great Power”

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Death: Denied or Devoured?

Text: Isaiah 25:6-9
Date: Easter Day + 4/8/12

Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed! With St. Paul we confess the truth that “we know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Rom 6:9-11). This is Easter, the great and victorious and happy day of days. But why, then, ruin it with all this talk about death? Continue reading “Death: Denied or Devoured?”

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Messianic Expectations

Text: Isaiah 53
Date: Good Friday + 4/6/12

When the prophet Isaiah penned these words about the coming Savior, “he was wounded for our transgressions,” surely no one, you would think, maybe even the prophet himself, considered the wounds of which he wrote to be actual, physical bruises and gashes of the skin. No, this promised king, this descendant of David would surely be the victorious deliverer defeating all those who would bring any harm or attempt to enslave God’s people ever again. Maybe the prophet meant that the coming Messiah would be “wounded” by harsh words, false accusations or unkind names, not by “sticks and stones.” As he said, He would be “despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.” Surely He would “bear our griefs and carry our sorrows” in His heart like a kind and sympathetic counselor or friend, not by actually enduring the same grief or sorrow we are going through. “Smitten by God and afflicted,” “the chastisement that brings us peace” would be but a temporary discipline and the “stripes” of our healing would be like those worn by a victorious military officer embroidered on the shoulder or the arm. “Oppressed and afflicted” He wouldn’t need to speak but overwhelm His enemies with His actions. “By oppression and judgment” we have been taken away into captivity and enslavement of sin. So maybe He would experience our sense of the unfairness of life and bring us back out to a better life, for the prophet said, “he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.” Continue reading “Messianic Expectations”

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The Marriage Supper of the Lamb

Text: Exodus 24:3-11
Date: Holy (Maundy) Thursday + 4/5/12

“Behold the blood of the covenant that the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these words.” Tonight we recall the Covenant God made with the people of Israel at Mt. Sinai pointing to the New Covenant established by Jesus at the Last Supper, both of which ultimately finding their fulfillment in the perfected people of God in the day of the full revelation of His glory spoken of in the Book of Revelation,
“Let us rejoice and exult
and give him the glory,
for the marriage of the Lamb has come,
and his Bride has made herself ready;
it was granted her to clothe herself
with fine linen, bright and pure”—
for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.
“And the angel said to me, ‘Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.’” (Rev 19:7-9) Continue reading “The Marriage Supper of the Lamb”

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Just Another Detail

Text: Mark 14-15
Date: Passion/Palm Sunday + 4/1/12

A man named Joseph “asked for the body of Jesus” (15:43). Just another detail of the story of Jesus’ death and burial? So many of the “details” of the story were predicted ages before in the scriptures. As in the Exodus the people of God were released from their captivity to Pharaoh in Egypt, so now in Christ are we freed from the captivity of sin and death. The Passover pointed to the entire scene as Jesus is the paschal lamb of God whose blood is the cleansing of all sin. All the details of Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53 and more are fulfilled. Then the thirty pieces of silver for betrayal and the field of blood; the denial of Peter; Jesus’ arrest, His silent witness before Pilate, the mocking, the spitting, the striking and whipping, the abandonment by all; then the nails, the spear, the parched throat, the blood and finally His death. Then this detail: a man named Joseph “asked for the body of Jesus.” But this one was not foretold or predicted, was no amazing fulfillment of ancient prophecy, just a seemingly random, little detail. Or was it? Continue reading “Just Another Detail”

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New Covenant, New Life

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”

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Look and Be Saved through Faith Alone

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”

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Contemptible Worship

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”

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Now I Know You Fear God

Text: Genesis 22:1-18
Date: Lent I + 2/26/12

“Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son. But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, ‘Abraham, Abraham!’ And he said, ‘Here am I.’ He said, ‘Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.’”

God knew, of course—knew that Abraham had the faith and fear of God to do according to God’s word and command, even though he may not have fully understood it. So this test was certainly not for God as to discover anything in Abraham, nor even only for the reassurance of Abraham’s faith. It was to proclaim the Gospel—to proclaim it to Abraham and to his son Isaac, and to the countless generations of believers of both the Old and New Covenants who read of it, to include you and me today. And the Gospel is this: that God so loved the world, that He sent His one and only Son; sent Him to be the sacrifice for all sin, so that whoever looks to Him, believes in Him will have everlasting life. Continue reading “Now I Know You Fear God”