Author: Al

Text: St. Matthew Passion
Date: Passion/Palm Sunday + 4/17/11
Lutheran Church of the Incarnate Word, Rochester Hills, MI

The enemies of Jesus remembered talk about Jesus’ prediction of being raised from the dead after three days. So they sought to get final control of the situation by setting a guard before the tomb to make sure His disciples didn’t come to steal away His body and then claim a resurrection. But who is in control, anyway? Continue reading “"…and setting a guard."”

Text: St. Matthew Passion
Date: Passion/Palm Sunday + 4/17/11
Lutheran Church of the Incarnate Word, Rochester Hills, MI

The enemies of Jesus remembered talk about Jesus’ prediction of being raised from the dead after three days. So they sought to get final control of the situation by setting a guard before the tomb to make sure His disciples didn’t come to steal away His body and then claim a resurrection. But who is in control, anyway? Continue reading “"…and setting a guard."”

Text: John 11
Date: Lent V + 4/17/11
Lutheran Church of the Incarnate Word, Rochester Hills, MI

We have been following the pathway of Lent, the spiritual walk that leads to the full Easter faith, joy and hope of being a disciple of Jesus Christ, a Christian. That path always begins by the Word of God entering your hearing, getting the attention of your heart, and working that first work of awareness of your need, awareness of sin and the desire for forgiveness and life. It is the divine work of repentance—not only the awareness but also sorrow over sin, and then the gift of faith that looks to God for the mercy and grace of forgiveness. We have seen that work of the Holy Spirit in the examples of Nicodemus the Pharisee (John 3), a Samaritan woman at a well (John 4) and a man blind from birth (John 9). In each of them we have seen ourselves: that is, our innate inability to understand spiritual things, the need for a new birth, for living water, for new eyes to see the grace and glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ our Lord. Continue reading “The Disciple's Dying and Rising”

Text: John 9
Date: Lent IV + 4/3/11
Lutheran Church of the Incarnate Word, Rochester Hills, MI

So far each of our Lenten visitors are different, but they are also the same. Nicodemus is an important man of the Pharisees, but he visits Jesus in the dark of night and does not understand Jesus’ talk about being born again. The Samaritan woman is an outcast even among her own people not to mention the division between Jews and Samaritans, yet she, too, doesn’t understand that Jesus isn’t talking to her about ordinary water. And today a man literally dwells in constant and deep darkness, without physical sight from birth. Though he is given the miracle of physical sight he never sees or knows Jesus until the very end of the drama. Only then, at the Word of Jesus, he is the first of these to give evidence of coming to faith. In all of these we are to learn that regardless of status in this world, we all dwell in spiritual darkness, incapable of understanding until we encounter the light and the enlightenment of God’s Word and Spirit. That encounter happens in mysterious ways, seemingly by happenstance from our perspective, but always at the direction of God. “You must be born again by water and the Spirit.” “I will give you living water.” “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam.” Water is the means by which God shows that His salvation is for the body as well as the spirit. As water was a prime element at the creation, so was the first of God’s commands, “Let there be light.” Today Jesus says, “I am the light of the world.” So the new birth we look for through baptismal water will also be the enlightenment of our minds, hearts and understanding, and Easter will truly be the sunrise of our life. Continue reading “The Disciple's Light”

Text: John 4
Date: Lent III + 3/27/11
Lutheran Church of the Incarnate Word, Rochester Hills, MI

Once again we have seen the power, the destructive power of water in the Tsunami that followed the great earthquake in Japan. Acres of land were erased of the rickety structures of life, wiped out like so much straw, and thousands of lives were drowned out, just gone. Then the giant wave traveled thousands of miles causing destruction even on the other side, “our side” of the ocean. Just the consideration of that demonstration of power should make us look again in awe at the account of the very beginning of creation when the “stuff,” the formless void, the “nothing” out of which everything was created was called in Genesis “the deep” or “the waters.” In this sense all life comes from water and without water is death. Continue reading “The Disciple's Living Water”

Text: John 3:1-17
Date: Lent II + 3/20/11
Lutheran Church of the Incarnate Word, Rochester Hills, MI

Welcome to St. John’s Gospel and to the Lenten road to discipleship. That, above all, is the goal of both as the Apostle and Evangelist stated his purpose in penning his account of the God-Man, Jesus of Nazareth, when he says, “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (Jn 20:30-31). These words have the ability and power to create saving faith in your heart. “So that you may believe” is the purpose and the goal of John’s Gospel and of the season of Lent. For believing, the creation of saving faith in the heart, is what makes you a disciple, a learner, a follower of the Way, a member of the body of Christ, the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church throughout the world. Furthermore, that faith is not something you can conjure up or define on your own. It is the gift of God given through the Holy Spirit’s work through the means of grace, these Words preached and the Sacraments administered according to Christ’s institution. Continue reading “The Disciple Born Again”

Text: Matthew 4:1-11
Date: Lent I + 3/13/11
Lutheran Church of the Incarnate Word, Rochester Hills, MI

The story is as old as the third chapter of the first book of Moses and as current as this moment. It is the story of life, God’s good gift of human life and identity as His creation, His offspring, His own sons and daughters. That life, however, met an enemy: temptation, suspicion, pride, the lie of “life” without God or at least apart, separated from God; then awareness of sin and guilt, then tears, then fear, isolation, bruise, pain, sweat, then dust. “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.” It’s the same story for everyone no matter how great or how small, no matter fame and fortune, or neglect and poverty. “All have sinned.” Still, God saw His creation the object of His care and love and he planted alongside the Fall into sin the seed of promise, the promise of His own rescue, renewal, redemption, resurrection from death to life. Continue reading “The Disciples' Temptations”