Category: Advent Sermons

Text: Luke 19:38
Date: Advent I + 12/2/12

Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! So is the shout of faith and hope with which we begin this new Church Year. Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! This King is blessed. For we have come to proclaim and to worship not an earthly king or sovereign, but the King of the universe. He is King because “all things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made” (John 1:2-3). Though we rebelled and sin has separated us from Him, nevertheless, out of pure love this King of all creation “came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary and was made man.” “Though he was in the form of God, [He] did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself” (Phil 2:5-8). Still the King nevertheless His kingdom was not and is not of this world (John 18:36). For us and for our salvation He divested Himself for a little while so that, as a man, He could fight the battle we could never win, the battle that has meant death for all mankind. It was a strange and dreadful sight to see Him who was King taking the sin of the world to the cross there to atone for it by spilling His own holy and sacred blood. Yet our strong King, having destroyed death and risen from the grave and ascended to the right hand of the Majesty on high, now lives and rules all things both as its Creator and its Redeemer. So we say, now in Advent and pretty soon at Christmas, and through the telling of the rest of the gospel, “Blessed is the King! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” Continue reading “Blessed is the King Who Comes in the Name of the Lord”

Text: 2 Samuel 7:1-16
Date: Advent IV + 12/18/11

When St. Luke reports of the visit of the angel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary he says that Mary was “betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph,” and adds the important detail, “of the house of David.” Furthermore, the angel’s announcement includes the prediction that Jesus “will reign over the house of Jacob forever.”

Today’s sermon title points to the double use of the word “house” in our Old Testament reading telling of the great King David “dwelling in a house of cedar,” but the ark of God dwelling in (or should I use today’s protest language and say “occupying”?) a tent on the one hand, and the dynasty, lineage or family tree of David on the other. We are taught to make the distinction in the phrase (at least as old as Benjamin Franklin), “a house is not a home.” Franklin said a house becomes a home when “it contains food and fire for the mind as well as the body.” We generally make the distinction between house and home more simply between a structure and the family living in it.

But you will notice the sermon title, “H O U S E,” is printed in graphic imitation of the title of the FOX television network’s award winning medical drama series starring James Hugh Calum Laurie OBE (Order of the British Empire) or simply Hugh Laurie. And chances are that you’ve probably seen an episode as the 2012 Guinness book of World Records has designated “H O U S E” as “the world’s most popular current television program, watched by a whopping 81.8 million people in 66 countries.” But did you know that the name of the lead character, Dr. Gregory House, and therefore the name of the program, is itself a double entendre, “a subtle homage” of the writers to the fictional British detective Sherlock Holmes. Get it? “Holmes,” “House”! And this even extends to their “sidekicks.” As there was Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson, so in the television series it is Dr. Gregory House and Dr. James Wilson. So the phrase becomes, “a HOUSE is not a HOLMES.” Continue reading “H O U S E”

Text: Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11
Date: Advent III + 12/11/11

Last Sunday we heard the prophet Isaiah foretell the coming of John the Baptist. In today’s selection he speaks no more of him. Interestingly, even though the reading from John’s Gospel today reports about the Baptist, the Baptizer himself insists that he doesn’t talk about himself but came only as a witness to “the light,” “the Christ,” the “One standing among you who you do not know,” “the strap of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie.” So this Sunday Isaiah also speaks only of the coming Messiah and the joyful kingdom He brings. Continue reading “The Robe of Righteousness”

Text: Isaiah 49:1-11
Date: Advent II + 12/4/11

The number three is in the air today. At three-thirty this afternoon we look forward to having three musical stars lead us in our Third Annual Christmas Concert, flutists Alexander Zonjic and Ervin Monroe and acclaimed tenor Drake Danzler. This morning the prophet Isaiah speaks of three more stars. Not Plácido Domingo, José Carreras and Luciano Pavarotti, however, not three tenors but three preachers: God’s prophet Isaiah, John the Baptist and the Christian Church. These are The Three Heralds of Isaiah 40. On this Second Sunday of Advent the Good News of God’s coming is proclaimed loudly and clearly as any herald worth his salt should do. For God’s coming does not mean wrath and destruction but, in a word, comfort, the comfort of a God who comes to save us from sin and death, who comes to tend and carry us like a shepherd. The Prophet, the Baptist and the Church are the heralds, the preachers and proclaimers of this comforting Good News. And all this is in the inspired verses from Isaiah’s gospel. Continue reading “The Three Heralds”

Text: Isaiah 64:1-9
Date: Advent I + 11/27/11

“Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down,” the prophet Isaiah leads God’s people to pray. But it is only when God seems far away, out of reach in the distant heavens that the heavens need to be rent, that the separation between us and God needs to be torn apart. Because we cannot hope to ascend to God, He must “come down” to us. I used to wonder why, on the First Sunday in Advent, we would hear the Gospel reading that “belonged” to Palm Sunday and Holy Week, Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem. After more than four decades I think I finally figured it out. On Palm Sunday, when we begin Holy Week, we are the more aware of our hypocrisy (or should be!), the hypocrisy of our, first, cheering with the crowds, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed,” indeed (Mark 11:9-10). But then in a matter of days we hear our voices joining the same crowds jeering, “Crucify him, crucify him” (Mark 15:13-14). But the Hosanna cheer and cry and the words of blessing are appropriate at every Sunday eucharist and throughout our lives especially as they express the heart of repentance and faith and hope in God. Today we begin a new Church Year with that season of hopeful anticipation. Continue reading “He Came Down to Save”

Text: Matthew 1:18-25
Date: Advent IV + 12/19/10
Lutheran Church of the Incarnate Word, Rochester Hills, MI

“Genesis.” “The Beginning.” St. Matthew begins his Gospel with this word, “The book of the genesis,” the beginning, the genealogy of Jesus Christ. Certainly the Evangelist, when he wrote this, had in mind the first book of the Torah, the Old Testament, so that he was declaring that in Jesus Christ we have not only the fulfillment of the Old but the beginning of something brand new. After making his point that this Jesus is the fulfillment of God’s promises with his listing of three groups of fourteen descendants of Abraham and David, he begins the actual narrative of the conception, birth, life, death, resurrection and ascension, that is, the Gospel, the Good News of the Lord Jesus Christ with the same word. “Now Jesus Christ’s genesis,” beginning, birth “happened like this.” Continue reading “The Beginning”

Text: Matthew 11:2-15
Date: Advent III + 12/12/10
Lutheran Church of the Incarnate Word, Rochester Hills, MI

Last Sunday, in Matthew chapter 3, a man named John appeared preaching a baptism of repentance. He looked like an Old Testament prophet—coat of camel’s hair and leather belt, preaching not in town but out in the wilderness. He sounded like an Old Testament prophet—calling everyone out, the politically correct and the politically incorrect to repentance, labeling some snakes and hypocrites and all sinners. Matthew then nailed it down for us telling us he was a prophet, the one predicted by Isaiah (40:3) and Malachi (3:1). Now, today, we have one more piece of evidence that identifies him as a bone fide prophet—he’s in prison. All true prophets are persecuted and suffer violence. And those who have read ahead in the story to chapter fourteen of Matthew’s Gospel know that John lost his head being martyred as a party favor by Herod for a young lass dancing for the stars (14:1-12). Continue reading “The Prophet”

Text: Matthew 3:1-12
Date: Advent II + 12/5/10
Lutheran Church of the Incarnate Word, Rochester Hills, MI

Where did we come from? What was the beginning of creation? “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth…. And God said…” (Gen. 1:1, 3). Whether you imagine a big bang or a series of smaller ones the creative force behind the “bang” was this: “and God said,” the Voice, the Word of God. For the Word of God is His creative power in the universe. “In the beginning was the Word.” And this Word is not just a thought but a Person, a power, an action. “Without Him nothing was made that was made.” Everything has its beginning with a Word, with THE Word of God. The greatest mystery is, in every generation, every living thing, every new person born is, ultimately, the result of “and God said, let there be….” Continue reading “The Voice”

Text: Matthew 21:1-11
Date: Advent I + 11/28/10
Lutheran Church of the Incarnate Word, Rochester Hills, MI

“And the crowds that went before him and that followed him were shouting, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!’”

“Hosanna” is the word. It’s the word for the First Sunday in Advent. It’s the word for Palm Sunday of Holy Week. It’s the word with which we join our voices Sunday after Sunday as the promised King, the Messiah, the Christ, our Savior comes into our town, into this very place as He promises in the humble means of the Sacrament of the Altar. Hosanna in the highest! Blessed is He that comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest. Hosanna is the word. It’s the word to sing that looks by faith to Jesus Christ alone for salvation. Continue reading “Hosanna”

Text: Luke 1:39-45
Date: Advent IV + 12/20/09
Lutheran Church of the Incarnate Word, Rochester Hills, MI

Who was or were the first to worship the Christ Child? Not the wise men of the Epiphany which could have been as much as months or even years since His birth.  Not even the angels or the shepherds of Christmas Eve, nor even Mary or Joseph. It was Mary’s relative Elizabeth when the Incarnate Word had barely, newly come on the scene, becoming incarnate in the womb of His mother Mary. “Blessed are you among women, and blessed in the fruit of your womb.” “And blessed is she who believed that there will be fulfillment for the things spoken to her by the Lord.” That’s liturgical, worship language, that is, the language of praise at the awareness of the real presence of God working and speaking right in front of your eyes. (I mean without that spiritual awareness the liturgy in itself is no worship). It is the language of praise blessing God who has blessed Mary and, thereby, the whole world in sending His only Son; sent not as a mighty warrior or heavenly apparition, but as a human being, the offspring of the woman—Eve and Sarah and Hannah and Ruth and Mary, mother, fair maiden, full of grace, according to “the things spoken by the Lord.” Continue reading “The Visitation”