Category: Lent Sermons

Text: Luke 13:31-35
Date: Lent II + 2/24/13

Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord. It was because of the word of judgment Jeremiah was sent by the Lord to proclaim—“This house shall be like Shiloah, and this city shall be desolate, without inhabitant”—coupled with a certain sense of sadness—“Do with me as seems good and right to you”—that the prophet warned, “only know for certain that if you put me to death, you will bring innocent blood upon yourselves and upon this city and its inhabitants, for in truth the Lord sent me to you to speak all these words in your ears.” Continue reading “Enemies of the Cross”

Text: Luke 4:1-13
Date: Lent I + 2/17/13

Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord, for He comes to conquer Satan and to free us from the grasp of sin and death.

The first reason we have come here is because in many and various ways God’s Word, God’s diagnosis of us, has convinced us that we are separated from God, that this separation is the result of sin, and that the wages of this sin is death. But we have come here also because we have heard and believe that God has provided the answer equal to our need, forgiveness of sin, deliverance from death, and communion with God. Continue reading “First Prize Performance”

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”

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”

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”