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Half-Hearted Faith?

Text: Luke 9:51-62
Date: Pentecost VI (Proper 8) + 6/30/13

Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord. He comes and “sets His face to go to Jerusalem,” there to fulfill His destiny and ours by offering Himself as the one sacrifice for the sin of the world, so that by faith in Him all who believe may be released from the curse and death of sin and be given eternal life. The King came in the Person of Jesus, walking the dusty pathways of Galilee, laying aside His equality with God taking on the form of a servant. Now the crucified, risen, ascended King comes to individuals today through His body, the Church, that is, through the gospel preached in His name. He comes through word preached, read and taught. He comes through water with that word. He comes through the daily assurance of sins forgiven. He even comes giving us His true Body and Blood to eat and to drink sacramentally. He has come to you. And when He comes He bids the same of everyone, saying, “Follow Me.” Continue reading “Half-Hearted Faith?”

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Thanks be to God

Text: Luke 7:36—8:3
Date: Pentecost IV (Proper 6) + 6/16/13

Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord, for He comes bearing gifts and especially the gift of the forgiveness of sins. You can tell if someone has received that gift of forgiveness (or at least you should be able to). Once the great King David proved he wasn’t so great. The prophet Nathan delivered the smack down of the Law uncovering David’s great sin, saying, “You are the man!” David repented and received forgiveness. And even with this huge blot on his record, God does not keep a record and David proceeded to be “the Great King” by God’s grace. As Psalm 130 says, “If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities” or keep a record of sins, “O Lord, who could stand?” The answer is no one. “But with you there is forgiveness” (Ps 130:3-4). That forgiveness comes only at the cost of the death of Jesus Christ and by faith in Him alone. Continue reading “Thanks be to God”

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The Dead are Raised

Text: Luke 7:11-17
Date: Pentecost III (Proper 5) + June 9, 2013

Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! In heaven peace, and glory in the highest! He comes to a city called Nain in the midst of His earthly life’s journey to the cross. He comes, as the scripture says, with the Spirit of the Lord upon Him to proclaim good news, liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed (Luke 4:18). The increasing crowds who followed Him have seen His compassion in releasing people from demon possession (4:33-37), sickness (7:1-10), sin (5:17-26), and now even from death. The people were getting the clear idea that Jesus is the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophetic hope and that with Him the messianic age has dawned. Continue reading “The Dead are Raised”

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Worthy to Receive

Text: Luke 7:1-10
Date: Pentecost II (Proper 4) + 6/2/13

“Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord.” But it is only faith that thinks so, that believes so, that the King’s coming is a blessing. Yet that blessed faith shows up in surprising places and persons. That’s because, as we confess in the Augsburg Confession: Continue reading “Worthy to Receive”

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…Before All Worlds

Text: Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31
Date: The Holy Trinity + 5/26/13

Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord, the King “begotten of His Father before all worlds.” As on Pentecost Sunday the center of attention was not on God the Holy Spirit but on Him to whom the Spirit always points, the King, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, so on this celebration of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, the center of attention is not on the mystery of the three Persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, but on Him who was sent and glorified by the Father, the One who was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary and was made man. Continue reading “…Before All Worlds”

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The Spirit of Jesus

Text: John 14:23-31
Date: The Day of Pentecost + 5/19/13

Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord. Having come into the world, “all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:11-12). Having ascended back into heaven he lives and reigns over the entire universe. He said He was going away but promised in the same breath, “I will come to you.” Today we celebrate the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of life. Yet the Third Person of the Holy Trinity is not anyone new or different but is the Spirit of Jesus. Continue reading “The Spirit of Jesus”

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With the Lord

Text: John 17:20-26
Date: Easter VII + 5/12/13

Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord. For having come into the world, having come to us, having come for us and for all, He now ascends to rule all in glory and in grace. He leaves behind a world similar to the one He came, but now redeemed in hope that looks to His coming again. This world was and is filled with the variety of cultures and languages and ethnicities, physical variations of God’s creative design. For all that variety, however, as someone has said there is but one race, the human race. The sinful world divides and alienates people over differences of culture or language or physical appearance. The redeemed people of God are being gathered into one and see that oneness to be God’s will for all people. Continue reading “With the Lord”

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Enlightenment

Text: John 16:23-33
Date: Easter VI + 5/5/13

Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord. With those words Jesus was welcomed into Jerusalem…for the last time! “I came from the Father and have come into the world, and now I am leaving the world and going to the Father.” These were His last words to His disciples in the upper room that night in which He was betrayed. This was His last attempt to equip them to endure through the next days of His cruel and brutal suffering and death. This was the “hour” of which He spoke and told them, “you will be scattered, each to his own home, and will leave me alone.” And they were. When Jesus was arrested later that night, “then all the disciples left him and fled” (Mt 26:56). But we remember His words from last Sunday, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy” (John 6:20). These words pointed to the day of His resurrection from the dead. But not only that day alone! For He also means all the coming days up to His ascension, which we celebrate this coming Thursday. Ever since the Day of Pentecost to this day He invisibly shows Himself to the eyes of faith by the power of the Holy Spirit through the preached Word and the Sacraments. This is His promised place of dwelling, where faith not only sees Him but also receives His constant supply of the forgiveness of all our sins. Continue reading “Enlightenment”

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All Things New (already now and forever!)

Text: John 16:12-22
Date: Easter V + 4/28/13

Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! The whole world is blessed because He came to us in our own flesh so that we might be “sanctified through the offering of [His body] once for all.” “When Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God” (Heb 10:10, 12). “And he who was seated on the throne said, ‘Behold, I am making all things new’” (Rev 21:5). But in a world and a life seemingly filled with nothing but the “same old, same old,” when will God make all things new? And what things? Continue reading “All Things New (already now and forever!)”