Archives: Sermons

5-29-22 Exaudi

May 29, 2022
It may seem absurd to compare the persecution of the apostles with the persecution of Christians in America today. “They will put you out of the synagogues,” Jesus says, “Yea, the hour is coming when anyone who kills you will think he offers service to God.” We’re not kicked out of our churches today. No one is trying to kill us today. So we’re told this just doesn’t apply to us, stop complaining Christians, no…

5-22-22 Rogate (Confirmation)

May 22, 2022
Dear Father in heaven, Your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, bids us ask you in His name and promises You will give what we ask. We come before you today and ask your blessing on these young men and women. We do not ask for wealth or fame or long life or health – according to all that do as You will, gracious Father – but we ask now for nothing temporary, nothing that fades…

5-15-22 Cantate

May 15, 2022
Jesus sends the Holy Spirit to comfort his disciples. The Holy Spirit is not some impersonal power of God that He uses to speak to you. He is not like a scalpel or like a microphone, not a tool or an instrument. The Holy Spirit is God, the third person of the Holy Trinity, eternal with the Father and the Son; He is a person and so He deals with you personally. Jesus stresses this…

5-8-22 Jubilate

May 8, 2022
After Jesus rose from the dead, he appeared to his disciples during forty days, and after the forty days he ascended into heaven. At this point in the Church year we’re over halfway through these forty days between Easter and the Ascension. The readings shift slightly. Rather than teaching us what his resurrection is for us, Jesus begins preparing us for his departure. Now we don’t have many of the words recorded in Scripture that…

5-1-22 Misericordias Domini

May 1, 2022
There is no word used more, when Jesus talks about his sheep, than the word “mine.” In fact, there are two words for “mine” in the Greek and Jesus uses them both and uses them constantly for his sheep. My sheep hear my voice. I know my own. My own know me. He says it again and again. He is very purposely announcing His fulfillment of Isaiah 43, God’s great promise to Israel, “Thus says…

4-24-22 Quasimodo Geniti

April 24, 2022
Jesus did many other signs in front of His disciples that are not written in this book, but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing, you may have life in His name. John didn’t just run out of room to write more. He didn’t want to write more but then came to the end of his parchment and had to stop. That’s not…

4-17-22 Easter

April 17, 2022
Alleluia. Christ is risen! Jesus tells Mary, “Go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God.’” These are His first words to His disciples after His resurrection from the dead and they emphatically stress His human nature, that He is a man, that He is our Brother, that He is so completely one of us that He can call God…

4-15-22 Good Friday (Chief Service)

April 15, 2022
Jesus says to the women who are following him and weeping as He bears his cross to Calvary, “Do not weep for me. Weep for yourselves.” Don’t pity me, pity yourselves. So it will do us no good to feel sorry for Jesus today. Martin Luther particularly insists on this: Jesus’ suffering is no spectacle to make us cry at the injustice, to make us pity a poor man suffering unjustly. We can read Oliver…

4-15-22 Good Friday (Tenebrae)

April 15, 2022
The Spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. It was Peter’s flesh that talked big and announced his bravery, that he would stand by Jesus to the end. He wasn’t insincere. He was overconfident in himself – the vice known as temerity – but he wasn’t insincere. He was serious. He drew the sword and struck off Malchus’ ear. He was, as he said, ready to die for Jesus, ready to fight to the…

4-14-22 Maundy Thursday

April 14, 2022
This day is called Maundy Thursday. The word “Maundy” comes from the Latin word mandatum, which means “commandment,” because on this day Jesus said, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.” Now in a sense, the command to love is not new. Love has always been the summary of the Law: “You shall love the Lord your…
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