Baptism: Exchange and Unification

Biblical Text: Matthew 3:13-17, Romans 6:1-11

Today was a confluence of events. We had a baptism in the service. It also was the Baptism of Jesus on the church calendar. So it was the perfect confluence for something of a teaching sermon. Just what is baptism. Textually there are two different Baptisms in the Bible. There is the baptism of John or the washings of the Israelites. Neither of these really have command in the Old Testament. They are outward rituals. Yet Jesus shows up and submits to that outward ritual. He does so to fulfill all righteousness, to empower his baptism that we practice. A baptism that does have the promises of God attached to it. Luther’s catechism as always is succinct. And this sermon leans on it throughout. But those promises of God that are in those waters of baptism revolve around two ideas. The first is the exchange. Jesus, the lamb of God, takes our sin, while we receive his righteousness. That is the exchange. But Paul’s explanation around baptism is deeper. In baptism we have been unified to Christ. We have been buried with him such that we might also rise with him. The sermon attempts to present these concepts.

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A New Year Meditation – Growth

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Biblical Text: Luke 2:40-52

The text is the familiar story of the 12 year old Jesus in the Temple. It’s the only story we have from the childhood of Jesus. And the focus of the story is one of growth. “Jesus grew is wisdom, and stature and in favor with God and men.” The sermon I’ve labeled a New Year meditation because at New Year we often think or plan or just dream about what kind of growth we might attempt over the next year. Whether that growth be from resolutions or just yearly plans revamped. The sermon sets Jesus as our pattern. Growth in wisdom which comes from the Word of God. Growth in stature. Bodies are important. Growth in grace (that’s the word our translations turn into favor). It is grace that perfects both wisdom and stature.

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Rachel Weeping

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Biblical Text: Matthew 2:13-18

The day on the church calendar is called Holy Innocents. The gospel lesson tells the simple story. Herod kills all two year old and younger boys in Bethlehem and the surround region. The Holy Family escapes to Egypt. But the text for me opens up a couple of lanes of pondering. The first is that we are simply powerless in front of so many things. I think you can summarize that powerlessness as in front of sin, death and the power of Satan. There are all kinds of specific pet sins. There are always Herods. And God remains mostly silent. He sends an angel to Jospeh and warns him, but not all those little boys. And there is a mystery to ponder there. The sermon does some of that. The second line is that we can only gain a form of mastery when we hand ourselves over to God. When we seek to align ourselves to His will and not to the will of the Devil, the world or our own flesh. Matthew sends us to Jeremiah 31 for a reason. Rachel weeps for her children, but the promise all around that line is the promise of joy, and life and return. “They shall come back from the land of the enemy. (Jer. 31:16 ESV)” Because of Christ, because of the Will of God carried out in his son, we shall come back from the land of our enemy death. There is no one who is “no more” to God.

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The Singularity

122525 Christmas Day Sermon Download

Before I got into this preaching bit, I worked finance. You’d be surprised at how useful that trade is in ministry, but also at how useful some of the concepts it uses are. This sermon for minute puts that old hat back on. Meditating on Christmas as the difference between a middle way and a singularity. Most of us making decisions like a middle way. That is the wisdom of the ancient philosophers. But there are things muddling through just can’t do. You need something really new. You need a singularity. Christmas is a singularity. Before this day God was God and man was man and there was no way from one to the other. Because of this day True God was also True man. Things after a singularity are just different than things before. This sermon is a meditation on that new reality. And how the singularity of God – the incarnation – is different than most of our in that it calls for a response, heart by heart.

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Regime Change of God (Christmas Eve)

122425 CE Sermon Download

The service was lessons and carols – a very traditional Christmas Eve service. When I was pondering what to preach this year the thing that struck my mind was how much these texts talked about the reign of God. How his reign is eternal. How he will reign is righteousness and justice. How he will bring peace. If we think about the reality before the incarnation – that we were under the reign of The Devil, The World and our sinful natures – and the reality after. Christmas, the incarnation, is the regime change of God. He came to give us victory over those great enemies and peace with our Creator.

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Absurdity

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Biblical Text: Matthew 1:18-25

Most things in life are predictable. Partly because we usually stay in safe zones: our homes, our ruts, our habits. But occasionally something from outside breaks into our safe zones. Something absurd shakes us up. Some of those absurdities come from sin. They can come from the sin that we desire. Even worse they can come from sin that we had no part in. The absurdities of sin are the devil attempting to cancel or nullify the good creation of God. Now the Word of God also comes from outside of us. The Word comes and shakes us up. But it shakes us up for life, for eternal life. The Christmas story in Matthew is one absurdity after another. And yet those absurdities come together to save us. God – Immanuel – comes to us to save us from those sins the nullify. The sermon is a reflection in absurdity. How it can be a sign of Satan, but also how it is God doing a new thing.

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Where’s My Sign?

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Biblical Text: Matthew 11:2-15

This is one of my favorite texts in the lectionary. I say that primarily because it is a big fat pitch that sets a preacher up to hit one out of the park. Not every text is that. There are hard texts that slapping a single is good. There are texts that the subject matter might be important, but just not that “sexy”. Again, the every Sunday preacher slaps a single, or maybe you can steal a double if you hustle. And then there are texts about why God doesn’t just solve all our problems. There are texts that are responses to “why?” There are texts that get right to the foot of the cross.

This one was helped by an odd occurrence in life. Someone stole a sign at church. It was a sign I had out in the front of the church on the main road inviting people in for Morning Prayer (Tuesday – Friday). Someone just walked away with it. That’s the introduction to the sermon.

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The Lion and the Lamb

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Biblical Text: Isaiah 11:1-10

I was trying something different with this sermon. I was also trying something different with the Pastor’s Corner this week. Advent is a vibe. Advent is promise and fulfillment overlapping. And at least in this world the fulfillment never seems complete, but the promise remains. While the corner tried to pull the reader into that time where John the Baptist and his message was the most important thing ever heard, this sermon attempts to map how the church today might feel postexilic. It attempts to point out what has been fulfilled. And start to understand why we have this feeling of longing and maybe slight sadness that often comes with it. Different times and places have different vibes. This was an attempt to understand ours. And still lean into the promise.

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Who is This?

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Biblical Text: Matthew 21:1-11

First Sunday of Advent. The text is always the Triumphant Entry – Palm Sunday. Now it could just be a replay of the previous Sunday’s sermon from Christ the King, but that misses the import of this procession. It is Christ presenting himself to his people. And I think parts of the opening of John’s gospel are a reflection on this. Historically, the King presented himself and his own would not have him. Christ continues to present himself to his people. And those who believe he gives the power to become children of God. What the procession does is show us just what kind of King this one is. The sermon does this by looking at three movements of the story: the donkey, the procession and the answers to “who is this?” The answers to that question are in the actions, and they are in the names. And then it is left on our hearts. Will we have this king?

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A Strange Coronation

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Biblical Text: Luke 23:27-43

This was the Last Sunday of the Church Year, often called Christ the King Sunday. The sermon elaborates a little more on that source. But the three year cycle of reading in the year of Luke throws an oddity. The Gospel reading is the Via Dolorosa and Crucifixion. Why on Christ the King would we get this? The answer is that this is the coronation walk of the Universal King. The cross is the throne of the King in this world. The posting above the cross – “This is the King of the Jews” – INRI (iesus nazarenus rex iudaeorum in Latin, Pilate’s judgement, Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jews) – is the divine irony. It is the sentence that the world gave; it is also the truth.

And on this walk and enthronement the King grants alms and blessings and benedictions. We also see the division, the judgement as it is actually carried out. For it is at the foot of the cross that the judgement takes place. Are we mockers? Or are we beggars?

That’s a bit of the sermon. Give it a listen for the elaboration.

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