Category: podcast

Waiting for Consolation

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Biblical Text: Luke 2:22-40

This sermon is some ways continues the contemplation between fortune and blessing started last Sunday, but it stands by itself, that continuation is just the pattern of the Chistian life. One person’s praise becomes the next person’s blessing and promise. This sermon focuses on the characters of Simeon and Anna, and specifically how they receive the blessings of God. There are three different ways we might respond. The pattern of Simeon is for us. He is “righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel.” If we receive the blessing, this is the pattern. (I’ve also left in a couple verses of a couple of the hymns sung. You forget how good “See Amid the Winter’s Snow” is.)

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Comfort, Redemption, Peace

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Biblical Text: Isaiah 52:7-10

This is a Christmas Day mediation coming from the Isaiah Text which has a very specific context behind it: the decisive battle of a War. Christmas Day is the day that the messenger appears on the mountain with a message. Victory is ours. The victory has been given to us. And what are the effects of that victory? What does the coming of the Lord to Zion bring? Comfort, Redemption, Peace. For all who might be feeling at the end of a war, this is the proclamation.

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We Need a Little Christmas

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The recording is most of our Christmas Eve Lessons and Carols service. The sermon is a meditation on the difference between how we tend to celebrate Christmas and what we are looking for vs. the Christmas gift. This is done through a staple modern carol “We Need a Little Christmas” which has the correct diagnosis, if some standard prescriptions that are ineffective.

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Promise, Fulfillment, Praise

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This sermon first examines what a blessing is. Elizabeth blesses Mary, and she blesses all those who believe the words of the LORD. A blessing is far more than fortune or well-wishes. A blessing is a form of promise. And it is that promise that is part of a cycle of the Christian life. Promise gives way to fulfillment which brings about praise. Promise, fulfillment and praise is something like vocal round in the Christian life. It starts with one, and the praise of one might become the promise of the next who hears. The great crescendo of that is the promise of the resurrection. This sermon attempts to place us in those blessings and that praise.

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Scandalized by Me

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Biblical Text: Luke 7:18-28

This is a stand alone sermon (most of mine are) but with John the Baptist at the center it is something of a pair with last week. It is a scene of taking stock. John’s in prison and going to lose his head. Has his work been at all meaningful? The one he said must increase doesn’t look exactly like what he was proclaiming the loudest. Jesus, are you sure what you are doing? Is the prophet and his prophetic words true? Does this grace that can be seen in this hour align with that word? How do grace and truth go together? They go together in the one Christ. Blessed is the one who is not scandalized by me.

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Desperate for One True Word

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Biblical Text: Luke 3:1-15

What this sermon attempts to do is recreate the experience of John the Baptist. For a long time I don’t think this was really possible. We were too comfortable. But today, maybe we can start to hear John. Today we might just be able to listen to a Word in the wilderness.

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Anticipation

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Biblical Text: Jeremiah 33:14-16

It’s the first Sunday in Advent. The Gospel text is traditionally Palm Sunday – the triumphal entry, which is Jesus the King coming to Jerusalem. This sermon is based off of the Old Testament lesson from Jeremiah. Jeremiah is traditionally the prophet of doom and lamentation. But here he tells of fulfillment. God fulfills his promises. He fulfilled them to the heirs of Jacob. There was a greater fulfillment for Israel, a fulfillment we receive by faith. But behold, the days are coming when they will be fulfilled again. This sermon retells the covenants God has promised to his people.

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Thanksgiving

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Biblical Text: Colossians 1:1-17, Small Catechism 1st Article

Thanksgiving in connected to creation. It is also connected to the New Creation in Christ. Either everything falls apart, in which case Thanks and Praise are offensive, or is all hold together in Christ – the one thought whom is was all created and the firstborn of the new creation. Choosing to give thanks, is siding with creation which displays the love of God at all times.

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Christ the King

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Biblical Text: Mark 13:14-23, 24-37

The day on the church Calendar is the last Sunday of the Church Year, sometimes called Christ the King. The sermon completes our reading through Jesus’ last things sermon from Mark 13. You might call it the distinction between the end of a world, a time of tribulation, and the end of the world, the deliverance of Christ the King. The first of those we should be able to recognize by the “sign of the fig tree.” The last of those, we do not know, but we await that day. For that day is the day the Kingdom comes in its fullness. The Day of our deliverance.

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Two Ditches of the 2nd Coming

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Biblical Text: Mark 13:1-13

It is the end of the church year. Two Sunday’s hence, the start of Advent, is the church new year. And in the last two Sundays the texts turn to last things. In the year of Matthew you get the parables. In the year of Mark you get Jesus’ sermon itself from Mark 13. Which means it is the perfect time to preach the doctrine of the 2nd coming. There probably isn’t a more misunderstood doctrine with worse effects on Christian life than the 2nd coming. And the text itself isn’t easy to comprehend as there are at least 5 threads running through it, some of them very Jewish, others off in the future. What this sermon does is point out the two ditches that we often get stuck in when contemplating the 2nd Coming and why they are ditches. We shouldn’t necessarily feel back about these, because they are perennial. They are what the disciples wanted to turn towards. The second part of the sermon listens to Jesus’ answer to those disciples as they tried to steer him into the ditch. Jesus this week explains what it means for a Christian to watch or “be on your guard”. Once you are “on guard”, then next week he turns to some actual answers that we can hear about those last things.

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