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It is exactly one week before Christmas. In six days, the sanctuary will be much fuller than normal. Many who are usually absent from worship will be present. As you prepare to celebrate Christmas rightly, this Sunday provides an opportunity to reflect on what it means to be present – for us and for God. Link to Service video on Vimeo Link…

The season of Advent is a time of hopeful anticipation—not only for December 25th, but even more for the second coming of Christ. Christians live in constant hope for that day. But during the season of Advent, our longing becomes more explicit and acute. The annual celebration of the incarnation reminds us that, as surely as Christ first came hidden as a…

The Advent season as a whole is a time in which the Church not only prepares to celebrate the Feast of Our Lord’s Nativity but also looks forward in repentance and faith to our Savior’s glorious second coming. This second Sunday of Advent emphasizes the hope believers have based on the present fulfillment of God’s promises Link to Service video on Vimeo…

Advent prepares the baptized both to celebrate our Lord’s having already come and already redeemed His fallen creation and to look forward to His coming again in glory. The Collect of the Day is addressed to God the Son. To Christ we pray, “Come!” For what purpose? That “we may be rescued from the threatening perils of our sins and saved by…

The Last Sunday of the Church year is a day of awe and glory. When the wood is finally dry (Gospel, Lk 23:31), the distinction between the unrepentant thief reviling Christ (23:39) and the penitent thief seeking Christ’s mercy (23:42) shall be made known throughout the earth as the distinction between “the righteous and the wicked.” Link to Service video on Vimeo…

The end of the church year always focuses on the last things of this life and this age. The Nicene Creed confessed before the sermon will remind the congregation of “the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.” You may say at the Service of the Sacrament, “Amen! Come, Lord Jesus,” and His return is announced as…

One finds in our text God’s gracious irony at work. God is celebrated not as One who exalts Himself at the expense of others but as the One who humbles Himself that others might be exalted. God’s grace raises that which is low and enriches that which is poor. Ultimately, this gracious contrast is made known most fully to us on the…

“Lord Jesus, You are the Good Shepherd. . . . Rescue and preserve us that we may not be lost forever but follow You, rejoicing in the way that leads to eternal life.” The Collect for Proper 19 well summarizes the day. In the Gospel, our preaching text, Jesus tells His parable of the shepherd seeking out one lost sheep (and also…

The readings after Pentecost relate to application of Christian living, motivated by the Gospel of Christ and our new life in Him. The connection among this Sunday’s Scripture readings is obedience to the Law (Third Use) as a necessary characteristic of Christian life—not necessary for our salvation, but necessary as our witness of hope in Christ and our privilege to proclaim the…