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…

Martin Luther wrote, “Faith is that foundation of the apostles and the prophets on which, as the apostle writes in Eph 2:20, we are built and the ‘foundation that has been laid,’ of which he speaks in 1 Cor 3:11. Thus Christ Himself says in Matt 16:18: ‘On this rock I will build My church,’ that is, on the firmness of faith”…

The Pentecost season is long and focused on spiritual growth. This Sunday in particular pictures the Christian life of faith—both strong faith and weak faith. Abraham is always held up as a model of great faith, from, among other texts, our words this week, “he believed the Lord, and the Lord counted it to him as righteousness” (Gen 15:6). Praise God for…

Today is Lay Ministry Sunday when the Board of Lay Ministry will direct the worship service and we will have two members of the congregation speak about their lives in Christ. Link to Service video on Vimeo Link to service bulletin  

Leviticus is one of the most overlooked or even intentionally avoided books of the Old Testament, yet a right understanding of Jesus and His work, indeed a right understanding of justification and sanctification, depends on this central book of the Torah given by God through Moses. In this book, God provides the way for sinful, unholy people to have fellowship with the…