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In Her Ellement
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21:38People want to feel supported and safe at work – and inspired to innovate. What can people working at large corporations do to create this kind of environment? Saskia Mureau is the Director of Customer Digital at the Port of Rotterdam where she is harnessing digital systems to reduce emissions. She is passionate about creating inclusive workplaces where psychological safety and collaboration drive meaningful change. In this episode, Kamila sits down with Suchi to talk about why she chose to work at large corporations rather than startups. Saskia also reflects on her personal experiences, including navigating IVF while at work, and discusses how organizations can foster environments where employees feel empowered to bring their whole selves to work. Links: Saskia Mureau on Linkedin WHO infertility research BCG 2024 report on psychological safety in the workplace Suchi Srinivasan on LinkedIn Kamila Rakhimova on LinkedIn About In Her Ellement: In Her Ellement highlights the women and allies leading the charge in digital, business, and technology innovation. Through engaging conversations, the podcast explores their journeys—celebrating successes and acknowledging the balance between work and family. Most importantly, it asks: when was the moment you realized you hadn’t just arrived—you were truly in your element? About The Hosts: Suchi Srinivasan is an expert in AI and digital transformation. Originally from India, her career includes roles at trailblazing organizations like Bell Labs and Microsoft. In 2011, she co-founded the Cleanweb Hackathon, a global initiative driving IT-powered climate solutions with over 10,000 members across 25+ countries. She also advises Women in Cloud, aiming to create $1B in economic opportunities for women entrepreneurs by 2030. Kamila Rakhimova is a fintech leader whose journey took her from Tajikistan to the U.S., where she built a career on her own terms. Leveraging her English proficiency and international relations expertise, she discovered the power of microfinance and moved to the U.S., eventually leading Amazon's Alexa Fund to support underrepresented founders. Subscribe to In Her Ellement on your podcast app of choice to hear meaningful conversations with women in digital, business, and technology.…
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Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod
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Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod
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×[Machine transcription] In the name of Jesus, amen. Dear Aidan and Francis and all of the Lord’s children, we give thanks to God today that even though the flower fades and the grass withers, the word of the Lord endures forever. And we rejoice in that word now. Especially, we want to take up the problem that I think all of our texts are addressing, and that is, how is it that the church goes from age to age? From one generation to the next. This verse of our first lesson, Acts chapter 20, Paul’s preaching in Miletus, we’ll come back to the context a little bit later, and he’s telling these pastors, or these maybe new seminary graduates, he’s sending them off and saying, “Hey, pay careful attention to yourself and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to care for the church of God, which He obtained with His own blood.” First, now, this doesn’t look like a big deal. This is what the Bible talks about all the time. The blood of Christ, the Lamb of God, which takes away the sin of the world. And that blood is the price that was paid for us to set us free from sin and cleanse our conscience from all guilt and shame and to give us eternal life. It’s a wonderful promise, but what’s so special about this? The special thing is when we notice to whom the blood belongs. It doesn’t just say the blood of Christ. It says the blood of Christ. Or the blood of Jesus, or the blood of the Lamb. It says, “And in this phrase, I think the Bible teaches us how we rightly confess this great mystery of the Christian faith, that Christ is God and man joined together in the personal union of the Lord.” In the hypostatic union is what the old theologians call it, well, I guess even the young theologians call it that, the union of the two natures of Christ into the one person so that the things that we can speak of Christ, we can also now speak of God. So that we, Christians, can say things of God that you never would think could be spoken of them, but now, in fact, not only can they, but must they. Right? So that now, according to the pattern of sound words given to us in the Sermon of St. Paul, we can talk about the blood of God and so much more. We can talk about the birth of God. Can you imagine it? The mother of God. The suffering of God. The death of God. Because all the things that happened to Christ didn’t just happen to his humanity, but also to the whole person, divinity and humanity united as one. So that we confess here in this text that Jesus Christ, Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds, and true God, and also true man, born of the Virgin Mary, is my Lord. It’s amazing. And really, I mean, we could probably spend eternity meditating on this text and thinking about all these things, and we’ll never get to the bottom of it, the idea that we can speak of the blood of God. But just imagine also this, that that blood is what was paid for you. My dad always used to say, something is, I remember I was bragging about this baseball card that I had at one time. I think I told you guys this story. I had this very, some sort of rare rookie baseball card, and I brought it to my dad, and I said, “Dad, look, the magazine says that this card is worth $28.” And my dad said, “Only if you can find someone who will pay you for it.” Which is really a great lesson, actually, that something is only as valuable as someone will pay for it. But now listen to this. This is what the text is saying: that you are purchased with God’s blood. That was the price that was paid for each and every one of us. Now, that’s a stunning text. Okay, so you’ve underlined that and you’ll study it this week. Now, to the main thrust of all of the text… There is a problem that always comes up in the church. It was in the scriptures and it comes up constantly, and that is how will the church survive? We see it perhaps acutely when Jesus is telling the disciples, “In a little while you’ll see me no more.” And they were sad because he said to them, “In a little while you’ll see me no more. Where are you going? How are we going to make it? What are we going to do when Jesus is gone?” What are we going to do when Jesus is gone? We see what the answer is in the text from Luke chapter 10 when the Lord Jesus sends out the 72 to go on ahead of them and to preach peace and the kingdom of God. In other words, even though Jesus wasn’t there, his preaching was there and his word was there and through that the church would go on. The same problem comes up in Acts chapter 20. This is the Miletus sermon that we were just thinking about. The context is this. Paul had been in Ephesus for three years helping evangelize the whole region, setting up a… I think a seminary there, or training guys in the scripture, setting them to be pastors in all these places. And then Paul had gone around Greece and visited back in Corinth, and he was coming back down, and he didn’t want to go back to Ephesus because he knew he would get stuck there. They wouldn’t let him leave because there were all these prophecies about when Paul ends up in Jerusalem, he’s going to be beaten and arrested and everything. And plus they loved him. He would have gotten stuck in Ephesus. So he met him down the road in Miletus. Maybe 20 miles down the coast. And they all come there. And he preaches this great sermon. This most beautiful sermon. It’s the only sermon that we have from Paul to Christians. It’s just absolutely wonderful. And then when the sermon is done, just right after our first lesson here, it says that they fell on his neck and they were weeping because they knew that they wouldn’t see him any longer. They loved him. And Paul loved them. And they’re worried. You have to see what they’re worried about. Paul, if you’re gone, if you’re arrested, if you’re in jail, how’s the church going to survive? How are we going to make it? And he says, “You take care of the Lord’s people. You preach the word. You give instruction. You rebuke the false teachers. You look out for the false doctrine and false living.” And now it’s passed on from Paul to all those he puts in place there. And especially in Titus. This book of Titus is written really right towards the end of Paul’s ministry. It’s after the book of Acts. So Paul’s in prison and he’s out and he travels around, maybe to Spain, then maybe back to Jerusalem and all around. And in all these places, he’s putting men there and he’s dropping them off and he says, “All right, you’re in charge now.” So he goes to Crete with Titus and he puts him there and he says, “You’re in charge.” You’re in charge. And there is Titus, Bishop of Crete, and he goes up to Ephesus. He puts Timothy there and says, “You’re in charge.” And all over Troas and all these different spots, “You’re in charge.” He’s dropping people. I mean, you have to wonder what’s going on now as Titus is trying to serve the people there in Crete and to be a pastor and to preach the word and thinking, “What’s going to happen when Paul dies, when Paul’s beheaded?” That’s what happens a few years later in Rome. What’s going to happen to the church? And Paul says, “Now, you, Titus, are there, but you’re to put in place more pastors. More pastors. Elders, overseers, bishops, who can instruct in the Word, who can teach the Word, who can pass on the Word.” Now, here’s the problem that presents itself: we look at, for example, just where we are right now in the life of the church, and we say, “Well, what happens? What happens when we all die? What happens when we get too old to stand up here and preach? What happens when we can’t keep things going?” And we think, “Well, is that just the end?” This is the same problem that happens over and over in every generation. But here’s the reality: the whole point of all of the texts that the Holy Spirit puts in front of us this morning is that preachers come and go, elders come and go, overseers come and go, we come and go, all of us come and go, but the word of the Lord endures forever. Flesh is grass. It fades, but the word endures. The word is what creates and sustains faith. The word is what the church is established on. The Word is what never ends. I want to maybe illustrate this with Matthew 28. This is where Jesus has the disciples. He’s maybe a few days before His ascension into heaven. He’s resurrected now. He’s appeared to the disciples in Jerusalem. He’s gone up to Galilee, and they’ve all come up to Galilee to see Him there. They find Him on this mountain, and they fall down and they worship Him. Some doubt, the text says. And Jesus says, “Okay, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” Now, that’s a stunning thing to say. I have to wonder what’s going through the disciples’ imaginations when they say that. I don’t know how to get to the equivalent, but could you imagine that you’re sitting down with a friend who said, “I just won the lottery.” You know what the lottery is? Like $42 billion now or whatever. Who knows? It’s a crazy amount of money. So I just won the lottery. And your question, the thing that you’re thinking immediately is what? What are you going to do with all that money? What are you going to do? Now, I just think about that like times a thousand. When Jesus says to the disciples, “All authority, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” And the disciples have to think, “What are you going to do with it? What are you going to do with all that authority? Are you going to give some to us? All authority on heaven and earth.” And you start to imagine what you would do if you had all authority on heaven and earth. Bring it into war or bring it into poverty or bring it into sickness or, you know, start the first colony on Mars or who knows whatever you’re going to do. What would you do with all that authority? Now, here’s the amazing thing. After Jesus says what he has, “All authority, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I’ve commanded you. And look, I’ll be with you even to the end of the age. The way that Jesus shows up with his divine authority in heaven and on earth is when he baptized you. The way Jesus shows up with all authority in heaven and on earth is when the scriptures are opened and read to you and you hear them and they’re preached to you and you think about them and study them and wonder about them. In the word and in the sacraments, all Jesus’ divine authority over all of heaven and over all of earth is brought to you, is given to you. And that word and those gifts create your faith. Like Paul says, “I’m not ashamed of the gospel. It’s the power of God for those who believe.” Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. So that in the teaching of the word, in the preaching of the word, in the hearing of the word, in the washing of the word, in the feeding on the word, in the forgiveness that comes from the word, the Lord brings his kingdom and it stands. It stands. In Luke 10, he sends the 72. In Acts 20, he sends the other pastors. In Titus 1, he puts Titus in place, and he puts him in place to put the elders in place so that there would be spiritual children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and that even though Paul and Titus are dead, I’ve actually seen their skulls. Titus’s skull is there in this church in Crete, and John’s is hanging in the church in Rome. They’re dead and they’re gone, and yet the word of the Lord endures forever. This is our confidence and this is our work. And I think when we ask what does this mean, this is what we want to think about. First, there are things for us to do. And maybe just to focus on this for just a little bit. It’s on us, from the text here, it’s on us to make sure that the doctrine is passed down to the next generation and from them to the next. This means that we teach the children in the church. This means we teach the children in the home. I mean, parents and grandparents and friends are teaching. We cannot neglect this teaching of the word to the next generation because one day all those kids that are running around here are going to be the ones that are serving as elders and in the altar guild and going to the voters’ meetings and all that. We can just be grumpy and old and not worry about it. I can’t wait for that day. The next generation has to be trained with the Word of God. They’re going to be the ones to carry it forth. And not just in our families and our congregation. We have to really think as a church what this means. This is why we need to have universities to train the pastors and teachers. Why we have to have seminaries to train the next generation of pastors that are going forth. Why we need to support all of these endeavors to send missionaries to different places. Because the church does not simply exist for herself. We don’t just exist for right now, but also for tomorrow and the next week and the next day and the next decade or century or millennium until the Lord comes. We need to be thinking about these things. Like Paul says to Titus, “Put elders in every place.” So there’s work to do. But I think maybe most importantly and finally, this gives us something to trust in. That the word of the Lord cannot be overthrown. The devil will attack the word but all of those attacks will fail. And when the Lord Jesus returns on the last day, he will find faith on earth. The church that he builds will stand, and the gates of hell itself will not even prevail against the attack of the church. We, dear saints, can you imagine what a gift this is? We have the word of God. You have the word of God. This congregation has the Word of God. Your family has the Word of God. Our church body has the Word of God. And on this, the Lord has built His church and established His church, and it’ll stand. So it’s no problem. It’s no problem that preachers come and go. It’s no problem that grandparents and parents come and go. It’s no problem that the people who baptized us are now waiting for us in heaven. It’s no problem that Jesus has ascended, that Paul and Titus have died. It’s no problem because the word, the Lord’s word, it endures forever. And it is our confidence, our hope, and our peace. May God grant us this confidence in the name of Jesus. Amen. And the peace of God which passes all understanding, guard your hearts and your minds through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. The post Sermon for St Titus, Pastor and Confessor appeared first on St Paul Lutheran Church .…
[Machine transcription] This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee and manifested his glory, and his disciples believed in him. Please be seated. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Dear brothers and sisters, this morning we hear a story about a wedding celebration that almost wasn’t—well, at least… maybe one that was in danger of being spoiled by a shortage of wine. The fact that we hear about this wedding this morning makes us think about your own wedding, and the fact that this particular gospel text is indeed used lots of times for the wedding rite, particularly, I think, in the Lutheran Church. The text should show us that indeed our Lord Jesus does esteem marriage, and he himself is, of course, the example of the bridegroom, the one who loves and cares for and indeed is going to give his own life for his bride, the church. So we would not necessarily be wrong to take this lesson and use it for the purpose of elevating the state of marriage to where our Lord indeed wants it to be. Because we also today hear this marriage theme in the Psalm, where you hear about the happiness of a household that fears the Lord. Our lesson from the prophet Isaiah, where the Lord promises to restore and save Israel by wedding himself to her. But there is indeed a lot more going on in this story than just a wedding. Okay. Now that we find ourselves right now in the season of Epiphany, I think maybe should be a little bit of a hint or a clue to maybe something that we would want to kind of glom onto or take from this lesson today. A few weeks ago on Epiphany Sunday, we heard about the wise men who followed this star from the east, Christ’s star as it was. Its radiance eventually leading them to Bethlehem where they see the boy and fall down and worship him. Last week we heard St. Luke’s account of the baptism of Jesus, where the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. Just before this reading today, we have in John chapter 2, the evangelist tells us about the testimony of John the Baptist and how Jesus has called all these disciples and he has invited them to come and see. He promises that they will see even greater things. So I don’t think it’s necessarily wrong to say that the epiphany of our Lord is a day in time, but it is also kind of a series of events for us here in the church. And today at Cana, the disciples indeed do see, because Jesus will make himself known to them through the first of these seven signs that John tells us about. This text today tells us that Jesus and his disciples, they’ve traveled across the Jordan River, they’ve gone from Bethany up into the land of Galilee to this village of Cana, and they’ve all been invited there. It says Jesus and his disciples were invited. Now, weddings in that day were typically protracted events, sometimes stretched into seven days. It’s not clear exactly when Jesus and his disciples got there, if they got there at the beginning or some other time. John tells us that Mary is already there, although it’s kind of interesting that he doesn’t refer to her as Mary. He calls her the mother of Jesus, but I think that’s kind of a tie-in to why Jesus himself was probably invited. Right? A Lutheran Christian sermon. But it’s obvious the text tells us that she’s in the middle of things. She knows what’s going on and she now becomes keenly aware that this supply of wine is running dangerously low. Some suggest that maybe Jesus and his disciples crashed this wedding and they showed up and caused the shortage. But the text tells us clearly they were invited. So no, it’s probably as simple as somebody messed up on the head count and failed to have enough wine on hand. This, of course, in society then would be a major embarrassment—to run out of wine before the wedding is over. A social faux pas of sorts. And I can tell you as one who recently paid for a wedding, I didn’t plan it, I paid for it. I can say this is true: you don’t want to run out of wine, or beer for that matter. What we see next though that happens is very interesting. You can almost hear the anxiety, the angst, the apprehension, and the exasperation—all those things—in Mary’s voice as she tells Jesus, “They have no wine.” And what exactly is it that Mary expects that Jesus is going to do about this? He’s there with his disciples, he’s invited, he’s a guest. Is he going to gather them up and go out into the town, a town he doesn’t know, and hunt down more wine? Why doesn’t Mary just take care of this like she should? It almost seems like Jesus is thinking the same with this kind of, I think, what we take as this caustic response to Mary where he says, “Woman, what does this have to do with me?” Some translations might render it to be more of a response like, “With me and you.” Maybe that’s kind of a signal about something. Because either way, this seems to be a rebuke to Mary for suggesting that Jesus be the one to do something. And maybe we kind of think that we see some sort of a signal of a relationship and the change between mother and son, because it sure sounds like it. Jesus doesn’t even call her mother; he just says woman. And in that day, that was actually a symbol of respect. But nonetheless, he doesn’t refer to her as his mother. And yet Mary doesn’t seem to be offended by this. She doesn’t recoil at it because probably she understands what’s going on here. Now I was thinking about this—how a lot of people like to poke fun at this song we hear around Christmas time titled, “Mary, Did You Know?” And the reason is that the answer should be obvious: that Mary did know. So we ought to be sure that Mary did know why Jesus responded the way he did and that he is indeed going to do something. But if she took any offense at the way that he responded, she sure doesn’t show it. Perhaps in her own mind, she’s thinking back to the visitation of Gabriel all those years ago and all the things that he told her that would happen. Maybe she’s thinking back to Simeon encountering the infant Jesus in the temple and how he sang his song of blessing and thanksgiving. Surely she was also aware of his baptism and that he had now called and gathered these disciples who are there with him. So yes, she understands who her son is. And yes, this relationship is a little different now. About this, Luther wrote: “Although there is no higher power on earth than a father and mother’s power, even this is at an end when God’s word and work begin.” So yes, he’s here as her son, the son of Mary. But more than that, he is there as the Son of God. This is why she asked him to do something, because she too believes in him. She has faith in him, and she has faith in him beyond thinking that he is just going to fix this temporal problem. But perhaps she is expecting more than he is willing to reveal at this moment. For in saying, “My hour has not yet come,” Jesus perhaps is preempting any notion Mary might have that he is going to fully reveal himself there and then. He says, “My hour has not come.” We know that when it does come, he will turn his face to Jerusalem, but not yet. And Mary knows. She knows what he’s talking about and of what he speaks. And so she looks to the servants and she directs them away from herself and to Jesus. “Do whatever he tells you.” It seems almost as if she’s thinking back and saying again, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord. Let it be to me according to your word.” Here we see humble Mary pointing to Jesus, her son, and yet Christ, her Savior. Jesus now directs these servants to take these six large stone jars that are used for the ritual of purification and go fill them up. They probably thought he was out of his mind. He’s either one of those crazy Pharisees that is so fanatical about washing hands and everything else in the house that he’s going to make us do it all over again. Or maybe he’s hoping the people have drunk enough wine that he can pass off his water as wine. What they do is to say, nonetheless, and when they draw the water out at his command and deliver it to the master of the feast, they now know what has happened. They know that Jesus, the new high priest, the great high priest, is doing away with this ritual of washing hands. He has taken this water formerly for self-purification and for strict keeping of the law. He has replaced it with wine—wine that he will soon institute as his own blood for the forgiveness of sins. A gospel now—not law, but gospel for all believers. And who does he choose to reveal this to? To the rulers and the authorities in Jerusalem? No. To these servants in Galilee. So now also his disciples see this first sign. This sign requires obedience and faith on their part. Jesus had previously told them to come and see, and now they do see for the first time. John tells us his disciples believed in him. But yet, Jesus doesn’t try to take credit for what he’s done. The master of the feast tells us he must assume that this bridegroom has either planned this all out and praises him for his generosity, or he thinks he’s a fool for serving the good wine last. He says, “You have kept the good wine until now.” Regardless of the reason, it must have been some exceptional wine. I say, I don’t know much about wine. If you gave me a blind taste test and put a $2 bottle or a $200 bottle in front of me, I’m sure I couldn’t tell the difference. But these people sure could, because the quality of this wine had to have been like none other. And there was plenty of it. In turning this water into wine, he is showing himself to be who John says he is. More than that, who Jesus himself says he is—the Word, the one through whom all things were made, the creator of heaven and earth, and who has now created this splendid wine. This wine that Jesus waited to make until just the right time, when it was needed. So, I said earlier that there was more than a wedding going on here. We do want to know and say that the wedding at Cana should make us think of Christ’s love for us, and perhaps it does make you think of your own wedding. For Christ is the bridegroom who rejoices over the church, his bride, having cleansed her, as we hear, by the washing of water with the word. He is, as we heard in the epistle lesson, the one who gives us his Holy Spirit so that only by the Holy Spirit may we proclaim that Jesus is Lord. He is the one who gives us the bread of life and this good wine, now his body and blood for the forgiveness of all our sins. Although he set aside his glory and kept it hidden, he does not now hide it from us. For he manifests himself in all these gifts which he so lavishly pushes on and puts on us today and always. Yes, Jesus is doing away with the old rituals and he is now making satisfaction for the law. He has replaced the ritual of washing with the washing of baptism, the water of baptism once and for all. And with the cleansing of blood—his own blood which was shed for us and washes away our sins in a crimson flood. He has given a sign, but yes, more than a sign. He has given us a new era, a revealing of his glory and his divinity and the coming of the kingdom of God. So yes, in this epiphany season, may we look for Jesus Christ to reveal himself to us again and again and over and over again. As we gather to be blessed by his word and to participate in his Holy Communion. Yes, we can see how Jesus blesses marriage at Cana, but he blesses more than that at Calvary. At Cana, the servants, and the disciples, and all the rest, they were given this brief glimpse of Jesus’ glory and perhaps even a limited understanding of who Christ is. But on the cross, he fully revealed his glory for the world to see, as he did then and for us today. Christ was an invited guest at the wedding of Cana—not that he could just partake in the fun and frivolity and the festivities, but so that he may reveal himself to be the Word made flesh. He so reveals himself to us today as the Word made flesh, and he is inviting us now to join the feast which he has prepared for us. So may we ever hold fast to the truth of this word, and may we never grow tired of being fed and nourished and forgiven in this supper until that day when we feast on the marriage feast of the Lamb and his kingdom, which will have no end. Amen. Now the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen. The post Sermon for Second Sunday after Epiphany appeared first on St Paul Lutheran Church .…
[Machine transcription] In the name of Jesus, amen. Dear saints, this morning we consider the wisdom and courage of baptism—the baptism that the Lord Jesus has given to all of his people. And if, by the way, you’re visiting and you haven’t been baptized, make sure to check in with me before you leave and we can work on that. Martin Luther says about baptism this wonderful thing: he says, “We have enough in baptism. God has given us enough in baptism that we can consider it our entire lives.” And I think that it’s not only that. I think that we’ll be able to consider this gift that the Lord Jesus gives to us in Holy Baptism on into eternity in the new heaven and the new earth, wondering at all that the Lord has done and accomplished in us and for us in His gift of Holy Baptism. Now, the first part of the wisdom of baptism is to know that baptism is not simply an event. In the early service this morning, we had Will’s baptism. Last week, we had Hezekiah’s baptism. And if you were to go and ask those guys, “Hey, are you baptized?” they should not say, “Well, I was baptized this morning or last week.” You shouldn’t say, “Well, I was baptized when I was a baby or whenever,” but rather, “I am baptized.” Suppose it’s the same if someone asks you if you’re married. Can you imagine that someone asks you, “Hey, are you married?” And you, thinking about the wedding 25 years ago, said, “Well, I was married.” And you get a stiff. It’s not “I was.” You are! That marriage puts you into the state of marriage, into the vocation and calling of marriage, into the gift of marriage. You are married. The same thing with baptism: you are baptized. It sets you apart, and it changes everything about the way you think about yourself, and the way you think about what you do, and say, and think, and the way you think about God, and the way you think about the past, and the way you think about the future. It changes absolutely everything. Now, to tap into this wisdom of baptism, I think it’s helpful for us to make a distinction between the baptism of our Lord Jesus and the baptism that Jesus gives to us as people. We have the gospel text set before us from Luke where John is baptizing, and it tells a little bit about Herod putting him in prison and then kind of flashes back to the baptism of Jesus. All the people were coming down to the Jordan River to be baptized by him, and among those people, Jesus comes to the shore there to be baptized by his older cousin John. Luke doesn’t tell us this, but Matthew does, that John sees Jesus there on the shore of the Jordan River, and he says, “You are coming to be baptized by me? I should be baptized by you.” And Jesus responds, “Permit it to be so, for thus it’s fitting for us to fill all righteousness.” John is there baptizing for the forgiveness of sins. His baptism is a cleansing baptism. It’s a washing of the heart, and it’s a casting away of all the sin and guilt and shame that sinners bring to those waters. But John looks at Jesus and he says, “You don’t need this. You don’t have any sins to forgive. You don’t have any uncleanness to be washed away. You’re clean already, holy, perfect, and righteous. This doesn’t make sense. I’m baptizing for the forgiveness of sins, but you’ve got no sins.” But Jesus says, “Let’s permit it to be so now. Let’s do this so that we can fill all righteousness.” And so John, okay, baptizes him. And remember what happens when Jesus is baptized: he comes up out of the water and the Holy Spirit descends from heaven like a dove and rests on Jesus. And so Jesus is set apart for his work. This is how we should understand the baptism of Jesus. Okay? It is his anointing of the Spirit. The Hebrew word for anointing is the word Messiah. The Greek word for anointing is the word Christ. And so when Jesus is baptized, he becomes Jesus the Christ, Jesus the Messiah. He enters into that office of being the Redeemer of the world and the Savior of the world. And at his baptism, God the Father speaks from heaven, remember, and declares him to be the only begotten. “This is my beloved Son.” Now, this is unique. When you were baptized, you were not set apart to save the world. When you were baptized, you were not declared to be the only begotten Son of the Father. When you were baptized, you did not become a Christ. But there is a connection between the baptism of Jesus and our baptism. Because what Jesus enters into on that day, he completes on the cross and he brings to us in our baptism. It’s in the little prayer that we have during the rite of baptism: “By your son’s baptism in the Jordan River, you sanctified all waters to be a holy flood.” That’s an amazing phrase—a holy flood and a lavish washing away of sins. Yes. The best picture I can think of, and I’ve preached this before, so if you want to tune out for just a couple of seconds: you remember how John is in the river and there are two hills on either side of the river, and on this side are all these sheep, and they’re filthy and dirty and smelly and stinky. John is washing them one at a time and putting them clean on the other side of the river. And in the midst of that filthy, dirty crowd of sheep, there’s one gleaming, white, radiant lamb—like the dirt is bouncing off of him, and he smells like roses, and he’s got flashing, gleaming teeth, this perfect lamb. And John says, “You don’t need to be washed.” And the lamb says, “Let’s do it to fill up all righteousness.” And so John takes this Jesus, this lamb, and dips him in the water. And what happens is all the filth and mud and slick and nastiness that’s floating around in the water goes onto him. And the water’s clean now. And he sets this one on the side and says, “Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” And this is what Jesus does in his baptism. He starts this work of being the sin bearer, of carrying your sins and your sorrows, and that work he completes on the cross when he cries out, “It’s finished,” and commends himself into the hands of God. And then he institutes this baptism so that his righteousness, his perfection, his forgiveness, his love, his eternal life, his mercy and pardon, his presence, and everything else—all of his gifts and spirit—can be given to you. So when Jesus is baptized, he becomes the Christ. When you are baptized, you become Christian. Jesus is baptized to be the Redeemer. When you are baptized, you are the redeemed. When Jesus is baptized, he’s set apart to forgive the sins of the world. When you’re baptized, your sins are forgiven. And when Jesus is baptized, he’s declared to be the only begotten son of the Father. But when you are baptized, you are now adopted and taken up into this family of God. You are called the child of God. “Behold what manner of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called the children of God, and such we are.” And we know it by our baptism. Amen. So that all the gifts that the Lord Jesus has accomplished in his baptism, and in his life, and his suffering, and his death, and his resurrection, and his ascension, and his continuing to shepherd the church—all of these gifts are now brought to you in this gift of holy baptism. And so that you can know it, this is the wisdom: that you would know that you belong to God. Sometimes I imagine you don’t feel like you belong to God. I do. I do. Sometimes you don’t feel forgiven. Sometimes you don’t feel like a child of God. Sometimes you don’t feel like God even knows who you are. Sometimes you feel like you’re far from God and his kingdom and his will and his word and all of these things. And here comes your baptism: “I am baptized,” to give you this wisdom that you need to know most of all, and that is that God loves you, that He has accepted you, that He has adopted you, that He has taken you up into His life and His heart, and his joy and his peace and his kingdom. You belong to him. And this wisdom of baptism is also the courage of baptism. Because in baptism, the Lord has taken away all of the wrath that you deserve, all of the anger that you’ve deserved, all of the punishment and affliction that you’ve deserved. He’s taken it on himself, and he has now opened up for you his heart and his approval. I don’t know how this appears to you. And maybe for you too, that sometimes—well, sometimes people are mad at you, sometimes people are upset with you, sometimes you have enemies in this life, sometimes you have frustrations and difficulties. And in the midst of all of that, here is the courage that your baptism brings to you, and it is this: that God is not mad at you. Can that just sink in for a little bit? Even if the whole world hated you, God does not. Even if the whole world is against you, God is not. Even if everybody has rejected you and thrown you out, God has not. You are accepted in the beloved. And not only in this life, but all the way into eternal life. Paul says, this is our epistle text, Romans 6, which Luther teaches us what baptism signifies. He quotes this text and says, “Look, in baptism you were buried with Christ. You died with him so that you might also live with him.” This is a pretty amazing thing to think about. I think most of the time we think, “Well, I’ve got to die someday in the future.” But if you have been baptized, you have already died. It wasn’t that bad. You were already buried, and you are already risen from the dead. “Do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried with him, therefore, by baptism into death, so that even as Jesus has risen from the dead, we too should walk in newness of life.” And if you’ve already died, then what is there to be afraid of? What is there to intimidate you? What is there that can take away your courage and your boldness and your joy? What can intimidate you? You belong to Jesus. He belongs to you. You have died and have risen from the dead already. The Lord himself, the creator of the universe, the one who created you says, “I am your redeemer.” And he’s brought you past death and judgment into his good pleasure, into his kindness, into his love. You are baptized. It means you are a child of God. You are a child of God. It means your sins are forgiven. It means that God delights in you. It means that you’ll live forever. It means that Satan has no power over you. It means that heaven is open and that this life will grow into life eternal, and we’ll see the Lord face to face. Dear saints, this, dear baptized saints, is the wisdom and this is the courage of God’s gift of holy baptism. May he grant us this wisdom, grant us this life, grant us this peace, grant us this hope, and grant us this courage in the name of Jesus. Amen. And the peace of God which passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. The post Sermon for the Baptism of Our Lord appeared first on St Paul Lutheran Church .…
[Machine transcription] In the name of Jesus, Amen. He has crammed just about every word for joy in the smallest possible space. Listen to what happens with these wise men when they see the star, which apparently had disappeared for a little while while they got to Jerusalem, and then the scribes called by Herod tell them that the Messiah is going to be born in Bethlehem, and then they go on the way. And then it stops over the house where Jesus is with Mary and Joseph. And listen to what it says. This is crampacked. They saw the star. They rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. Now, maybe for us it’s good to think tonight: When is the last time that you have rejoiced exceedingly with great joy? Right? You would think, well, maybe last week I was happy about something or I laughed at a joke yesterday, but this is over the top. If you were with the wise men that day, if you were one of the servants that was accompanying them, or one of the soldiers, or one of the guards that was holding their treasures of gold and frankincense and whatever, and you would have seen them, and they looked at the star, and then they just start laughing, and their faces are smiling, and they’re weeping, and they can’t contain themselves because they know where to find their God and Savior. They know that He’s right there. And they’re rejoicing exceedingly with great joy. There’s nothing more that they could want, nothing more that they could desire, nothing more that they could have than this great gift that the one promised, the Savior of the world, the King of the world, the sacrifice for sins, God in the flesh was there for them. Now, we know that they believe this marvelously. I mean, there’s a lot of mysteries in the text, like who are these guys? Where did they come from? How did they know that the star meant that the king of the Jews was born? I mean, our best guess is that they were from Babylon, and the prophet Daniel had taught them to expect this, maybe from teaching them the prophecy of Balaam from Numbers and some of the Psalms. This is our best guess. And so they’re waiting for centuries and centuries, and then finally the star is there, so they know where to go, Jerusalem. And they figure that if it’s the king of the Jews, he’s probably in the castle, so they go and knock on the castle door, and Herod is there, who, by the way, whose title is the king of the Jews, which describes probably or helps understand why Herod was not so pleased with his visit. And so he calls together the scribes, and they said, well, he’s not here. He’s not born in Jerusalem, not born in the capital. He’s going to be born down there in Bethlehem. And they believe the word and they go. And what do they do? When they see the house, they come into the house and they fall down in worship, and they open their treasures and they give to our Lord Jesus gold and frankincense and myrrh. Now, I want this to be a confession of their faith. It’s not just that they were bringing gifts for the king. And as my dad always, he, my dad loves to talk about how the holy family would have been stranded in Bethlehem had the kings or the wise men not given them provision to be able to flee to Egypt. It’s amazing how the Lord provides just when we need it. But these gifts that come from these wise men are confessions. With the gold, they’re confessing that this child is the king of the Jews. And not just the king of the Jews, the king of the world. Right? With the frankincense, they’re confessing that this is the greatest of all the high priests who will offer his prayers for us. And with the myrrh, they’re confessing that this is the one who will die as the sacrifice for all of our sins. That’s what they would anoint the bodies with, myrrh. But maybe more than all of this, than their confession of Christ, this baby as king and the wildest thing of all: they fall down on their knees, they fall down on their faces, and they worship him and so confess that he is their God. I think I’ve told you this before, that Luther, who loves to preach on this text, who imagines being there that night and just walking by, like you’re out walking your dog on the streets of Bethlehem, and you walk by the house, and you look in the window, and you’re like, what are these guys doing? These crazy three rich, wise, kingly magi from the east, and they park their camels all the wrong way on the street, and now they’re in there at this house, and they’re falling down on their faces, and they’re worshiping a baby? What great fools they seem… to the eyes of the world, to the eyes of the flesh, to the eyes of unbelief. But to us, to you who believe, to you the baptized, they are the great example of faith. They know that this baby is God in the flesh, king of the universe, savior of the world, high priest who intercedes for us. They know where to find their God and Savior, and so they rejoice exceedingly with great joy. And dear saints, the same is true for us. You know the same things they know. In fact, you might even know a little bit more. You have been guided by the Word of God to find your God in the flesh and blood of Christ. You’ve been led by the Holy Spirit to know where He is, that He’s with you even now in His Word, that He abides with you never to forsake you. And even there on the altar, I don’t know if… You know, someone’s out walking their dog and walking by here, and they’re going to see you on your knees up here and say, what great fools these people are, but you have this great wisdom of faith. You know where to find your God. You know where to find your Savior. Or maybe even a little bit better, you know where he finds you, at his altar with his great gifts. So this is what the Lord has set before us, this epiphany. This is the work that he wants to give to you tonight. This is the command and the example that he wants you to take to heart. Ready? Rejoice exceedingly with great joy. The Lord is here with you. May God grant us this abiding joy and peace. In the name of Jesus, Amen. The peace of God which passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. The post Sermon for the Epiphany of Our Lord appeared first on St Paul Lutheran Church .…
[Machine transcription] In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Every single year of his earthly life, our Lord Jesus came to Jerusalem to celebrate the seven days of the Passover according to the law of Moses. The faithful among Israel would remember God’s deliverance from Egypt. They would slaughter the lamb and shed its innocent blood through which God had once worked salvation. And the boy Jesus is there. He who would one day sit in the upper room as the only true Passover lamb faithfully kept the feast together with his parents all those years before. And he is especially drawn to the courts of the temple where the Israelites would gather to discuss God’s word and to receive instruction. And it’s quite natural for him to be there. After all, the temple is where God dwells, where the glory of God is approachable for the priest. And that is the meaning of Psalm 119, which we prayed today. Those words apply to 12-year-old Jesus in the temple. Listen to this: “Oh, how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day. Your commandment makes me wiser than my enemies, for it is ever with me. And here it comes: I have more understanding than all my teachers, for your testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the aged, for I keep your precepts. How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!” Mary is likewise astonished, and she treasured up all these things in her heart. By treasuring up these words of her 12-year-old son, she ponders the mystery of the incarnation. Christmas is not quite over yet. So let us be like Mary and consider, firstly, the obedience that Jesus pays to his earthly parents; secondly, the obedience that he pays to his heavenly Father; and thirdly, let us also treasure up his word in our hearts. Firstly, Jesus sanctified all of human childhood. He perfectly kept the fourth commandment and honored his father and his mother. He lived with his parents in Nazareth and was submissive to them. And this is part of the mystery, the mystery of the incarnation that Mary ponders. She knew that she had not conceived this child from any man. She believed the angel who told her that she was bearing the holy son of God. And yet, he is a child like you and me. He obeys her and submits to her. Mary might have been the most blessed among all women, but she certainly also had the heaviest task out of all of them. I mean, imagine yourself in her position, or in Joseph’s for that matter. You know that this child is truly God, and yet, you are supposed to have authority over him as father and mother. How marvelous! The Son of God, through whom the world was created, became a little child, humbled himself under the authority of parents, and lived to please them. He did this to fulfill the law for you and in your stead. Whereas you did not honor your father and your mother with your whole heart, he did it for you. And this is good news for you. Not just did he bear your curse on the cross, he also gives you his obedience to his parents and applies it to you. Our Lutheran confessions call this the active obedience of Christ, which is our righteousness. Christ did not only suffer the punishment we deserve for breaking the law, that they call the passive obedience, but he also actively fulfills the law by doing what it commands, his active obedience. And both of these—this is, of course, no excuse to not honor father and mother. Quite the contrary. At home, we have a catechism edition that has images and woodcuts next to each question. And guess the image next to the fourth commandment? A little boy with his parents on a pilgrimage, and a very small inscription, Luke 2:51. Jesus obeyed his parents. And if our God and Lord obeyed his parents, he who could have commanded them to serve him and to be submissive to him; if he did it, how much more should we do it? So, for all you children and youth, take the Lord Jesus as your example. Obey your parents. And for all of us adults, let us not forget that we are also children of our parents. The Lord Jesus knows how it is to be a child because of his incarnation. He wants to bless us in our vocation as children. He’s our savior from our sin of rebellion, and he’s our example of obedience. Secondly, there’s also the obedience that he pays to his heavenly Father. While Jesus’ childhood seemed to have been rather eventless, there was this one incident that Mary would never forget and about which she would tell the evangelist Luke to write it down. Jesus went to Jerusalem every year, but that one year, he had to demonstrate that there was a greater authority which he had to be subject to. He had to show that he himself had an authority that was greater than his parents. He gave them—don’t blame Mary and Joseph. Maybe for modern American society, it is not conceivable, but in most cultures and eras of mankind, it would be totally reasonable to assume that the 12-year-old boy is going home somewhere among the friends and relatives who also came from Nazareth. Before the end of the day, they realized he was not there, and so they had to turn around. And of course, it was most troublesome to them to not find him for altogether three days. “Your father and I have been searching you in great distress,” Mary says. I think it’s quite remarkable that Mary calls Joseph Jesus’ father. Rightly so, because an adoptive father is a true father. But nevertheless, he had to remind her that there was another father much greater than Joseph, that is God the Father. And he was not just his father in the way that he is the father of all believers. He is the eternal father of the eternal son. Jesus is the essential son of one substance with the Father. Mary kept these words and she pondered on this mystery of the incarnation. According to the human nature, Joseph is the adoptive father. But according to the divine nature, God is the father of Jesus. And see how much Jesus loved his heavenly father. He was sent to do his father’s will. He had a divine mission to fulfill. That’s what his words mean. He had to be in his father’s house. He had to be all about his father’s business. He loved God’s word so much that he wanted to sit with the teachers of the law and discuss it. Now, any other child would have to be blamed for staying behind, not wanting to go home. But our Lord truly had all authority to do so. In fact, he could have lived in the temple his whole childhood, instructing the teachers about God’s Torah. But he didn’t. He humbled himself. And Mary marveled, did not understand all of this, but kept these words and treasured them up in her heart. When Jesus had completed his divine mission by his death and resurrection, then she would see. Now this brings us lastly to Mary’s treasuring up of these words in her heart. Throughout the Gospel of Luke—and we are focusing on the Gospel of Luke this year in the three-year series—we see Mary as the great example of a Christian. That is someone who does not just hear God’s word, but also keeps it. And with that, the Bible doesn’t mean, first of all, doing it. It means taking it to heart. So, when the shepherds preached to Mary on Christmas night, she likewise kept those words and pondered them in her heart. By God’s grace, she did exactly what Jesus talked about in the parable of the sower. And when later some woman greatly praised Mary, saying to Jesus, “‘Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breast that nursed you,'” he responds, “‘More than that, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it.'” Let us be like Mary and not despise preaching and His Word, but hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it. And how easy is it for our minds to wander? How quickly is the Word of God forgotten, even if we hear it so many times? But this Word is our life. It brings us our Savior and forgives our sins. This Word directs our paths through this sinful world and gives us the necessary wisdom. This word is the reason why we can look at the new year that the Lord gave us without fear. And this word should be the greatest influencer in the lives of our children, as it was for 12-year-old Jesus. He sat there, listened, posed questions, and answered. He delighted in God’s word because it contains the salvation that he himself would bring. You see that our text is even more about the third commandment than it is about the fourth. So, in this year of our Lord, 2025, let the word of Christ dwell richly in our homes. Let us hear it more often and more eagerly. And let us memorize it together with our children. Mary listened to her son’s word and to the words about him. She treasured them up and pondered them in her heart. And what she pondered upon especially was the miracle that this child is her son, but also her God. With her, we adore this child, the incarnate Son, whose birth we celebrate this Christmas season. And now may the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord. The post Sermon for Second Sunday of Christmas appeared first on St Paul Lutheran Church .…
[Machine transcription] In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Dear baptized believers in Christ’s church, the Holy Spirit has called you by the gospel, enlightened you with His gifts, sanctified and kept you in the true faith. God’s Word, connected with water, worked in you through holy baptism. Because of God’s providence, His Word has been placed in your hands. This word has been proclaimed into your ears through his servants and their vocations. God’s word is in your head and it is in your heart, biblical knowledge and trusting faith. And you, with the help of the Holy Spirit, become more and more convicted that Jesus is the one, the Son of God. And in the great exchange of sin for righteousness on the cross, you have been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb who takes away the sins of the world. And as you walk in this faith given, to believe by faith in the gift given, you are living with the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen. A couple of days ago, you celebrated the fulfillment of God’s promise to send the Messiah, the Anointed One, who would save the world. From the first promise that God spoke to the devil in the Garden of Eden in the hearing of Adam and Eve, and throughout the entire Old Testament, spoken through His prophets, God kept the gifts coming with more and more prophecies, with more and more details about His gift that He would send into the world four days ago. As you gathered on Christmas where Jesus’ birth was the focus, you were celebrating God’s gift for you. The mystery revealed with God in John 1:1, creating all things, to John 1:14, where God became flesh indwelling in His creation, which we confess in the second article of the Apostles’ Creed. And in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, the truth of Galatians 4 reveals to us this activity in this morning’s Gospel lesson. And when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoptions as sons. In the verse before the gospel lesson today, Jesus was eight days old. According to God’s word to Moses in Genesis 17, this was the day when the males were to be circumcised. In the fullness of the law, through the shedding of blood, Jesus was beginning to be added to the covenant people through which He would begin His mission as the Messiah to save them. Now, on the 40th day after Jesus’ birth, Joseph and Mary, for the first time, are carrying Jesus to Jerusalem and into the temple courtyard to offer the sacrifice for Mary’s purification after being ceremonially unclean due to the act of blood loss during childbirth, and also to do for Jesus according to the custom of the law, which is known as the presentation of Jesus in the temple. On this ordinary day, walking among all of the people in the temple complex, God was going to give them even more gifts. Even though Jesus looked no different than any other Jewish baby boy that was being carried into the temple complex on that day, one man walked directly up to Joseph and Mary, and when he was close enough, he reached out. And when he reached out, he took the baby Jesus into his arms. His name was Simeon. We are told that he was righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel. In other words, he was clinging to God’s promise to send the Messiah who would bring comfort and salvation to Israel, to God’s chosen people. The Holy Spirit revealed it to him personally that he would not see death before he sees the Lord’s Christ. So on this day, by the Spirit, he was led to that place and to that specific child. When the parents thought that they were doing something for God on this day, God was going to give them another gift. In the hearing of Joseph and Mary, Simeon blesses God and he sung a song. I can imagine him looking up into the heavens and down at the baby in his arms and going back and forth with his eyes, singing, “Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace according to your word. For my eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all people, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for the glory of your people Israel.” Did those words recall Gabriel’s words from Mary’s memory? “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore, the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God.” Simeon’s song recognizes the Lord God’s presence within the courtyard of His own house that He had made by the hands of man. The God who had promised to dwell among His people inside the temple, behind the curtain, in the Holy of Holies, sitting on the Ark of the Covenant, was now in Simeon’s arms dwelling in the flesh. For Simeon, the wait was over. The promise was fulfilled. The words spoken by the prophet Malachi are realized: “Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come into his temple.” This was the first time that Jesus had entered into Jerusalem, the city of the great king according to Psalm 48 and Matthew 5, and into His temple. But it won’t be His last time. In the coming years, Jesus will walk through those gates into this space to worship and to be worshiped. While Joseph and Mary marveled at Simeon’s words, Simeon also continued to give them another gift by revealing the other bookend to this day. “Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel. And for a sign that is opposed, a sword will pierce through your own soul also, so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.” In other words, they hear Jesus’ future death. And the last time when He will enter into the temple complex during that last week that we know as Passion Week, before His crucifixion on a cross outside the walls of Jerusalem. His mission for coming into the world began with the shedding of blood when He was eight days old and will climax with the shedding of His blood on the cross where He dies for you, for me, and for all the world. Jesus speaks of this polarization that Simeon talked about of Israel in Matthew 10. He said, “Do not think that I have come into the world to bring peace to earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. A person’s enemy will be those of his own household. Whoever loves father and mother more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it. And whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” The division is to believe in Jesus’ words and works to be true. And through them, the gifts of forgiveness of sin, salvation, and eternal life are dispensed through His means of grace and are received by faith. The opposing belief is to reject this truth. Simeon is telling them that Jesus will be divisive. Before Mary dies, she will see her own son, the Son of God, hanging on a cross. When the Roman soldier’s spear pierces Jesus’ side and punctures His heart, this pain will be the sword through her own heart. But for now, in the coming years, when Jesus begins His public ministry, He will also tell the disciples about His coming death. But He will also include when He tells them on the third day, He will rise from the dead. And in this divine drama, the resurrection is always included with the crucifixion, and the crucifixion is always included with the resurrection. And because Jesus lives, those connected to Him by faith will also rise on the last day and live with Him into eternity in His kingdom prepared for us. Before Joseph and Mary left the temple, another person approached them: a woman by the name of Anna. As Simeon was like the angels harrowing the good news, Anna is like the shepherds responding to this good news by spreading the message of Jesus’ destiny in redemptive works. As the Redeemer, He will gain good for others by making the payment through the giving of His own life on the cross to save us. After performing everything according to the law of the Lord, Joseph and Mary returned to Nazareth and Galilee with the child entrusted into their care. Jesus grew and became strong, full of wisdom, and the favor of God was upon Him. What is our takeaway from this text? I saw something with a fuller understanding that I’ve never seen before in the preparation of this proclamation. As forgiven sinners, as Christian believers, as disciples of Jesus, as those waiting for the coming of Christ, we acknowledge that we are like Simeon and Anna. Before His ascension, our Lord Jesus, the second person of the Holy Trinity, promised to send the Comforter, Counselor, the third person of the Holy Trinity, to His disciples. God now dwells within His people, the Holy Christian Church. We believe all of the gifts that we now receive from the Lord come through the power of His Word and the working of the Holy Spirit. Remember, the Holy Spirit has called you by the gospel, enlightened you with His gifts, sanctified, and keeps you in the one true faith. This was Simeon and Anna. While almost all the world lived in spiritual darkness, with many of the people in Israel just doing the activities of the law, believing that they were earning favor with God, there was that remnant who were eagerly waiting for the coming of the promised Messiah, and their lives reflected it. This is only possible through the presence and the power of the Holy Spirit. The same is true for you and for me. They were moved to go to the temple on that day, again by the Spirit. The same is true for you and me. On this day, there is that civil war that Pastor Wolf Mueller talks about that is within us. That flesh in getting up this morning is screaming, “No, I want a fellowship with Brother Pillow and Sister Sheets. I’m tired. It’s been such a busy December. I’ve got so much due today.” It is through the Holy Spirit that you understand that you don’t got to go to church; you get to go to church. You’re drawn to the Lord and His gifts for you by His Word. Like Simeon, the Holy Spirit enables you to fix your eyes upon Jesus, your reason for being here. Through the Holy Spirit, you understand that by the gift of faith in your possession is the gift of salvation. For He has promised never to leave you nor forsake you. Through the Holy Spirit, you are drawn into the presence to hold in your own hands the real presence of Christ, His true body and His blood, to receive from Him by faith the forgiveness of sins and the strengthening of your faith through the Holy Spirit between the communion rail and the door of the church. You are able to sing and respond back to God, either it be with Simeon’s song, the Noctamentus in the liturgy, or on this day as you give thanks to God, thinking of “Lord, now let your servant depart in peace according to your words. For my eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all people, a light for the revelation to the Gentiles and to the glory of your people Israel.” As was the blessing of God’s gift extended through the mouthpiece of Aaron over the people of Israel, the same blessing will also be spoken over you this day with more gifts given through your pastor. In your various vocations, it is through the Holy Spirit that you are able to love. You’re able to be kind in all of the things that are said in the epistle this day. Able to show mercy to God. Able to speak of the good news about your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. It is a gift to us that the Lord continues to give. Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, you and I don’t know what today or tomorrow will bring into our lives. But we know this: by the power of God’s Word and the working of the Holy Spirit, that those who have been saved from sin, death, and the power of the devil have been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, and we are able to stand firm on Christ’s Word and sacraments, but to never stand still, Christ in us for the world. O Holy Spirit, enable us both to wait and to work. To the glory of God and for the good of others. Amen. The peace which passes all understanding. Keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. The post Sermon for First Sunday of Christmas appeared first on St Paul Lutheran Church .…
[Machine transcription] In the name of Jesus, Amen. The first is that we want to remember that our Lord Jesus Christ, the second person of the Holy Trinity, is eternal. That he was begotten of the Father before all worlds. In that eternal day, like we chanted in Psalm 2, today I have begotten you. We heard it confessed by John in the very first verse of his chapter, of his gospel. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. There was nothing created that was not made through Him. The second person of the Holy Trinity, our Lord Jesus Christ, is God eternal. Eternal. There was never a time when he was not. In fact, time itself exists through him. And I think the simplest way that we confess this is if you just draw a line, and on one side you put creation, and on the other side you put creator. And you say, what side of that line is Jesus? And the answer is, he is on the creator’s side. He is not created, but begotten of the Father. Which means his incarnation was a coming forth, was a coming down. One of the paintings that was in the bulletin last night, and this is a reflection of an old medieval tradition, it had a little baby flying through the sky. That’s the picture of the Annunciation, when the angel Gabriel came to Mary on March 25th and announced to her that she would be pregnant by the Holy Spirit. And when the old painters would paint that picture, they would have this little baby flying from heaven. Amen. Because Jesus did not begin in the womb of the Virgin Mary. He, in fact, did not begin at all. And this is how to unravel all of those great riddles that we had in the prophetic text from last night. Like we had in Isaiah, How can you have a birthday and be everlasting? Or the Micah text, From you will come forth one whose going forth is from of old. Well, how can you be born and be from of old? Well, the answer is that our Lord Jesus Christ always was. He was with the Father in the beginning. There is nothing that is before him. He is eternal. But Jesus is also man. He has a birthday. December 25th, 2 BC. That’s our best guess. 2,026 years ago. I love to repeat that number because it puts it right there on the timeline. That there was something certain that happened. That there really was Mary. There really was Joseph. They really were traveling to Bethlehem. She really was giving birth. And there really was a baby. And that if you would have been there that night, and you would have looked at that baby, you would have said, that baby is very normal. All the pictures that we have show this radiating glory. And I think that’s right theologically, but not historically, that this child was unrecognizable as the Son of God. He had to be preached. He had to be known by the angels giving their sermon to the shepherds. And even as Jesus grew up, even as Jesus walked the earth, even as people were interacting with him, he did not appear to be the Son of God. In fact, when he said it to the Pharisees, they didn’t believe him, even though they were watching these miracles take place. That he came in deep and profound humility so that he was a man just like we are. He has our flesh and blood. The immortal shares our mortality so that Jesus is hungry and thirsty and tired and tempted and suffering. He’s able to suffer pain, in fact, profoundly. He’s able to die and be laid in a tomb. He is bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh. True man. This is what we confess about our Lord Jesus, true God, begotten of the Father before all worlds, and also true man, born of the Virgin Mary. But here’s the third point, and the great mystery of the Christian faith, is that these two natures, divine and human, are united in the single person of our Lord Jesus Christ. And this is what John confesses in this text, John chapter 1, most especially verse 14. There’s a lot of verses to underline in John chapter 1: verse 1, verse 2, begotten, not of the will of man, verse 18, verse 17, we received grace upon grace, the law came through Moses. There’s a lot of text that we should have memorized from that first chapter, but I think that the premier text after verse 1 is verse 14, which says… The word became flesh and dwelt among us. The word dwelt among us is this Greek word skene. It maybe would be literally translated tabernacled among us or tented among us. It’s a throwback to the tabernacle that the Lord instituted with Moses. And remember the purpose of the tabernacle. So that the glory of God could dwell in the midst of his people without destroying them. I was thinking about how to illustrate this with some kind of Christmas illustrations, and I came up with two bad illustrations and not a good one. So I’ll give you the two bad ones, which hopefully illustrate the point. It’s not like wrapping paper. Ha! You know, when you wrap your gifts, you are wrapping them up so you can’t see what’s in them. You want to keep them a secret until the day that it’s revealed. But then, once a secret is revealed, then it’s not a secret anymore. When we’re talking about the Incarnation, we’re not talking about a secret. We’re talking about a mystery. And what’s the difference between a secret and a mystery? Well, a secret is no longer a secret as soon as it’s revealed. But a mystery remains a mystery. In fact, the more you think about it, the more mysterious it becomes. Jesus puts himself in our flesh not to hide himself from us so that we don’t know who he is, but in fact to reveal himself to us. So that it’s less like wrapping a gift and it’s more like using an oven mitt. Although it’s not like that either. This is another bad illustration. But you use an oven mitt. Why? Because if you’re not hiding your hand in an oven mitt, then you grab onto the pot or whatever, and it burns you. So you need something covering it to keep you safe. But… This is the opposite. It’s like an anti-oven mitt because God’s glory is the dangerous thing. It’s like having, instead of wrapping your hand in an oven mitt, it’s like wrapping the oven in an oven mitt so that it won’t destroy you. God’s glory is hidden in the flesh of Christ so that it doesn’t destroy us. His holiness is hidden in His flesh so it doesn’t consume us and overwhelm us. That was what was happening in the Old Testament in the tabernacle, and it’s what’s happening in the mystery of the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. And because of these two natures united in the person of Christ, we can say all sorts of things that just don’t seem right, but are true and wonderful for us. We can, for example, speak of the birthday of God, or the suffering of God, or the temptation of God, or the death of God and the burial of God. This is the mystery that Christmas sets before us. I was reading this morning from Hippolytus against one Noatis the heretic. I think we probably all were. This is a pretty nerdy thing. Sorry. But now I’m going to read it to you so later you can tell your friends, hey, we were reading Hippolytus this morning from… Listen to how he speaks of the Incarnation here. He had the heavenly nature of the Father as the Word, and the earthly nature as taking to himself the flesh from the old Adam by the medium of the Virgin. He now coming forth into the world was manifested as God in a body, coming forth too as a perfect man. For it was not in mere appearance or by conversion, but in truth that he became man. Amen. Thus then too, though demonstrated as God, he does not refuse the conditions proper to him as a man, since he hungers and toils and thirsts and weariness and flees and prays in trouble. And he who as God has a sleepless nature slumbers on a pillow. And he who for this end came into the world begs off the cup of suffering. Lord, if it’s possible, let this cup pass from me. And in an agony he sweats blood and is strengthened by an angel who himself is the one who strengthens those who believe in him and taught men to despise death by his work. And he who knew what matter of man Judas was, was betrayed by Judas. And he who formerly was honored by him as God is condemned by Caiaphas. And he has said it not by Herod, who himself is to judge the whole earth. He is scourged by Pilate, who took upon himself our infirmities. He is mocked by the soldiers, at whose behest stand thousands and thousands and myriads and myriads of angels and archangels and all the heavenly hosts. And he who fixed the heavens like a vault is himself fastened to the cross. He who is inseparable from the Father cries out to the Father, and he commends himself to him his spirit, and bowing his head, and gives up the ghost. He who gives life bountifully to all has his side pierced with a spear, and he who raises the dead is wrapped in linen and laid in a sepulcher. For all these things he has finished for us, who for our sakes was made as we are. And this, dear saints, is the fourth point. That Jesus Christ, eternal God, begotten of the Father before all world and true man, born of the Virgin Mary, united in the singular person of Christ, did all of this for you. So that he could take your sins and carry your sorrows and be with you to save you and deliver you and to forgive all your sins. It’s not an accident that this human nature that Jesus assumed himself into himself so many thousands of years ago is exactly what he offers you today in his meal and at his altar, his body and his blood, because this here and now and always is given for you, for the forgiveness of all of your sins. So let us rejoice that the eternal God has a birthday, so that he can also have a death day and a burial day and a resurrection day and a day to celebrate all of this today. With you, his dear saints, the day we call Christmas. May God grant us this joy for the sake of Christ. Amen. And the peace of God which passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. The post Sermon for Christmas Day appeared first on St Paul Lutheran Church .…
[Machine transcription] And there was a multitude of angels and the heavenly hosts praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased.” You may be seated. In the name of Jesus, Amen. Dear Saints, Merry Christmas, and may God’s peace be with you as we are gathered here on the eve of the 2026th anniversary or birthday of our Lord Jesus Christ, born in Bethlehem and extolled by the angels. But what do you think the angels were doing? I want to start maybe thinking about this. What do you think the shepherds were doing five minutes before? Sorry, the shepherds were doing. Sorry, not the angels. Well, maybe I could change the sermon. I can’t get there fast enough. What do you think the shepherds were doing five minutes before the angels appeared to them? I know some of you are thinking, you just want to shout out, counting sheep. Yeah. I think some of them are probably worried that they hadn’t finished their Christmas shopping yet. But I would like for you to take all of the things that you’re worried about, or all of the things that trouble you, or all of the things that are on your mind tonight, and I’d like you to put those into the minds of the shepherds. Maybe there’s a shepherd there who’s thinking that he’s never going to find a wife, or a shepherd who’s a husband and he’s wondering how long it’ll be until the Lord gives his family children. Or maybe there’s a shepherd who’s been waking up with strange pains in his knees and his back, and he wonders what this means. There’s some shepherds who are pretty upset that Herod is still the king, and they’re thinking about becoming more politically involved. I mean, who knows what these shepherds were worried about or wondering about on this night? But I imagine it’s just like us. With all of the… I think this is what the song means, all the hopes and fears of all the years are boiling around in our own minds and in our own hearts as they’re sitting out there in the fields watching their flocks at night. And then all of a sudden, an angel appears before them and starts to preach. Preach. It’s an amazing sermon. “I bring good tidings of great joy that will be for all the people. For to you this night in the city of David is born a Savior who’s Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you. You’ll find Him wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.” And then all of a sudden, it’s not just one angel, but the whole sky is full of angels, and they’re preaching this most glorious song. There’s one other time in the Bible that we hear the angels singing. It’s in the prophecy of Isaiah, chapter 6, when he’s serving in the temple and the veil is torn back and he sees the throne room of God, and there the angels are flying around singing, “Holy, holy, holy.” But now the angels are outside in that ancient hill of Bethlehem singing to these shepherds, “Glory to God in the highest and now on earth, peace.” Because the Savior is here. It’s an amazing thing. But I just have to think that the shepherds would wonder if the angels showed up in the right place. Why are you here? If the Christ child is there in Bethlehem, why aren’t you singing there? In fact, I don’t wonder if that’s what Mary and Joseph thought when the shepherds come running into the manger, the cave there, and they find them and they said, “Oh, this is the one the angels were singing.” And they say, “The what? The who were singing? What? The angels are singing out there in the fields? Why weren’t the angels in here?” It’s like singing happy birthday to someone who’s not even there. It’s like… It’s like going to the kitchen to sing a lullaby instead of going to the nursery. Do you see the strangeness of it? That the angels are there extolling the Lord, but they’re out in the fields singing their praises to the Lord who’s lying in a manger. And here’s part of the profound mystery of Christmas, is that if you were just walking by the manger that night, or sorry, by the crib of the Lord Jesus, and you hadn’t heard the angels singing, you hadn’t heard the preaching, you would know nothing about this child, that this is God in the flesh, that the greatest miracle in the history of the world has happened there, and you can’t see it. It has to be preached. And can we marvel together that the Lord is pleased to send the preaching of who the baby is to Mary and Joseph? There’s something, I think, for us in this tonight. It was a long time ago that Jesus was born. What did we say, 2,026 years? It was a long ways away in Bethlehem, outside of Jerusalem. But the news of that birth comes also to us tonight. The angels have preached to us, and we have heard the good news. The angels have sung to us, and we have heard their hymn. And we know who this child is. Unrecognizable to the eyes, but to the ears of faith, the angels have said, “You will see him wrapped in swaddling clothes, a Savior who is Christ the Lord.” I don’t know what you were thinking about five minutes before you came into church. I imagine that you and I are probably a lot like the shepherds. Just a lot of things on our minds. A lot of bad news that we’re trying to process. A lot of hopes that we’re not sure if they’re going to come to pass. A lot of things going on. But into the darkness and into the troubles of this life of yours and mine comes this good news: God has sent his Son to be your Savior, to be your brother, to be your friend, to be your king, to be your deliverer, and to be your peace. And he is this for us tonight and always. So may God grant us the joy of Christmas, the news that the Christ has been born, and that good news means our life will never end. May God grant it for Christ’s sake. Merry Christmas. The peace of God, which passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. The post Sermon for Christmas Eve appeared first on St Paul Lutheran Church .…
[Machine transcription] In the name of Jesus, Amen. Dear Saints, this book of Hebrews is a marvelous, we’ve been studying it in Sunday school, such a marvelous text, beautiful sermon. It starts out with all of these verses Times when the Father is speaking to the Son in the Old Testament: Psalm 2, “You’re my Son, today I’ve begotten you.” Psalm 110, “Sit here at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.” But now, toward the end, in Hebrews 10, we have this Psalm where it’s the Son talking to the Father. It’s the other way around, what the Son says to the Father. And He’s saying it on His coming into the earth, and it’s a quotation from Psalm 40. When Christ came into the world, He said, “A body you’ve prepared for me.” Now that’s marvelous and wonderful. It is our doctrine of the incarnation, the second great mystery of the Christian faith, that the eternal Son of God takes upon Himself human flesh and blood, that these two natures are united in the one singular person of Christ so that we can speak now of the birth of God, the mother of God, the blood of God, the suffering of God, the dying of God. This is what Jesus comes to do, to take upon our flesh and our blood and be our brother. And this is what’s being confessed here, “A body you’ve prepared for me.” But the mystery of the text, and this is what we want to wrestle with a little bit, is that that gift of the body is put in contrast to the sacrifices and offerings. The sacrifices and offerings is how the Lord instituted worship in the Old Testament. If you read through the Old Testament, this is how people normally will come and tell me. I think it’s maybe a confession. They might not know it. They say, “Pastor, I was really excited to start reading the Bible. I started at Genesis. I started at Genesis. And I got through Exodus about halfway, and then I started to get bogged down.” Why? It’s because that’s when the Lord on Mount Sinai is given these instructions for worship, and it’s pretty explicit and pretty detailed. You’re going to have this kind of tabernacle, and it’s going to have this kind of altar, and you’re going to offer these sacrifices on these days. On the morning, you’re going to put this lamb to death, and on the evening, this ram, and on these days, and on these months, and once a year, it’s going to be like this, and there’s going to be a priesthood, and here’s going to be who’s in the priesthood, and what they’re wearing, and what they’re eating, and what they’re doing, and what they’re praying, and what kind of incense is being offered, and when it’s being offered, and all these details. The Lord puts all of this in place, and it’s marvelous. But here’s the strange thing: When the Lord gathers the people out of slavery in Egypt and takes them into the wilderness and brings them to the base of Mount Sinai and calls Moses up there into that pillar of cloud and gives him all these instructions for worship and then sends them back and puts it in place, then the Lord sends prophets, and those prophets are always preaching against the sacrifices. Right? For example, Psalm 40 here, “Sacrifices and offerings you, God, have not desired.” Now, what do we make of that? How do we unravel that? Does the Lord want sacrifices or not? He, after all, is the one who invented sacrifices, who told the people to offer the sacrifices, and then He turns around with the prophets and says things like, “My heart despises your sacrifices.” How do we unravel that, and especially how do we unravel it in the context of this mystery where Jesus is saying, “You didn’t want sacrifices, but you gave me a body?” That’s what I want to think about. Now, let’s first make sure we have the right theology of sacrifice. I think it goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden. Remember when Adam and Eve ate the fruit that was forbidden, and they recognized that they were naked, and they made these fig leaves for themselves, and they think, “We’ve done it. We’ve solved the problem. We don’t need to worry about the shame and nakedness of the fall. We’ve fixed it ourselves” until they hear the sound of God coming in the garden. And then they think, the fig leaves are insufficient. They hide in the bushes. And the Lord comes and, instead of destroying them, blesses them marvelously with that first promise. “I’ll put enmity between you and the woman,” he says to the devil, “between your seed and her seed.” Absolutely tremendous, wonderful. But then the Lord does something else. He takes an animal. It’s amazing to think about. He takes an animal and he kills the animal and he slaughters the animal and he takes the skin of the animal and he wraps that hide, that skin, that warm skin. Amen. It should be you spilling your blood for the things that you’ve done wrong, for the sins that you’ve committed. It should be Adam and Eve punished for what they did. But here’s the second thing that the sacrifices preach, and that is that the Lord sheds the blood of another in your place. Yes. The Lord accepts the death of another in your place, and that’s the preaching of the sacrifice. Whenever the Israelites would come into the tabernacle and the temple, and they would bring a lamb for their own sin, can you imagine how this would be? The lamb didn’t do anything wrong. The lamb was just living its peaceful, lamby life, and you grabbed it and brought it to the temple, and there you see it slaughtered, and the blood spilled, and its body set on fire, and you know something, and that is that that’s what you deserve, but you’re not getting it. This is law and gospel, the preaching of the sacrifices. But there’s something a little bit more, and that is that even though the lambs and the bulls and the goats and the blood are being spilt and the animals are being offered, that is not enough. After all, how could the Lord accept the death of an animal in place of a human? So that these sacrifices are year after year, day after day, they are preaching that another is on the way, a sacrifice, the Son of God Himself is on the way, and His death would be that death that takes away sin. His spilt blood would be the blood that washes away sin. In fact, that’s what the verse right before our epistle lesson, Hebrews, we started in verse 5, verse 4 says, “The blood of bulls and goats cannot take away sin.” It can only preach the blood that can take away sin, the blood of the coming Messiah. And in this way, beautifully, Jesus is going to contrast His incarnation and the pleasure that God has in giving Him a body with the lack of pleasure that God the Father has in the sacrifices. Now, let’s look at the Bible. One more thing to get, because there’s two ways to get the theology of the sacrifice wrong, right? If the sacrifice is there to tell me that I’m a sinner, I can get it wrong by saying that the sacrifice is there to declare my own good works and my own goodness. That’s the Pharisee problem, remember? They would go and offer a sacrifice and think, “Look how holy I am and look how righteous I am because I’m doing this thing.” So they were missing the preaching of the law, or they could miss the preaching of the gospel. They could think that this blood here of the animal is good enough, that it’s not pointing to a better blood, to a higher blood. And I think that was the problem when David preaches Psalm 40. “Sacrifices and offerings you haven’t desired.” The sacrifices of the Old Testament were not like the pagan sacrifices at the pagan temple where they thought, “Well, the gods are hungry, so we have to give them food,” or “the gods are angry, so we have to give them something to make them happy,” as if we’re going to bribe them out of their wrath. No, that’s not how the Lord is to offer sacrifices. The sacrifices that are offered in the temple are not for God. They’re for the people, just like the Lord’s Supper. It’s not something that we’re offering to God. It’s something that he’s given to us. The sacrifices on the altar week after week in the Old Testament are there so that the Lord would know, so that the Lord’s people would know that the Lord is taking away their sins, covering their sins, forgiving their sins. And in this way, the sacrifices are contrasted with the incarnation because it’s not the blood of bulls and goats that takes away God’s wrath. It’s not the sacrifices offered every day and every year in the tabernacle and the temple in the Old Testament that makes God happy. There’s only one thing, and that is the body of our Lord Jesus Christ sacrificed on the cross. And here’s where this riddle starts to make sense. “Sacrifices and offerings you haven’t desired because they were not sufficient. They were not enough. But a body you have prepared for me.” And that body will be offered as the sacrifice once for all to take away the sin of the world. In this way, we start to see, dear saints, this great mystery of Christmas is that it is deeply, profoundly connected to Good Friday. Luther said it like this, I think, preaching. He wasn’t speaking literally, but figuratively we get the idea. He says, “…the wood of the cross was cut from the same tree as the wood of the manger.” Because the reason why our Lord Jesus Christ needs a body is so there would be something to nail to the cross. The reason why he needs blood is so that he would have something to spill on your behalf to take away all of your sin. Listen to the last verse of our epistle lesson. “By that will, the perfect will of the Father, which has to do with the sacrifice of the Son, by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” So that the incarnation and the birth of Jesus is just chapter one of the story that ends with his death and his resurrection. And I’d like to put this in your minds this week as we think about Christmas and we think about the manger and we think about the birth of Jesus and we think about the song of the angels to the shepherds. Whenever you see Jesus in the manger and you see the ox and the donkey and the sheep that are gathered around the manger, I want you to think that there’s a pretty good chance that that ox and that donkey, well, maybe not the donkey, that ox and that sheep are going to end up in the altar in Jerusalem. Or when you hear the story of the shepherds watching their flocks by night, that you think there’s a pretty good chance that those sheep in those flocks are going to end up on the altar in Jerusalem because this was all in preparation for the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Himself, born amongst all of these sacrificial animals because He was born to be the Lamb of God to take away the sin of the world. God didn’t want the blood of bulls and goats, but he does rejoice in the blood of his son. And his joy in that sacrifice is your forgiveness and life and hope and peace and the promise of everlasting joy and peace in the presence of God. So let us rejoice, not just now, but our whole lives, but especially this week. Rejoice in this little riddle from Paul, Hebrews 10 and Psalm 40, where Jesus says to God the Father, “Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you’ve prepared for me.” May God grant us that peace through Christ our Lord. Amen. And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. The post Sermon for Fourth Sunday in Advent appeared first on St Paul Lutheran Church .…
[Machine transcription] Jesus says, “I tell you, among those born of women, none is greater than John, yet the one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.” You may be seated. Dear Brandon, and to all the lords baptized, we are part of the kingdom of God that Jesus is preaching about. This text is so wonderful. It’s a kind of tough text, but it’s so wonderful because so many things are different than what we expect. We’re used to seeing John the Baptist preaching by the Jordan River, railing against sin and baptizing people, calling them to repentance. But today he’s locked up in the dungeon of King Herod. We’re used to hearing John preach about Jesus: “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” But today we hear the other. We hear Jesus actually preaching about John. It’s an amazing sort of reversal. We’re used to seeing John with great boldness, but today he sends his disciples saying, “Go and ask Jesus, are you the one? The one.” And in fact, the text ends with this beautiful riddle that the Lord gives us. In fact, I want to think about this for most of the sermon, this little riddle where Jesus says, “I tell you that among those born of women, none is greater than John the Baptist, and yet, and yet, the least in the kingdom of God is greater than him.” What does that mean? It means that none is greater than him. And the Bible all the time, just as maybe a little aside, the Bible all the time is giving us these riddles because they’re so helpful in these words being able to stick into our imagination and so that we can think about them and we can reflect on them and we can leave this place and be wondering, what does Jesus mean by these words? How in the world is John the greatest of all and yet the least in the kingdom is in fact greater than him? And what does the Lord mean by that and how are we to understand it? We’ll do a little work on this in the sermon, and maybe to do so we’ll get the background. Because Jesus is not locked up. John’s locked up. Jesus is free, and he’s doing all these miracles, and John is hearing about it in prison. In fact, just before our text, it told us in Luke chapter 7 that Jesus and his disciples had gone into the city of Nain, and coming out of the city was a widow in the funeral procession of her son. And Jesus stopped that procession. A young man, the funeral, the casket, and he put his hands on him and he raised him from the dead and gave the young boy back to his mom. And the news of this was spreading throughout all of the region, including getting to John. In fact, the very first verse of our gospel lesson is about that. The disciples of John reported all these things to him. And so John is there in prison and he’s hearing about all the miracles that Jesus is doing, all the mighty works that he’s doing, all the wonderful things that he’s saying. And he’s hearing about all the miracles that he’s doing. And still, in the midst of that report, he sends his disciples to say, “Is this the one?” Now, there’s a question about this. Some people say, well, John was really doubting his own preaching and his own conviction. He was just in that dark night of the soul and wondering if it was the case that, “Are you the one or are we waiting for another?” He needs that reassurance from Jesus. Some people say that, no, John is sending his disciples to—John knows, but he wants the disciples to hear it straight from Jesus, and in this way, he’s kind of shifting his disciples over to Jesus. I think there could be a little bit of both in the text, but I think that there’s something else going on. If you’re really hungry, you know how you think about all those Bible passages where the Lord feeds the hungry? You might not think about them as much when you’re full, but you think about them when you’re hungry, right? Or when you’re having trouble sleeping at night, you remember those Bible passages where it says, “The Lord gives to his beloved sleep.” Or when you’re surrounded by your enemies, you remember all those passages where the Lord promises to deliver us from his enemies. I think the same thing is probably true when you’re in prison. You start to reflect on all those verses that talk about how the Lord is going to set the prisoners free. And I don’t wonder specifically if John in prison was meditating on Isaiah 61. Here’s what the text says: “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me.” This is the Messiah himself talking, Jesus, before he’s named Jesus, the Christ, the coming one. “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. Amen. And the day of vengeance to our God to comfort all those who mourn, to grant those who mourn in Zion, to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes,” and so on and so forth, this beautiful passage. Now, I just think that John the Baptist is wondering about this passage and saying when he sends his disciples to Jesus, “Are you the one we’re waiting for?” In other words, “Are you going to bust me out of here? Are you going to set the captives free? Are you going to be the one who opens the prison for those who are bound?” And here comes, I think for us, the chief benefit of this text. Is that what do we do when the Lord is answering people’s prayers all around us, but not answering ours? What do we do when we see the people around us rejoicing in the Lord’s promises, and we’re still waiting for them? Amen. John the Baptist is in prison and he’s hearing how Jesus is raising the dead and healing the sick and doing all of these great works for other people. But what about, John is asking, but what about me? When are you going to do those great works over here? Are you the one we’re waiting for or is another on the way? I think this is important for each one of us. I’m thinking a lot about this. Here’s one example of the way it works out. What if we’re a couple that’s waiting for children and praying that the Lord would give us children, and we see everybody else around us getting pregnant, and the Lord is not giving that gift to us? Or what if we’re longing for a spouse and praying that we could rejoice in the Lord’s gift of marriage, and the people around us are hearing that great, good gift of marriage, but it’s not coming for us? Or what if we even hear in our family or our friends that a big Christmas bonus came and we’re sitting there trying to figure out how it is that we’re going to pay the rent? Or whatever else it is. It could be spiritual things. It could be physical things. We see people being delivered and we’re waiting for that deliverance ourselves. What do we do when Jesus is raising the dead over there and we’re still in prison? You see the question? Are you the one? Are we going to wait for another? And so Jesus receives this question from the disciples of John and sends them back with some wonderful words. John the Baptist. Two disciples come. And they find Jesus. Look at what it says. “In that hour, he healed many people of their diseases and plagues and evil spirits. On many who were blind, he bestowed sight.” I mean, there’s another example. You know, we’re wondering if we’re blind and the Lord is giving sight, why not to us? Or if we’re deaf and the Lord is giving hearing, why not to us? Or whatever affliction, why not to us? And Jesus, he receives these two disciples and he says to them, “Go and tell John what you’ve seen and heard.” And here’s the list. First from Isaiah 35: “The blind receive their sight. The lame walk. The lepers are cleansed. The deaf hear. The dead are raised up.” And then Jesus quotes Isaiah 61: “The poor have the good news preached to them.” Vicar Kruger is going to preach on that particular part of this text this Wednesday. It’s wonderful. But I think here in our context, as we’re thinking about it, the Lord Jesus lets these disciples of John and us know, “John, I understand what you’re asking. I know you’re thinking about John 61. I know you’re wondering if I’m going to do this for you. I am the one who is coming.” But then he says, “Blessed is the one who’s not offended by me.” And by this, I think our Lord Jesus indicates to John the Baptist that you’re going to stay in prison. Right? That I, Jesus is saying, “I am the one who sets the prisoners free, but I’m not gonna set you free.” And John is able to, by the way, receive this word. I think, maybe not with joy, but at least with comfort, and it’s able to carry him through the afflictions that were waiting for him in the weeks that followed until at last Herod asks for John the Baptist’s head to be delivered on a platter, and he, in fact, gives up his life in his confession of the Lord’s truth. Sometimes the Lord makes us wait, and sometimes the Lord answers our prayers wrong, only in death or in the resurrection. Now, we want to hear these words from Jesus clearly: “Blessed is the one who is not offended by me.” The Lord is taking care of each one of us. The Lord is taking care of each one of you as a good, holy, heavenly Father, giving you what you need and keeping back from you what you don’t. He sometimes sends times of joy and peace and abundance, and he sometimes sends times of affliction and sorrow and waiting and longing. Sometimes we’re with Jesus on the plane when the lame are leaping, and sometimes we’re with John the Baptist in prison: blessed is the one who’s not offended by him. But Jesus is indicating to John that he would die today, as the last of the Old Testament prophets. As far as I can tell, John the Baptist is the only person in the entirety of the ministry of Jesus that Jesus lets stay dead. Ha! I mean, we just had the healing just before this passage in Luke chapter 7, where Jesus raised the boy in the casket. We hear the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. And anyone else who dies in the proximity or even in the earshot of Jesus, he goes and he raises him from the dead. But that’s not for John the Baptist. The Lord lets John the Baptist die. And in John the Baptist’s death, the last page of the Old Testament is turned, and we get to the New Testament. John has to die like the rest of the prophets, waiting to see the things that he promised come to pass. And so with these words, Jesus is telling John that you will have to, like all the prophets, see the things that you promised from a distance. You will have to be content knowing that I am the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world without seeing it come to pass in my death and in my resurrection. You’ll have to watch it from the bleachers in heaven. You’re not going to get to see it on earth. And in this way, I think we can get a little hint at what Jesus is talking about in the riddle. Among those born of women, none is greater than John, and yet the one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he. What is the difference? What’s the difference between the least in the kingdom and John? What’s the difference between all of us and John the Baptist? The answer is John died without seeing the death and resurrection of Jesus. That is the difference. And it turns out, you know how I mentioned that Jesus is here preaching about John the Baptist, but in fact what he’s really preaching about is you. And Jesus in this text is saying that you are greater than John the Baptist. Right? And this is the difference, that you know how salvation happens. You know how it occurs. You know how the Lord accomplishes it. You know the death and the resurrection of Jesus. It’s quite marvelous. And this is our greatness. This knowledge and this faith is our glory. It is our hope. And if the Lord is giving or the Lord is taking away, if we’re waiting and trusting that the Lord is going to answer our prayers, no matter where we find ourselves in this life, walking around shopping for Christmas presents or in the dungeon of King Herod’s prison, the Lord is with us. His kingdom has come to us. And we are His own blessed children. Blessed are we who are not offended by Him. May the Lord grant us that faith. Amen. And the peace of God which passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. The post Sermon for Third Sunday in Advent appeared first on St Paul Lutheran Church .…
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