Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Buried with him? United with him in a death like his? Do you not know that your old self – The old Adam or old Eve in you – was crucified with him? That […]
In his explanation of the 2nd article of the Creed, in the Small Catechism, Luther writes: Jesus Christ, true God… has redeemed me, a lost and condemned human being. He has purchased and freed me from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil, not with gold or silver but with his […]
At Passover, our Jewish friends and neighbors remember the central story of their formation as a people, as God’s people. It was in their deliverance from slavery, in the protection provided by God from the plague of the death of the firstborn, in the passing through the Red Sea, in the giving of the law […]
[Click here for video] Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! It’s a common and familiar phrase in our religious experience. It was so for the Jewish pilgrims, as well, making their way to the Temple for the feast of Passover, in Jesus’ day. They would greet one another with […]
The sense of smell is a powerful thing. Those who study such things have found incredible links between the sense of smell and memory, and not only in humans, but also bees and rodents. I did some research into this this week and read the following in an article on Sciencedaily.com this week: Researchers at […]
I’ve been thinking a lot this week (maybe because my baby turned 22 this week) about parenting, and about what we learn about God from our own experiences with and around parent/child relationships. Martin Luther, in his explanation of the 1st article of the Creed in the Small Catechism writes about how he understands […]
[Click here for video] We love our images of a gentle and loving God, don’t we? Like the image of God calling to God’s people through the prophet Isaiah in our first lesson today, saying: Come and eat! Come and drink! It’s free! It’s such a warm image. For me it evokes memories of […]
[click here for video] Many times in my pastoral ministry, and in the various lay ministries in which I served in the 20 or so years before being ordained, I have encountered those who carry deep concern over a supposed lack of faithfulness to God, or a lack of faith in God. Such concerns […]
[Click here for video] As we gather on this 1st Sunday in Lent to continue the journey we began together on Ash Wednesday, we are confronted with the very thing with which Martin Luther began his Small Catechism. Turn with me to page 1160 in the back of Evangelical Lutheran Worship, it’s after the hymns, […]
Today we begin our Lenten journey together; we begin our annual journey to the center of the Christian year – to the great 3 days in which we remember the death and resurrection of Jesus. Today is about too many things to name in any one sermon on any one Ash Wednesday. And so let […]