Rorate Coeli – Fourth Sunday of Advent 2024
Rust ruins metal. Stomach acid burns through your esophagus. Vices do the same to your soul.
Vices are not simply bad habits. Vices signify a state of mind….
Read MoreLo! He Comes with Clouds Descending
Non nobis - “not to us [be the glory].” The world is filled with people who say the opposite: “To us be the glory; to me be the glory.” If we’re honest, that’s who we are, deep down. What a gift, to learn from early childhood to sing the opposite: Non nobis - “not to us,” Domine, “Lord” - Sed nomini tuo - “but to Your name” be the glory….
Read MoreDrain the Swamp
“Drain the swamp” is either a threat or a promise. It depends on which side of the swamp you reside. Turning a swamp into solid ground would require significant upheaval of terrain.
When the prophet Isaiah says the valleys shall be lifted up and the mountains made low, there’s a similar political aggressiveness to it. The explosive power to bring down a mountain is not trifling. The mountains are the rulers – kings and emperors; the valleys are the little people who pay the taxes and are fodder for their masters’ wars. Kings on mountains don’t take kindly to threats….
Read MoreBeloved, Devote Yourselves to Holy Conduct and Piety
“Beloved.” That’s how the Apostle Peter addresses his hearers. And it’s how God addresses you. Even when He reproves you—through me, the preacher whom He also reproves—He reproves you as His beloved.
“Beloved, do not forget this one thing.” It would be better to say, “Don’t let this escape your notice.” The Holy Spirit in the Holy Scriptures is telling us a hidden truth. He’s revealing to us a secret, or a mystery. It is the mystery of how time with God is not at all as we experience time….
Read MorePopulus Zion – The Second Sunday of Advent 2024
From Adam and the tree, to David with Bathsheba, to Judas grasping his 30 pieces of silver, it’s the entire story of mankind: man desires, and the object of his desire turns and devours him, like Gollum grasping the ring and in so doing falling into the fire. Our desires kill us.
The prodigal son is paradigmatic for man's condition; he leaves his father to satisfy his cravings. Augustine imagines the Lord saying to us, “You were hoping that if you left Me you would have something more.” …
Read MoreMen and Women Zealous for Good Works (Advent 1 Midweek Evening Prayer)
The first thing to note about tonight’s Epistle is that men and women are addressed differently. Men and women are equal in dignity and worth. Men and women are not the same in terms of callings and duties, temperaments and responsibilities. First, the older men are called to actions befitting their station, to love as they lead, and to be patient with those who are led.
The older women are called away from gossip and wine toward the teaching of the younger women. The woman is to be, the NKJ says, a “homemaker.” I don’t think it means a woman cannot have a job; the term literally means “busy at home” or “energetic at home.” The idea is that she is not lazy but working, within her own sphere, for the good of the family. And this is done under the leadership of the man….
Read MoreThe Christian Awaits Quietly His Call
Accepting one’s callings in life is among the most difficult things for a Christian. A man desires a better situation, a pastor desires a different congregation, the idealist longs to live in a different time and place. The term ἐπιθυμία (epithumia, “desire”) and its cognates is sometimes used positively in the New Testament, but more often is associated with the corrupted human heart that drives a man to sin. Passages such as Romans 7 and James 1 particularly note the pattern that desire gives birth to sin, and sin to death. The desire for a satisfying life is—because of the inverted heart—actually a longing for death….
Read MoreThe Festival of the Reformation 2024
The history in Europe is of church decline through tyrannical governments.
But the church in America has declined with only mild hostility from the state. What has caused the decline here? Americans view church membership with less loyalty than a gym, supermarket, or airline preference. Convenience and amenities triumph over doctrine. The politics of the community matter more than the confession of faith. In the middle ages, backs were whipped in penance, and we call it darkness. Today votes are whipped, and we call it democracy. This is not reformation.
We cannot celebrate the Reformation today without acknowledging the need for reformation in our own congregation, and for each of us to confess the need for reformation in his own life….
Read MoreTrinity 20, 2024
Last Sunday we heard about nakedness and clothing. There is the nakedness of man’s sin and shame, and the clothing of Christ’s righteousness, given in Holy Baptism. What we have at the end of today’s parable is a man who rejects that clothing. He refuses the wedding garment, he refuses Christ’s righteousness. He wants life, he wants the kingdom on his own terms.
The same thing is going on at the beginning of the parable. What is a parable? It’s a story with you in it. And in the Bible, it’s a story with Christ in it. If you get those wrong—if you mistake yourself for Christ—you’ll end up with a different kind of religion altogether….
Read MoreThe Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity 2024
“I renounce Satan, and his works, and his pomps, and his worships, and his angels, and his inventions, and all things that are under him.” And after his renunciation let him in his consociation say: “And I associate myself to Christ, and believe, and am baptized into one unbegotten Being….”
“I associate myself with Christ.” Disciples of Jesus do not leave the world, but we renounce its prince—the devil—and we renounce its principles. We renounce lies, we renounce lust, we renounce licentiousness. We confess Christ, we practice charity, and we defy the demands of the world to worship the image of the beast....
Read More