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sermon

(20 articles)

You Were Carried Through the Door Before You Could Walk

Two cries stand side by side in this Sunday's readings: "Lord, Lord" and "Abba, Father." The first belongs to an applicant outside the office door with his accomplishments in a folder; the second to a child who never wondered whether he was allowed in the house. Jesus doesn't dispute the applicants' resume. He disputes that it ever mattered. What every false prophet wants is to turn sons back into applicants.

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They Kept the Husk and Threw the Kernel Away

On the Sabbath, the Pharisees found a rule to keep and lost the mercy it was meant to carry — husk without kernel. James diagnoses the same disease in the church: zeal that hides self-seeking envy. Christ, the One greater than the temple, was Himself crushed like the grain, so that guilty husk-keepers might be fed with mercy instead of judged by the letter.

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You Have Come from Afar

The four thousand Jesus feeds in Mark 8 are Gentiles — outsiders with no claim on the God of Israel. Paul says the same of us: once strangers, far off, until brought near by the blood of Christ. What Christ did on that Gentile shore, He does again in the Sacrament, filling those who have no right to the table with more than enough.

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He Crossed the Water for This

The Gerasene demoniac was a man no one could bind. James names the wisdom that builds a life like that: earthly, unspiritual, demonic, breeding envy and self-seeking until it makes "every evil thing." Then Jesus crosses the sea to unclean pagan ground for this one man, and with a single word, "Come out," He drowns Legion under the water. The man is left sitting, clothed, in his right mind. That is his Baptism, and ours, where the same word of Christ still drowns what binds us and seats us at His table.

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Christ's clean heart is reckoned to you

Jesus stops the worshiper at the altar: first be reconciled to your brother. The Fifth Commandment reaches the heart — anger, 'Raca,' the grudge nursed since Easter — so no one comes with clean hands, and God will not accept half a sacrifice. But this altar faces the other way: God left His throne and reconciled us by Christ's blood while we were still His enemies. So the righteousness that exceeds the scribes and Pharisees is not one we scrub up in ourselves

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The freedom no country can give you

Beneath all our Fourth-of-July talk of freedom lies a deeper freedom no fireworks can give and no tyrant can take away. Out on the open sea Simon Peter thought himself free — his own boat, his own water, his own catch, answerable to no one — and pulled up empty nets all night long. Then Christ climbs uninvited into the boat, the nets tear with the catch, and Peter falls down terrified: "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man." The Lord does the one thing the open sea never can: He does not depart, but catches the sinner alive — "Do not be afraid. From now on you will catch men."

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Clouds Without Water

St. Jude will not let us grow comfortable: the Lord saved a people out of Egypt and then destroyed those who would not believe. Faith can die, and a baptized man can become a cloud without water — all the look of a Christian with no rain in him. But the same Lord who judged the unbelieving in the wilderness comes down the mountain to a demon-tormented boy and a father who can barely pray, and He is faithful where our faith is little. Our safety is not the strength of our grip on Christ but His grip on us.

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The Teacher Who Is Mercy Itself

You have been somebody's disciple since the day you were born, and Jesus warns that you never rise above your teacher — given enough time, you simply become him. The world is a blind guide that trains us to judge first and forgive slowly, and we have become blind guides ourselves, reaching for the speck in a brother's eye with a plank in our own. But there is another Teacher: Jesus is the Father's mercy in the flesh, who takes our score-keeping heart to the cross and trains us in Baptism, Word, Absolution, and the Supper until we begin to look like Him.

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“Cursed on the tree so the barren tree could live.” Friday of Trinity 3 (observed) 2026

A fig tree in full leaf promises fruit and has none. Jesus walks from the cursed tree into a temple just as green—a house of prayer turned into a market—and James names it a third time: a church that seats the poor man at the footstool. All leaves, no figs. But the Lord of glory is hanged on a tree and made a curse in the barren tree’s place. He becomes the poor man so the poor man can be seated in glory, and He is Himself the new house of prayer where you are welcomed and fed. Living faith receives Him, and the figs follow—not to be saved, but because the tree is alive.

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“He isn’t using a club. It is a broom. He’s sweeping you home.” Trinity 3 2026

The affliction that sweeps through your life is not a club driving you out but a broom sweeping you home: His pursuit, not your punishment. He answers the charge that He receives sinners with the lost sheep and the lost coin—lighting the lamp of His Word, laying the sheep on His own shoulders rejoicing, carrying you to the rail. You came in a lost coin and go out treasure in the King’s own hand.

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There's Always More Where That Came From

For twelve years she had been unclean — exiled from the assembly, emptied by physicians who took everything and healed nothing. So she comes to steal a cure from the fringe of Jesus' garment, certain God's mercy runs out like everything else has. But His power goes out from Him and nothing is subtracted: she came to take a cure and leaves a daughter. There is always more where that came from.

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"Blessed are you who eats bread in the Kingdom of God now!" Trinity 2 2026

A man sitting next to Jesus says it will be blessed to eat bread in the kingdom of God — someday. Jesus answers with a supper that is ready now. Three guests excuse themselves with fields, oxen, and a wife

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“A mustard seed faith in the Lord of heaven and earth moves mulberry trees”

Jesus warns that offenses are inevitable, and the worth of a single soul makes leading one of His little ones to fall worse than drowning. Yet He commands forgiveness seven times a day — a demand that drives the disciples to cry, “Lord, increase our faith.” The answer is not a bigger faith but a faith fixed on the right object: a mustard seed will do, because the power belongs to the Lord of heaven and earth, not to the one believing. Even when every duty is done we remain unprofitable servants, standing not on our works but on our Master — who girds Himself and serves His own at the Supper.

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"The poor one has a name. Lazarus. God is my help." Trinity 1 2026

You have what Lazarus had. You have a name, given in the water. You have the promise — eternal life on account of the promise, not on account of your merits. You have Moses and the Prophets and the One they promised, who is here, on this altar, in your mouth and in your body.

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"The age to come arriving in this age, located, given out" Wednesday of Holy Trinity 2026

You went into that water still carrying the old premise — still asking what resurrection could possibly mean, still uncertain whether the age to come is anything more than this age with the dying removed. And you came out having been given something you did not generate, extra nos, outside yourself, from the One whose Name was spoken over you.

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“The Spirit gives you the peace Christ bought” Pentecost 2026

He who scattered at Babel gathers here at Pentecost. He who divided the tongues there of evil, now unites them here for good. The same Spirit. The same fire. At Babel, God came down and scattered. At Pentecost, God came down to gather, and He gathered by preaching. Not by making the nations speak one language. By making the one Gospel spoken in every language. Every tongue heard the same thing: the Spirit gives you the peace Christ bought.

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“Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world!” Friday of Exaudi (observed) 2026

Take heart. He did not say try harder. He did not say believe more. He did not say feel something. He said take heart. Be of good cheer. Because — and this is the only because that holds — “I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). He has done it. It stands done. It will be done tomorrow morning, and the morning after that, and the morning your believing finally collapses entirely. The I that holds you is not yours.

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“You are the teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand this?” Holy Trinity 2026

You look, and you live. You do not first understand, and then live. The teacher came carrying everything he knew and was handed two things he could do nothing with: a birth he could not perform and a cross he could only behold. And even the looking is not the last small work left to his credit — the eyes that turn to the lifted Son are opened by the same Spirit who blows where He wills, the birth of water and the Spirit, not of the will of the flesh, not of any man’s deciding. It is given the whole way down.

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“The Holy Spirit makes you a temple of His glory” Ember Wednesday of Pentecost 2026

He is coming upon you, by His Spirit. He is drawing you with the net of His Word. And He is doing more than draw you — He is making His home in you.

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"Given for you. Given to you. Full of His forgiveness!" Palm Sunday 2026

This is what the church does when she reads the Passion over you. She declares it. The Word does what it says. It puts you under the torn curtain, in the company of the saints who walked out of their graves, in the place of Barabbas. This is not a report on something that happened long ago to someone else. It is a delivery—to you, this morning, in this place.

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