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On his knees, in front of his partners, Simon is a truer picture of you than you would care to admit: no longer as one with a fine catch and a decent reputation, standing on his own two strong legs, sure of himself and needing no one; rather, as one on his knees, face down in the bottom of the boat, only now realizing Who has been standing this close to him all along, and therefore cannot for his life think of one reason the Lord should remain. Weigh your own heart against wh

Behold the speck and the plank. You see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, and you see it well; you have measured it to the grain. Yet there is a plank in your own eye. You have not seen it, cannot see it; you are blind to it even as you reach for their speck. You are the blind one who would lead the blind, and the ditch is where you are both bound. First remove the plank from your own eye. Go on, take it out. You can’t. The measure comes back full, pressed down against you, a

God does not brighten the old worn face; there is no face left to brighten. Rather, He strikes His emblem upon you. At the Font His Name was spoken over you, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and the sign of the holy Cross was traced upon your forehead and upon your heart, the King’s own mark come down upon the silver. It is not the face lost in Adam; it is the Cross of Christ, the sign that you are His: bought, claimed, and current again in the kingdom. The emblem is struck, the

The work, whether in the oil field, at your desk, in your shop, or in your own yard, is a good thing; cows are a good thing, as are chickens and goats and what-have-you; the retirement that was earned over decades is a good thing. Families are a good thing; children and grandchildren: blessings from on high. Even extracurricular activities, such as softball, are good things, in and of themselves. God gives all these things, and gives them richly and daily, without ceasing. Ye

Beloved, Lazarus was carried; he had always been carried. And so have you. Consider how you came here, to the very gate of heaven. You came to the holy Font. If you were carried there as an infant, as many of you were, then you know the carrying was literal: someone bore you in their arms to the water and the Word. Your parents, grandparents; your sponsors: those who loved you, brought you, unable as you were to walk or speak for yourself, unable to confess or choose or cont

“And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.” In the wilderness, Israel stood condemned, dying: the serpents among them. Still, God appointed a remedy: look at the bronze serpent on the pole, and live. So also you, the venom of your own reasoning, strength, and pride working through you: look. The Son of Man is lifted up. He has taken what you could not an

Blood and fire and vapor of smoke. The sun darkened. The moon turned to blood. Peter doesn’t soften it. He stands before the crowd with the full weight of a world under judgment, groaning under sin and death and the ancient enemy who wields power against it, and declares: into this world, this blood-and-fire world, your world, the Spirit of the living God has come. Into your world. Into this one. Into the grief that attends you here today. And then Peter recites the last ve

Readings: Old Testament: Isaiah 40:27-31 Epistle: 2 Corinthians 12:7-10 Holy Gospel: Matthew 11:27-30 Sermon audio: download Obituary: link Sermon: Sermon based on 2 Corinthians 12:7-10 * In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Dear family and friends of Michael: Michael was a man of plain words. Practical words. Words that meant what they said. Sufficient. In his line of work, the system either held or it didn’t; maintenance either kept the pl

[Jesus said,] “These things I have told you, that when the time comes, you may remember that I told you.” Remember. Not overcome. Remember. And that remembering is not left to you; it is the Spirit’s work. He brings to your remembrance what Christ has said. He testifies of Christ. “Of Me,” Jesus says. And the Spirit does so, not from within you. No, rather, He speaks to you, from without: through the apostolic word, the word that has come down through the centuries, the word

Due to a technical issue, the sermon video did not record Readings: Old Testament: Numbers 21:4-9 Epistle: James 1:22-27 Holy Gospel: John 16:23-33 Sermon audio: listen Sermon manuscript: download Sermon: Sermon based on John 16:23-33 In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Alleluia! Christ is risen! [Congregation: He is risen indeed!] [All: Alleluia!] Dearly beloved by the Lord: “In the world you will have tribulation.” Jesus doesn’t soften it.