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Easter Sermon - 4/23/11 - John 20:1-18 - "Just One More Surprise"

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Read the Gospel text here: St. John 20:1-18 Just One More Surprise - Easter Sermon 2011 Christ is Risen!   He is Risen indeed!   It had been a terrifying week for the followers of Jesus.   He had entered Jerusalem in triumph and they all expected that the time had finally come – Jesus was finally going to reveal himself as the victorious Messiah.   All Jesus’ followers were primed and ready to begin the revolution.   But Jesus had withdrawn and had not followed through.   What a disappointment! As time passed, the disciples and the crowds began to get frustrated and angry. What kind of Messiah is this, they wondered? By the middle of the week almost everyone had turned against him. Even Jesus’ closest disciples were grumbling and one, Judas, had begun to make plans to turn Jesus over to the authorities.   Betrayal was in the air.   And it was all because Jesus just didn’t seem to understand what was expected of him. Jesus jus...

Sermon on The Gospel Readings for Palm Sunday - "Expectations!"

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Read the Processional Gospel here: Matthew 21:1-11 Read the Passion of St. Matthew here: Matthew 26:14-27:66 What excitement!  The day has finally come – Jesus is finally going to do it.  Jesus is finally going to take the lead in restoring Israel!  After the years of unusual teachings – turn the other cheek, love your neighbor and so forth; after all of the healings and the miracles; after all of those odd and confusing statements about picking up your cross and following and the predictions about going to Jerusalem to be crucified and raised; after all of that – Jesus is finally going to reveal himself as the Messiah!  Jesus is finally going to reveal himself as the one who is the glorious King of Israel and he will destroy the invaders and the infidels (the Romans) once and for all!  Finally!!! It must have been a heady and exciting time for those crowds that followed Jesus around throughout his ministry, and also for the disciples.  Jesus had att...

Reflections on the Gospel – John 11 – The Raising of Lazarus

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Read the text here: John 11:1-45 We have come to the end of our Lenten journey, which also means that we have come to the end of our series of Gospel stories from John.   In succession we have heard the story of Jesus' visit with the Pharisee Nicodemus, who visited Jesus at night; then Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan Woman at the well in the bright light of mid-day.   What a contrast John gives us with these two stories – the insider Nicodemus who is really an outsider because he does not believe and who comes at night which represents to us that he is in the darkness; and the outsider Samaritan Woman who is really an insider because of her belief and whose encounter occurs in the bright light of the day to represent that she is of the light.   Then the man born blind – who has been in darkness all him life – is given sight and he becomes a child of light because of his belief while the Pharisees and officials who can see (technically) are the ones wh...

Sermon on John 9 - "Sin & Belief / Darkness & Light" - Lent IV A

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Read the text for today here: John 9:1-41 Well, I don’t know if you have noticed – middle of Lent and I have not spent a lot of sermon time talking about sin, so far.   But that changes today because our Gospel lesson for Lent IV is, in part, about sin.   What exactly is sin? What does it do to us and how do we deal with it?   These are some of the questions posed by this text. So, what do you think about when you hear the word sin?   I suppose you think about doing bad things – breaking the 10 commandments or doing hurtful things to others.   Perhaps you think of sin in terms of rewards and punishment.   If you are good – God will reward you; if you are sinful you will be punished.   This is a very popular way of looking at sin; in part I suppose because it makes logical sense to us.   That seems to be the way the world works, right?   Many years ago – when I was in high school I spent my summers, as I think I have mentioned before, w...

Reflections on I John for Lent

Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. 9 God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.   I John 4:7-10 Throughout the season of Lent at our 12:30 mid-week Lenten prayer service we are meditating on the Epistle of I John.   Like many of the epistles in the New Testament, this letter was written to address a specific situation that had arisen within a specific community.   The community is believed to be the community that had risen up around the beloved disciple John.   By the time of the letter scholars believe John had died and the community was now struggling with division and conflict.   Specifically a serious conflict had arisen over ...

Reflections on the Gospel - "Of Wells and Tents" - John 4:5-42

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Read the Gospel text here: John 4:5-42 "Of Wells and Tents" - The Samaritan Woman at the Well - John 4:5-42 Within the first two weeks of Lent we have the opportunity to hear two wonderful stories from the Gospel of John and to meet two people with whom Jesus has an encounter early in his ministry.   Last week we heard the story of Jesus’ encounter with the Pharisee Nicodemus.   This week Jesus encounters the Samaritan woman at the well.   The contrast between them could not be greater.   Nicodemus is very much an insider – he is a leader among the Pharisees, he is educated, he is established; he comes to Jesus at night to discuss Jesus’ teaching, which try as he might, he just cannot understand.   The unnamed Samaritan woman is very much an outsider – she is a Samaritan (Judeans like Nicodemus would have had nothing to do with Samaritans) and she was a woman; she was uneducated and she seems to be somewhat of an outcast from her own community.   Sh...

"God So Loved..." - A Sermon for Lent II A - John 3:16

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For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him may not perish, but may have eternal life. This is perhaps one of the most well-known passages in the entire bible.   We have all heard it before – people put the reference on license plates, we have all seen folks on TV cameras at various sporting events with signs that read “John 3:16.”   Martin Luther called this passage “the Gospel in a nutshell.”   And indeed it is a profound and beautiful passage which confronts us with both a truth about God and a promise from God and that is this: the love that God has for God’s creation – the love which God has for us is so incomprehensible, so immense, so overwhelming, so inexplicable that even our language, our words are insufficient to describe and express the depth of God’s love of all of God’s creation and all of God’s children. For God so loved the world that….. God chose to be born in Jesus of a human mother, into a specific ...