In today’s Gospel we go back to the prologue or the Gospel of John one last time before moving on from the Christmas season to Epiphany starting Monday 6 January. The verse in focus for this last sermon of the Christmas season will be this little summary of what at God’s heart was different about…

Jesus’s life was threatened on more than one occasion. In today’s sermon text of Matthew 2:13-23 we’ll look at the first time it was threatened whereby a jealous King Herod gave the horrendous order to kill all the babies in and around Bethlehem that were two years or under. What do you think the shepherds…

The fourth and final advent theme we consider this year concerns Mary, Jesus’ mother. I’ve decided to go with how the Lutheran Confessions refer to her as ‘Mary the Mother God’ (it’s in the book of Concord).* It might surprise you the Lutheran writings refer to Mary this way. After all, we don’t pray to…

In today’s Gospel John the Baptist wonders, in effect, if Jesus is really THE Messiah. This is certainly a surprise. Did John the Baptist not leap in his mother’s womb when Mary the mother of Jesus came near? (Luke 1:41). And in John’s Gospel, John the Baptist testifies he is the Messiah and ends prophetically…

Advent abounds with prophetic words about the promises of God fulfilled through the birth of the Messiah. However, in the church today prophecy can be one of those divisive things. It can be easy to over complicate and even send it into a sort of Gnostic secret knowledge world, or judge people about a lack…

this week is somewhat of a ‘Part 2’ to last week’s sermon.  There we looked at our tendency to join with the Pharisee in ‘looking down on others’ (Luke 18:9).  We thanked God for his deep grace in forgiving us for this – our own grace moment in this parable as we reflected on those times…

On October 30 it’s 502 years since Luther posted his 95 theses which started all the ‘trouble’ with the church of Rome that eventually led to what is commonly known as the European Reformation of the Church (or Reformation for short, especially if you are Lutheran!). The depth and assurance of God’s grace was a…

The epistle readings are currently from St Paul’s letters to Timothy.  We are getting toward the end of 2 Timothy – quite possibly the last thing St Paul wrote.  So the tone is urgent and has a sense of final warning about it – Paul knew he did not have long left in this world.  In…

Some things you can’t just be told to do and do.  Like be grateful, loving, faithful, gracious or THANKFUL!  We need to be motivated, inspired and well… feel it!  At least initially… because over time with some good habits and ways of thinking we also know that we can teach ourselves to live more in…

In the epistle reading for the first Sunday of this two-week bulletin St Paul makes the simple but profound statement to ‘young’ Pastor Timothy that ‘… godliness with contentment is great gain’ (1 Timothy 6:6).  I expect there is something in all of us that accepts the truth of that.  Yet on a practical level…