Claimed, gathered and sent

   This Sunday I'll be preaching on Luke 3:7-18 . O nce again, we encounter John the Baptist in Sunday's gospel, Luke 3:7-18. I have a couple of questions of this text. First, how do we get from John calling his audience a brood of vipers to " So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people" (v. 18). Huh? Where do you see the good news in this passage? John is certainly an interesting character and example for us all to point to Christ and not ourselves. What do you all think? picture

This is the message I preached Sunday, Dec. 5, 2021 at St. Timothy Lutheran Church . The text was Luke 3:1-6 . Who is this John and what is his message and what does it have to do with me? Every second Sunday of Advent we meet up again with John. He is prominent in all four gospels. What   more is there that we can possibly learn from him? What does God want to say to us this week, in this place, through this gospel passage?   Let us pray. Lord, when we encounter the same characters at the same time each year, we may groan, “Not John the Baptist again!” Open our eyes, our hearts and minds to all you have to reveal to us today through your word. Amen.   Luke begins his story of John by anchoring it in time and space, in history. We have a proverbial gallery of luminaries, first the secular, political rulers, then the religious leadership.   However, after our list of luminaries, we find these words, "…the word of God came to John son of Ze...