Claimed, gathered and sent

This is the message I preached on Easter at St. Timothy Lutheran Church . The gospel text was Luke 24:1-12 .  The women in today’s gospel were doing what women did in that time; they were going to prepare Jesus’ body with spices to help cover the stink of death. But there was a problem—no body. Let’s follow these women to see how they became the first evangelists and testifiers of the resurrection; going beyond their confusion with the absence of a body to boldly witnessing to the other disciples.   They saw the empty tomb and two angels. This is certainly not what they expected. They had come with spices to anoint a dead body, but there was none to be found. The angels set them straight about the mystery of the missing body of Jesus.   They heard, the angels’ words, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” What do these angelic messengers mean? The living? “He is not here, but has risen.” How were they to get their minds around that? L...

This is the sermon I preached on Easter Sunday, April 21 at St. Timothy Lutheran Church . The text was Luke 24:1-12.   The women in today’s gospel, were going to Jesus’ tomb to prepare his body with spices. They fully expected to find a physical, dead body. The women did not connect the dots, despite the numerous times Jesus taught his followers that he would rise from the dead. After all, it was commonly believed then and now that the dead are supposed to stay dead, aren’t they? The gospels contain no account of a resurrection per se. What we have is a story of an empty tomb and of remembering what we have already been told would happen. We do not find Jesus; we only find evidence of the resurrection. After all, we cannot find Jesus, but the living Jesus does find us. Just what did the women see at the tomb? First of all, Jesus’ tomb was open and empty. The stone it had been sealed with was rolled away and these are humongous bolder-like stones. There was no body to be se...

This is the reflection sent electronically to the people of St. Timothy Lutheran Church on Thursday, April 18, 2019. SCRIPTURE FOCUS Gospel: Luke 24:1-12 1 On the first day of the week, at early dawn, [the women] came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared.  2 They found the stone rolled away from the tomb,  3 but when they went in, they did not find the body.  4 While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them.  5 The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.  6 Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee,  7 that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.”  8 Then they remembered his words,  9 and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest....

This is the sermon I preached on Easter Sunday, March 27 at St. Timothy Lutheran Church and St. Mark Lutheran Church. The gospel text is Luke 24:1-12.  I read recently that a seminary professor wrote, “If it's not hard to believe, you're probably not paying attention!” (David Lose). He was talking about the resurrection. Does that shock us? After all, let’s think about this. For someone to rise from the dead is not an everyday occurrence. We’re not talking about having a near death experience. Nor are we talking about a mere resuscitation of Jesus’ body. The account of Jesus’ crucifixion makes it clear that those wanting the crucifixion made sure Jesus was good and dead. Jesus was so dead that no one really believed that he would rise--in spite of the numerous times Jesus told this to his followers. How did the women who were the first to go the empty tomb respond? Did you hear them say, “Praise God! He is risen! I knew this would happen just the way he told us!”...