At Home in Jesus
This is the sermon for this Sunday, for the people of St. Timothy Lutheran Church. If you would like to see and hear me preach it, go here. Relationships are important, aren’t they? When we’re happy or sad, it’s good to have someone to share things with. This passage is all about relationship as can be seen in several phrases in this text. This gives us a different lens through which to look at and understand what God is saying to us today. Jesus’ followers had plenty of reasons to have troubled hearts and to grieve. Just a little earlier, Judas had left to betray Jesus, so he was no longer one of their band. Jesus keeps telling his followers that he will be betrayed and crucified. With all this swirling around in their heads and what it all meant, no wonder Jesus tells them not to grieve. And of course, these words are not only meant for those followers of Jesus, but also for those who were part of John’s community around 50 years later. They lived with persecution and I’...