Claimed, gathered and sent

This is the message I preached at St. Timothy Lutheran Church and Grace Lutheran Church, Dunkirk. The text is Luke 24:44-53. Why do we celebrate Ascension Sunday? We don’t hear much about the Ascension in the New Testament. Paul doesn’t talk about it in his letters. John's letters don't say anything about this. Neither do Peter’s. The Ascension is not mentioned in any of them. If Jesus died and rose from the dead, isn’t that enough? After all, he would be alive. But if Jesus did not ascend to his Father, his mission would have been limited to the Holy Land. The disciples would have spread the faith there and died. Potentially, the Christian faith may well have died out. Jesus' ascension is an important event. It enabled the Holy Spirit to pour out its power on the early followers of Jesus. This facilitated the outpouring of power so that God’s word was spread all over, not just in a small area. In today’s gospel, Jesus is preparing the disciples not for his crucifixion, wh

This is the sermon I preached on Sunday, 5/14 at St. Timothy Lutheran Church , Bemus Point, NY. The Tex was John 14:15-21. Like some of you, I am a visual learner. Pictures help me to understand things better. Well, I must say that today’s gospel is a visual learner’s dream. The timing of this passage is a continuation of last week’s gospel. Jesus is still preparing his disciples for the time when he will no longer be with them physically.  John’s writing is typically dense and twisty--Jesus is in the Father, if you’ve seen Jesus,  you’ve seen the Father. Jesus asks the Father to send the Spirit. It makes your head  hurt. In seminary, we had a class on the gospels. We had to choose which of the four,  we wanted to concentrate on for Greek translation. Our prof warned us that we would regret choosing John’s gospel because of the language. It has the most difficult Greek of the four gospels. I must say, however true that may be, it remains my favorite gospel. I love the language.  I ment

This is the sermon I preached Sunday at St. Timothy Lutheran Church. The Gospel was John 14:1-14.     In this passage, there are several revelations or unveilings of the character of God. The first is the Comforter, the second is the way, truth, and life, the one who satisfies, and finally, the Enabler to do greater works than Jesus.us. Dang, that’s a lot.  Right out of the gate, we see Jesus’ concern for his followers, the unveiling of the comforting aspect of God. This is the night of Jesus’ arrest, to be followed by his crucifixion. He knew the needs of his disciples; that they still did not understand what was going to happen to him. And yet, doesn’t it seem that they should be the ones comforting him? Instead, Jesus said, “Do not let your hearts be troubled” (v. 1). “…it was Jesus, whose stomach surely was in knots over what the next day would bring, who was about to be mocked, tortured, and executed, and even feel abandoned by his own Father, he was the one offering comfort to h

This was my sermon for Transfiguration, preached at St. Timothy Lutheran Church You’re likely familiar with the expression, “Seeing is believing.” As Jesus is transfigured, Peter, James and John get a double dose of seeing.  Are you ready? Lights, camera, action! First there is the fantastic light show, with special guests Moses and Elijah. Concerning audio, Peter, James and John heard the voice of God from the cloud that enveloped them. The voice told them Jesus was God’s Son, the beloved and they were to listen to him. This was enough to knock them off their feet!  What a lot to see and hear! But it wasn’t the seeing of all these things that produced faith and believing in the disciples. Seeing was not believing until…well, we’ll get to that.  Peter was babbling on and on, wanting to engage in a building project; three hut-like “memorials.” The only one impressed with the idea was Peter. Neither Moses, Elijah nor Jesus encouraged Peter in this endeavor. In fact, the notion was set as

This is the sermon I preached on Sunday, at St. Timothy Lutheran Church . The gospel text is John 10:1-10. Did you know that sheep come with blue, orange and other colors on their fleece? In Bethlehem, this was one way shepherds could distinguish their sheep from others. They dyed the sheeps’ coats. During our time in Bethlehem, we observed the shepherds directing their flocks of sheep. Some gently and carefully led their sheep. Others drove the sheep, angrily hitting them with a rod. The good shepherds stood out.  In today’s gospel, we see the tender relationship of Jesus and his sheep. The shepherd initiates contact with the sheep. They don't have to go looking for a shepherd. He comes to them. Often, the sheep of more than one shepherd would be enclosed in the same pen. But In the morning, when it is time for the sheep to be separated and taken out to graze, the shepherd would call his sheep out of the combined flock by name. Each shepherd could identify his sheep. Can you imagi

This is the sermon I preached at St. Timothy Lutheran Church last Sunday, 2/12/23. The gospel text was Matthew 5:21-37 .  The Ten Commandments tell us what kind of lives God wants us to live. But that’s not enough. In fact, it sounds like Jesus expects even more!  Murder is the first issue Jesus addresses. That doesn’t seem to be much of an issue for us here in this congregation, does it? Phew, we’re safe here. But then, Jesus drills deeper into the real issue—what causes someone to commit murder. “…anyone who is…angry with a brother or sister is guilty of murder” (v. 22). Jesus certainly doesn’t let us off the hook here! Sometimes we are angry with those we love the most—spouses, children and other relatives, friends.  Jesus continues, “If you enter your place of worship and, about to make an offering, you suddenly remember a grudge a friend has against you, abandon your offering, leave immediately, go to this friend and make things right… only then, come back and work things out wit