Mark 3:20-35
A Sermon for the Third Sunday after Pentecost
As we live, things go wrong. They seem to go wrong no matter what. Today the Scripture lessons indicate something about the problem of original sin. What is that about? Well, things go wrong, and no matter what we do, bad things happen. It’s inevitable. You drive along, and a bird doesn’t fly fast enough in front of you, and you hit it. We’d like not to hit it, but we do.
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A Sermon for the Season of Pentecost
Mark 2:23-3:6
A teacher once said: “All thinking in Christianity is summed up in the problem of the relationship between the Old and New Testaments.” A lot of the problems are there. But that teacher may not be steering us rightly because it doesn’t matter where you begin – you can begin at the beginning or begin at the end – all of it is tied together, and it is one.
What then should be our starting point? You start with what the problem is. And the problem is sin and death. We are caught in an inevitable run through sin to death, and the question is: How can we get out of it? What can be done?
John 3:1-17
A Sermon for the First Sunday after Pentecost
What draws the lessons together today is love. It is a very difficult matter because our culture is full of talk about love. If you look at the media, it’s all about: What is love? How does love work?
How do we keep from having the culture determine what it means?
John 15:2-27; 16:4b-15
A Sermon for Pentecost Sunday
Some years ago, a missionary to New Guinea returned to his home congregation in the US and said to his pastor that the big challenge on the mission field was the problem of spirituality.
That missionary’s question goes to the heart of Pentecost Sunday. In order to get at this question of “spirit” and spirituality, it is helpful to go back to the Reformation itself.
Acts 1: 1-11; Luke 24:44-53
A Sermon for the Festival of the Ascension
On this Sunday which is closest to the Festival of the Ascension (May 9), there is something that is important for us to be aware of and that is that Jesus is present in a different way.
Let’s go back and see it from the point of view of those apostles. Remember first of all that there was that enormous defeat because the one that they followed was crucified, and they all fled. Of all things, there was a victory; he arose from the dead!