The sixth in a series of seven sermons for the season of Lent
Luke 19:28-40; 23:21
Everybody loves a parade and a party. There’s Macy’s parade on Thanksgiving. The Rose Bowl Parade on New Year’s Day, and many other local and national parades throughout the year. It’s festive to see the flowers, bands, and floats, but there is something very different about the parade on Palm Sunday.
2 Cor 5:19
The fifth in a series of seven sermons for the season of Lent
Luther’s claim: “The cross alone is our theology,” is simply an axiom based on the what the Apostle Paul writes in 1 Cor 2:2: “For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.”
Why did God have to do it this way? After all, he could have done any number of things. He could have said, “Be done with sin and death.” But this is what he did. And we have asked ourselves why. This is the basic question.
Romans 8:37
The fourth in a series of seven sermons for the season of Lent
Since sacrifice is gross, old-fashioned, offensive, and foreign to our culture, and since we simply don’t grasp it, and since there are all these images, a hodgepodge, a kaleidoscope of ways of speaking of the cross, what do we do?
Following Paul and Luther, we confess: The cross alone is our theology. The cross alone is our salvation.
1 John 2:2; 1 John 4:10
The third in a series of seven sermons on the cross for the season of Lent
The cross alone is our theology. The cross alone is our salvation. If we were to sit down and have a conversation about the question: What is the cross about?, one of us would soon say: He died on the cross to pay for my sins.
1 Cor 15:56-57
The second in a series of seven sermons on the cross for the season of Lent
If there’s no problem, there’s no need of a solution. If we look at Luther’s statement, based on Paul: The cross alone is our theology, we see the solution is the cross. Then what’s the problem?
A question that often comes up in confirmation is: What is the unforgiveable sin? Matthew 12:32: “Whoever says a word against the Son of man will be forgiven; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.” This is like playing with fire. Could there be something God couldn’t forgive? Wouldn’t forgive? It is mentioned in Matthew 12:31-23, Mark 3:28-29, and Luke 12:10 (cp. Hebrews 4:2-6).