Preachrblog

Sometimes the Gospel doesn’t sound exactly like good news.   “Brother will deliver brother over to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death, and you will be hated by all for my name’s sake.”   This is the gospel of the Lord!   Thanks be to God? As I mentioned last week, these two readings go together as Jesus is preparing his disciples to go out and preach.   He gives them a message, he gives them authority, and he sends them out in pairs to labor in the harvest, which he promises is plentiful.   But in this following reading, he also warns them about the opposition they are sure to face.   And the warning has broader application.   It is first for the apostles, but yes, it is also for all Christians.   Our Lord Jesus Christ has some tough words for us this morning.   Some stark reality.   A bit of a “red pill” to use a neologism.   Being a Christian means persecution. ...

A nd so we are back to green.   Green paraments, green stoles.   The Season of Pentecost, or what we call the “regular time” of the church.   The Festival half of the church year is concluded, after we followed the life of Christ from Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Holy Week and Easter, Ascension, Pentecost and Trinity Sunday.   Now we enter the long stretch of Sundays after Pentecost – the time of the church. Add caption Today we have the first of a two-part reading from Matthew’s Gospel.   The over-arching topic is something like, “Jesus Sends Out the Twelve Apostles”.   Now, next week we will hear about the suffering they can expect when they go.   But here, for starters, we have some preliminary matters. First, Jesus comments about the harvest and the workers. Second, He gives the Twelve authority.   And Matthew gives us their names. Third, He sends them out with their message and marching orders. Let’s consider each of these i...

"Understanding or Confessing?" Blessed be the Holy Trinity and the Undivided Unity.  It is Holy Trinity Sunday.  That one Sunday each year in which we highlight the mystery of the divine nature – that God is three and God is one.  In a few moments we will confess the Athanasian Creed, which as a child, seemed to me to last for an eternity, but now as an adult I cherish more every year. And I call it a mystery for good reason.   The scriptural doctrine of the Holy Trinity is one the Christian church has been pondering, confessing, and sometimes even fighting about, since the very beginning.   And while the Old Testament believers certainly confessed the oneness of God, it cannot be said that the three-ness is something the New Testament invented.   Rather, it is only with the appearance of Jesus Christ, and the light shed by the New Testament writers, that we see the distinction of three co-equal persons of the godhead so clearly.   Think about it. ...

 “Thirst for the Spirit” On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’ ”Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.  John 7:37-39 I was looking at the statistics for the virus this week, as I am sure many of you have also.  One chart listed the likelihood of dying from various causes, including the virus.  Some surprised me, some did not.  Of all the dangers to life and limb we face in this life, dying of thirst is pretty low on our list, isn’t it?   I think the closest we get to that kind of thirst is after mowing the lawn on a hot Texas day and coming in for a cold drink, maybe even a beer, that first sip or gulp is so good, so refreshing. I remember...