The Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity 2024

September 09, 2024 by Christopher Esget in Sermons

Jonathan Haidt’s important book The Anxious Generation demonstrates that smartphones and social media multiply anxiety. This is particularly true for adolescents. He’s right. Yet the problem of anxiety is not new. Tolstoy in the 19th century said, “Our whole life is taken up with anxiety for personal security, with preparations for living, so that we really never live at all.”

Election years exacerbate anxiety. But anxiety haunts the human experience. A little 4 year old spent Tuesday morning crying through morning prayer on the first day of school, right over there. Perhaps the mother was also weeping. Letting go of your child, whether for JK or her freshman year out of state, is fraught with worry....

The Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity 2024

September 01, 2024 by Christopher Esget in Sermons

“Dear God.” With these words many prayers begin. But when the desired outcome is achieved, God is no longer so dear. He was a means to an end.

Many people treat each other like that. Relationships are transactional. So long as one gets something valuable from the relationship, he’ll maintain the pretext of friendship. It’s painful to learn someone was never truly your friend.

What about the ten lepers in today’s Gospel? They cry out to Jesus in their need. When the need is met, they skedaddle....

Trinity 13, 2024

August 26, 2024 by Christopher Esget in Sermons

Man was made in the image of God. When man rebelled, his own hubris damaged the image. Man, steward of the world, was wounded, throwing the world into disarray. Creation’s harmony was disrupted. If we think of harmony in musical terms, what we get now is dissonance. It grates, and unresolved, it drives us to madness. So the world is filled with insanity, corruption, and death. It is disordered, and man—who was intended to maintain the world’s order and harmony—fulfills not the task God gave us. All this, some of the fathers called trauma. ...

Trinity 12, 2024

August 18, 2024 by Christopher Esget in Sermons

“He has done all things well.” With these words the crowd hails the Christ. They marvel at the miracle.

“He has done all things well.” Easy words to say when things are going well. But things aren’t always going well....

Free Speech and the Culture of the Therapeutic

August 08, 2024 by Christopher Esget in Culture

The increasing attacks on freedom of speech in America are well-documented. Gov. Walz’s recent assertion against this constitutional right is unsurprising. This trend is part of the larger movement of the therapeutic-based ideology that has captured Western politics and education….

Eighth Sunday after Trinity 2024

July 21, 2024 by Christopher Esget in Sermons

‌I just finished reading The Infinite Game, a book by Simon Sinek. He says many people, companies, and countries are playing the wrong game; they’re serving short-term goals instead of infinite ones. There’s some worth to the book, but it’s not without flaws. One of its weaknesses is in what he calls “ethical fading.” This is where you have a gradual compromise of ethical standards in, say, what a corporation allows in its business practices. The problem is he assumes an ethical standard without ever defining it or establishing any foundation for ethics. For us, as disciples of Jesus, He is the foundation of all ethics and all Truth. In short, ethics is derived from the Word of God….

Ready to Leave This Strange Country

April 01, 2024 by Christopher Esget in Theology

Pascha (Passover) characterizes the life of the disciples of Jesus. St. John Chrysostom:

Let not any one of them that eat this Passover look towards Egypt, but towards Heaven, towards “Jerusalem that is above.” (Gal. 4:26.) On this account thou eatest with thy loins girded, on this account thou eatest with shoes on thy feet, that thou mayest know, that from the moment thou first beginnest to eat the Passover, thou oughtest to set out, and to be upon thy journey. And this implies two things, both that we must depart out of Egypt, and that, whilst we stay, we must stay henceforth as in a strange country; “for our citizenship,” saith he, “is in Heaven” (Phil. 3:20); and that all our life long we should ever be prepared, so that when we are called we may not put it off, but say, “My heart is fixed.” (Ps. 108:1.)

(NPNF 1:13, p165)

The Resurrection of Our Lord 2024

March 31, 2024 by Christopher Esget in Sermons

“Your boasting is not good.” So opens today’s Epistle. Boasting—or pride—is the fundamental human problem. So we must be told, even on Easter, “Your boasting is not good.” The broader context is a scandal in the Corinthian church. But the problem of pride, of boasting, is universal….

Every Divine Service Is Easter

March 30, 2024 by Christopher Esget in Theology

A gem from Luther:

We have Easter as often as we celebrate the Mass, preach, and administer the holy Sacrament. With us Christians every day is Easter, except that for ancient memory’s sake we observe a special Easter once a year. And that is not wrong but good and laudable, to observe the time when Christ died and rose again, even though our remembrance of His suffering and resurrection is not restricted to such a time but may be done on any day. As He says: “As often as you do this, do it in remembrance of Me” (1 Cor. 11:25).

LW 13, pp355–356

Good Friday Chief Service 2024

March 29, 2024 by Christopher Esget in Sermons

Our self-image is always wrong. In times of prosperity, we perceive ourselves with pride. In times of adversity, we may rage and demand better; or, sink into self-loathing. But it’s all wrong, the self-love and the self-hatred. The only right image is to view ourselves cross-eyed; which is to say, we see who we are by looking at Christ’s cross. There we find that our pride is damned, but there is no cause for self-loathing, for the stretched-wide arms of Jesus proclaim the Father’s forgiveness. The cross is the Gospel. The death and resurrection of Jesus is the story of our identity. Our self-image is wrong, but the cross-eyed view is the truth. On Good Friday, we discover God has taken who you are out of your hands.

The gospel is “the eternal statement of who you are” (Russell Moore). The Triduum—the three holy days—give us the Supper of Jesus, the cross of Jesus, the baptism into Jesus, and the resurrection of Jesus. These Holy Days give us the gospel, the good news that God in Christ loves us, absolves us, embraces us, welcomes us, accepts us, and will tear open the graves of those who fall asleep in Him….