All Saints 2025

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“And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed” [Gen 2.25]. So ends the creation narrative. Our first parents did not know evil. They knew only the good.

They fell. And in falling, they hid. From God, and from each other.

“Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings” [Gen 3.7].

It was insufficient. They blamed each other. They hid from God. But you cannot hide from Him. He sees. He hears. He knows….

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Baccalaureate Vespers 2025 – Immanuel Lutheran School

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In the ancient church, the renunciations at the time of baptism were more robust. Today, in many churches, when a person is baptized, he is asked if he renounces the devil, and all his works, and all his ways. But in the ancient church, there were often more extensive renunciations. One of these was the word “pomp.” “Do you renounce the devil’s pomps?”

“Pomp” comes for the Latin pompa - an ostentatious procession or display. A popular piece of music at secular graduations is called “Pomp and Circumstance.”…

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The Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity 2024

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“I renounce Satan, and his works, and his pomps, and his worships, and his angels, and his inventions, and all things that are under him.” And after his renunciation let him in his consociation say: “And I associate myself to Christ, and believe, and am baptized into one unbegotten Being….”

“I associate myself with Christ.” Disciples of Jesus do not leave the world, but we renounce its prince—the devil—and we renounce its principles. We renounce lies, we renounce lust, we renounce licentiousness. We confess Christ, we practice charity, and we defy the demands of the world to worship the image of the beast....

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