One woman listened to a rebellious angel, and she likewise rebelled.
Another woman listened to an obedient angel, and she said, “Amen.”
One man fell, and brought the world to ruin.
Another Man came down from heaven to raise up the fallen world.
One tree infected mankind with bitterness.
Another tree appeared bitter but restored sweetness to our race.
Read MoreIn anger, he struck a man down. It seemed justified. But we are not to take the law into our own hands.
So the murderer ran. He spends forty years in exile. He marries, becomes a father. He is content.
Then one day he sees something inexplicable….
Read MoreLuther once called the emperor “that poor mortal maggot sack … who is not certain of his life for a single moment” [LW 59 p95]. His point was the exalted rulers can suddenly die, and they cannot truly defend us. At that time, the Ottoman Empire was the great military threat. But Luther saw this in theological terms. The forces of Islam were attacking, and this, he believed, was divine judgment, because the Holy Roman Empire, and the Pope, placed their trust in money and arms, not the Word of God. To place your trust in horses or men—that is, to place your trust in armies—is to trust in maggot sacks. …
Read MoreIt’s disturbing to discover everything is rigged. Naïve, you thought physicians and teachers and media and politicians and pastors told the truth. One day you realize so much is a lie.
This isn’t a new problem. “All men are liars,” the Bible says….
Read MoreYou and I – we’re not living; not all the way, not as we should. Part of us yearns to return to the strong man. We’re like Lot’s wife, looking back to Sodom. Or the Israelites talking about the good food back in Egypt. We’d like a foot in both camps. Be a disciple of Jesus, but not too much. Leave a little room for a bit of hedonism….
Read MoreWhat He did not assume, He did not redeem. This was said about the necessity of Christ taking on our human nature. But perhaps we could even suggest it about the experience of sorrow, fear, dread. “He must thus also undertake the grief in order to overcome the sorrow and not exclude it” [Ambrose]. The Lord Jesus experiences all of our difficulties and troubles. And in all of it, He teaches us also how to bear up in the hour of trial: “Not My will, but Yours, be done.”
At this time, such a notion is incomprehensible to the disciples. So when the soldiers come, they think this is the long-awaited moment when the war for liberation begins….
Read MoreWhen God made our first parents, He made them to be the crown of His creation. He made them in His image.
This is the source of Satan’s rebellion. He envied man’s place. He despised that material creatures— he despised that a man and woman of flesh and bone—would be so exalted, would be God’s image-bearers in the cosmos. That—man’s place in God’s creation—is the point of attack.
Temptation to sin therefore is not a temptation to do this or that bad thing. The demonic temptation is for “man to cease being man” [Weinrich]. The goal of temptation is to destroy man….
Read MoreThe lack of money is a test. Insufficient resources is a test. In today’s Gospel, Jesus sees a large crowd coming to Him, so He puts a question to Philip, “‘Where shall we buy bread, that these may eat?’ But this He said to test him, for He Himself knew what He would do.”
Jesus is enacting here His own sermon, where He told His disciples not to worry about what they would eat, or what they would drink, or what they would wear: “For your heavenly Father knows you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.”…
Read MoreToday’s Gospel begins with Jesus “casting out a demon.” What are demons? The Epistle of Jude describes them as “angels who did not keep their proper domain, but left their own abode.” In other words, they are spirits who were part of God’s “host,” or military, but left their posts. Elsewhere God’s Word describes the demons particularly operating by telling lies, with the aim of destroying mankind. Some are very adept at damaging people through sickness and maladies. So Scripture gives us labels for different types of demons, such as spirits of error, spirits of weakness, and unclean spirits. The preeminent demon is sometimes called διάβολος, which means “the slanderer.” He is also called σατάν, “the adversary” or simply, “the enemy.” Every day bless yourself with the sign of the holy cross and ask for God’s protection against the demons….
Read More“Receive the sign of the holy cross on both your forehead and your heart to mark you as one redeemed by Christ the crucified.”
These words from the liturgy of Holy Baptism should be on our hearts this night, when we are marked again by the sign of the holy cross, and reminded of our own impending death.
Yet aren’t we doing the very thing Jesus condemns? In the Gospel for Ash Wednesday, Jesus tells us not to disfigure our faces, not to appear to men to be fasting, and that we should wash our faces. Are we the hypocrites Jesus warns about?
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