Pre-Lent

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In the Name of the Father and of the ✠ Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Having heard that it is by God’s grace alone coming to you in His Word alone that you are saved, what is the means by which you know that such great things are being applied to you unto salvation? How do you know that you have received God’s grace and word with a noble and good heart and are thus counted as righteous before God? It is by faith alone in Christ alone. Faith is never alone. Yes, good works flow from it, as we remember that thereRead More →

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In the Name of the Father and of the ✠ Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. How we worship God reveals what we believe about Him and His Holy Word. It reveals what we believe about His seed that He faithfully and graciously scatters among us. If we gather around Him and His holy things with performance-focused gesture indecipherable from rock concerts, then we are revealing that we worship entertainment more than God; that in order to grab our attention and keep it, something, even God, must entertain us. Flipping TV channels and scrolling social media has only further turned us in on ourselvesRead More →

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In the Name of the Father and of the ✠ Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. In the Divine Service, we make use of ordinaries and propers, words given to describe the parts of the liturgy by which we are blessed every time we gather. Ordinaries are all the parts that ordinarily show up in their exact same form, week-in and week-out. The Preparation, The Kyrie, The Gloria in Excelsis, The Nicene Creed, The Offertory, The Lord’s Prayer, andThe Words of Institution are all examples of ordinaries. They occur in every Divine Service in the exact same form. The propers, on the other hand,Read More →

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✠ Psalmody: Psalm 31:2b–3; 1; Psalm 77:14–15; Psalm 100:1–3; Psalm 119:12–13; Psalm 78:29–30a ✠ Lection: 1 Samuel 16:1–13;1 Corinthians 13:1–13; Luke 18:31–43 In the Name of the Father and of the ✠ Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man will be accomplished. For He will be delivered to the Gentiles and will be mocked and insulted and spit upon. They will scourge Him and kill Him. And the third day He will rise again.” As the Christ first said these words to His disciples, so tooRead More →

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✠ Psalmody: Psalm 44:23-24a, 25b-26a, 44:1a; Psalm 83:18, 13; Psalm 60:2, 4b, 5a; Psalm 17:5, 6b–7a; Psalm 43:4a ✠ Lection: Isaiah 55:10–13;2 Corinthians 11:19—12:9;Luke 8:4–15 In the Name of the Father and of the ✠ Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. As Christians, and especially as Lutherans, we should be familiar with the idea of Sola Scriptura, a Latin phrase translated as Scripture Alone. We measure all things seen and unseen by Scripture alone, by God’s Word alone, for it alone is His special revelation that endures forever. In our faithful confessional documents collected in the Book of Concord, the Reformers boldly state “We believe, teach,Read More →

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✠ Psalmody: Psalm 18:4a, 5a, 6a, c, 18:1-2a; Psalm 9:9b–10, 18–19a; Psalm 130:1–4; Psalm 92:1; Psalm 31:16–17a ✠ Lection: Daniel 9:2-10; 1 Corinthians 9:24—10:4; Matthew 20:1–16 In the Name of the Father and of the ✠ Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. So, the last will be first, and the first last. With these words, the dear Lord Jesus calls us to judge wisely and correctly, to make necessary distinction between truth and lie, between labor and idleness, between good and evil, between how God sees us and how we see Him. Such distinctions are necessary in this life, for the need to cultivate and laborRead More →