Psalm 51:1-4 1 Have mercy upon me, O God, According to Your lovingkindness; According to the multitude of Your tender mercies, Blot out my transgressions. 2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, And cleanse me from my sin. 3 For I acknowledge my transgressions, And my sin is always before me. 4 Against You, You…
Matthew 4:1-4 St. Matthew tells us in today’s Gospel that, after his baptism, “Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.” If the Son of God was tempted by the devil, then it should not surprise us that the devil is more than willing to tempt everyone…
Matthew 27:11-66 A friend of mine who is a retired Lutheran pastor once told a story about a conversation he had many years ago with his college roommate, who was not a Christian. In casual conversation, the roommate said, “I’ll be damned.” And my friend then said, “Yes, you probably will be.” The roommate got…
Lent 4 – Mark 6:32-44 Please listen with me to a reading from the sixth chapter of the Gospel according to St. Mark, beginning at the 32nd verse. This is a parallel text to today’s appointed Gospel from St. John. And [Jesus and his disciples] went away in the boat to a desolate place by…
There is no video for this sermon. Lent 3 – Mark 3:20-35 Please listen with me to a reading from the third chapter of St. Mark’s Gospel, beginning at the 20th verse. This is a parallel text to today’s appointed Gospel from St. Luke. Then [Jesus] went home, and the crowd gathered again, so that…
Video has no sound 📢 Romans 5:1-11 We’re all probably familiar with the well-known Groucho Marx gag, where Groucho is a doctor, and a patient comes to him and says, “Doctor, it hurts when I do this.” The doctor replies, “Then don’t do that.” This is funny as slapstick humor. But we wouldn’t think that…
Genesis 3:1-21 “Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, ‘Where are you?’” Through the Prophet Isaiah, as God there addresses Israel and the human race, he describes himself in this way: “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are…
Genesis 22:1-18 Think about someone right now whom you would consider a friend. You are more than likely thinking about someone with whom you have some significant shared experiences, or whose life experiences are similar to yours. The closest friends we have tend to be people like this. Those common experiences serves as a bonding…
John 6:26-69 After the miraculous feeding of the multitude, which today’s Gospel reading from St. John recounts, Jesus and his disciples left the place where this had happened and went to Capernaum. The next day, when the people had figured out where Jesus had gone, they followed him. It would seem that they wanted an…
Ephesians 4:17–5:9 Our text is from St. Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians, including today’s second lesson, but also including several verses that immediately precede that section of the epistle. And so we read, beginning with verse 17 of the fourth chapter of Ephesians: This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer…