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“Good News Comes in Strange Packages” (Luke 1:26-38)How’d you like to have a really scary guy come up to you unexpectedly and tell you: “Hey, I’ve got good news for you! You’re about to have a life-changing experience that will cause the person closest to you to think you have betrayed him, an experience that will make you into something of a social outcast and that will rearrange your whole life and plans from anything you expected. Yeah, this is some really good news I have for you!” How would you feel, and what would you say to such a...

“Blameless at the Coming of Our Lord” (1 Thessalonians 5:16-24)In this three-part Advent series, we have been looking at, and looking forward to, the coming of our Lord. And by that, I mean his Second Coming, the Last Day, the day when our Lord Jesus Christ returns on clouds of glory to render judgment on the earth. Accordingly, we have been speaking of the need to be “Awake until, Waiting for, and Blameless at the Coming of our Lord.” This has been our series theme. We began two weeks ago by hearing Jesus’ parable from Mark 13, about the servants...

“The Messiah’s Job Description” (Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11)As we just heard in the Gospel reading and sang in the hymn, St. John the Baptist came, proclaiming the arrival of the Savior and preparing the way before him. In doing this, John fulfilled the job description set forth for him in the prophet Isaiah, chapter 40, as John himself says, “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’ as the prophet Isaiah said.” John came to proclaim the coming of the one coming after him. But what about that one coming after...

“Waiting for the Coming of Our Lord” (2 Peter 3:8-14)Today we continue our three-part series, “Awake until, Waiting for, and Blameless at the Coming of Our Lord.” Last week we spoke of the need to stay awake until his coming again. Our focus now is on “Waiting for the Coming of Our Lord,” based on the text from 2 Peter 3. In this section of his epistle, Peter is talking about the Second Coming of Christ. At the time that Peter is writing this, it’s been several decades since Christ ascended into heaven, and Peter himself had heard the promise...

“A Trip out to the Wilderness” (Mark 1:1-8; Isaiah 40:1-11)Today and throughout the season of Advent, the church takes “A Trip out to the Wilderness.” We go out there and we meet John the Baptist, our wilderness guide. What John is doing out there is leading God’s people in two things, penitential preparation and hopeful expectation, as we await the coming of the Lord. Penitential preparation, hopeful expectation--these are the distinctive accents of Advent that we will hear in our trip out to the wilderness today. God does some of his best work out in the wilderness. In that desolate...

“Awake until the Coming of Our Lord” (Mark 13:24-37)It is customary for midweek services in Advent or Lent for the preacher to come up with a theme, some connecting thread that ties together the services and sermons for that season. Last year, for instance, our Advent series, for both the Sundays and Wednesdays, was on the seven “O Antiphons” of the hymn, “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.” It made for a nifty, handy-dandy series theme. But this year for Advent, I wasn’t sure what to do with these midweek services, what sort of a theme to come up with. Then...

“Advent Is Worth the Wait” (Isaiah 64:1-9; 1 Corinthians 1:3-9; Mark 11:1-10)We don’t like to wait, do we? I mean, we Americans. And especially when it comes to Christmas. Wait till the night of December 24 to start celebrating Christmas? No way! So the Christmas catalogues started coming--when, the day after Labor Day? Then came the Christmas movies: “A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas” came out November 4. The Christmas radio stations: “Santa Baby” was “Rockin’ around the Christmas Tree” already a couple of weeks ago. And the TV specials: “Christmas in Rockefeller Center” is this Tuesday. Apparently, Rockefeller...

“Unexpected Thanksgiving” (Luke 17:11-19)It was an unexpected thanksgiving. I mean the thanksgiving recorded in today’s reading from Luke 17, the story of Jesus healing the ten lepers. The thanksgiving that we find there was quite unexpected. And that may give us some guidance and inspiration for the rest of our day today, that we too may do some “Unexpected Thanksgiving.” Oh, now you would expect people to give thanks to the person who healed them, when they had just been healed of a dreaded disease like leprosy. It was a kind of a walking death, in a way. It ostracized...

“Then Comes the End” (1 Corinthians 15:20-28; Matthew 25:31-46)Today is the Last Sunday of the Church Year. The church year mirrors the life of Christ and the course of history, and so, naturally enough, as we come to the end of the church year, the lessons and themes of the last few Sundays concern the last things, the end times, and the return of Christ the King. So it is today. The Propers of the Day, the Introit, Collect, and Gradual; the Readings, the Old Testament, Epistle, and Holy Gospel; the hymns, “The Clouds of Judgment Gather” and the rest--all...

“But What Kind of Day Will It Be?” (1 Thessalonians 5:1-11)Perhaps you’ve heard of a radio preacher named Harold Camping. He was in the news, this Harold Camping was, earlier this year, when he made a prediction of when Christ would return. He even got it down to the day. After doing all his calculations, Harold Camping predicted that May 21 would be the day of Jesus’ return. Well, May 21 came and went, and Harold and his followers were not all beamed up in the Rapture. So then he revised his prediction. May 21, you see, was the spiritual...

“Blessed Are the Hungry and Thirsty” (Matthew 5:1-12)Are you hungry? Are you thirsty? Yes? Good. That’s a good place to be. Blessed, in fact. That’s what Jesus says in our Gospel for today: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.” And so our theme this morning: “Blessed Are the Hungry and Thirsty.” Now it may sound strange to hear Jesus say that the hungry and thirsty are actually “blessed.” It doesn’t sound like any kind of a blessing to be suffering from hunger or thirst. But strangely enough it is. Because Jesus says...

“Fear God and Give Him the Glory!”: The Slogan of the Lutheran Church ReformationReformation Festival Sermon on Revelation 14:6-7 by C. F. W. Walther (1881) Translated by Joel Baseley. Abridged by Charles Henrickson.“Holy, holy, holy, Lord of Sabaoth, all the earth is full of your glory.” This we cry out today, O Lord our God, along with the cherubim and seraphim. For today we remember the glorious work of the Reformation of the church, which you began and gloriously brought to completion in the sixteenth century. Your glory had been taken from the very midst of your church, the glory...

“A Faith Worth Imitating: C. F. W. Walther” (Hebrews 13:7)Reading from Hebrews 13: 7: “Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith.” This is our text. Fifty years ago, “Walther” was a household name in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. After all, the synodical youth group was called the Walther League. Today, however, the league is long gone, and for many so is the man for whom it was named, Carl Ferdinand Wilhelm Walther. In fact, there are probably some here today who are wondering...

“Your Work of Faith and Labor of Love and Steadfastness of Hope” (1 Thessalonians 1:1-10)Pastor Henrickson, to the church of the Bonne Terrians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace. And as long as I’m imitating the opening of Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians, I’ll continue by saying to you what he said to them: “We give thanks to God always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers, remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus...

In yet another stunning attack on freedom of religion, President Barack Obama's Justice Department asked the Supreme Court last week to give the federal government the power to tell a church who its ministers will be. The case involves a former teacher at Lutheran school, who along with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is pushing a claim that a Lutheran congregation should be forced to restore her ministry position. Americans United for Separation of Church and State and American Atheists, Inc. have filed briefs siding with the Obama administration against the church. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Church...

“The Battle for the Mind” (Philippians 4:4-13)There’s a battle going on, a fierce battle, although the battlefield is relatively small. It’s only about six inches wide, that battleground. It’s the space between your ears. Yes, your mind, a Christian’s mind, is the place where the warfare is waging, and you are not exempt. There are various forces at work, seeking to take control of your mind, whether you like it or not. The devil, the world, and your own sinful flesh are conspiring to take your mind captive. Will you let them? Are you going to surrender those six inches...

“Counting Your Gain as Loss” (Philippians 3:4b-14)I was trying to think the other day of something where, if you gained, it was actually a loss. What would it be? You have a gain, but really it should be counted as a loss. The first thing that comes to mind is if you’re trying to lose weight. You step on the scale, you see that you’ve gained three pounds--well, you would probably think of that as a loss. You had lost ground in reaching your goal. That’s an example of counting your gain as loss. But there’s another area in which...

“Have This Mind among Yourselves” (Philippians 2:1-18)In last week’s Epistle reading, from Philippians 1, St. Paul told the church at Philippi that he wants to hear they are “standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel, and not frightened in anything by (their) opponents.” Standing firm in one spirit, striving with one mind for the defense and advance of the gospel, unafraid. And we emphasized that this matter of having one spirit, having one mind--that this transforming of our mind comes about as we dwell upon the Word of God...

“Standing Firm in One Spirit” (Philippians 1:12-14, 19-30)Today we are observing what we call “St. Matthew’s Sunday.” Our congregation is named in honor of St. Matthew, the great apostle and evangelist, and his festival comes up on the church year calendar this week. So we’ve taken to using one of the Sundays closest to St. Matthew’s Day, September 21, as a time to call special attention to the life and ministry of our congregation. We thank God for this little church we have here in Bonne Terre. It is an outpost of the gospel where can come and be refreshed...

“Sour Grapes in the Vineyard” (Matthew 20:1-16)When someone expresses negativity about a situation after the fact, only after they’ve been disappointed about the outcome--we call that kind of a reaction “sour grapes.” A candidate loses an election, and then afterward he says some nasty stuff about those dumb voters who chose the other guy. That’s “sour grapes.” A man loses out on a job, and then he speaks behind the back of the employer he was just flattering to his face. Again, sour grapes. It’s not a very becoming or noble characteristic, this sour-grapes attitude after a disappointment. But it...