Posted by dwhetter |
Last week we heard John’s version of how Jesus began to call his disciples and now today we hear Mark’s version of the same story. Now, before I go any further, I want to answer the burning question that most likely many of you are wondering and that at least one of you will most likely ask me at the end of the service. The answer I have is “yes!”. The question is “Pastor, is…
Posted by dwhetter |
Today we are back in John‘s Gospel and in this Gospel John first tells us that Jesus is the living Word of God, then he quickly begins to explain to us how Jesus began to call his disciples. According to this Gospel, John says to some of his own disciples when they see Jesus walking by, “he’s the one” and immediately a couple of them begin to literally follow Jesus. When Jesus sees…
Posted by dwhetter |
As I read our Gospel text today, you might have been thinking, haven’t we just read this story? Well, we did read the first five verses back on the second Sunday in Advent and today we hear it again as we add to it the story of Jesus’ baptism. So let’s take a look at what is happening.
Mark begins his Gospel with John in the wilderness and he says, “John the baptizer appeared…
Posted by dwhetter |
“In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. All went to their own towns to be registered. Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem…” (Luke 2:1-3).
When we think of the Christmas story…
Posted by dwhetter |
As I mentioned last week, we call this new church year, Year B, or the year of Mark, and today, on this second Sunday in the Season of Advent we start at the very first verse of Mark’s gospel. Upon reading it we learn exactly what we are about to read, "The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” (Mark 1:1). My guess is that Mark thought he was just writing a biography.…
Posted by dwhetter |
Happy New Year! Oh, I know it's only December 3 and that there are 28 more days in 2017, but today we begin a new year in the church with the Season of Advent. To be technical we call it Year B, which means that the majority of our Gospel readings will be from the Gospel of Mark this year. But more importantly than focusing on the Gospel, it means that once again we go back to begin a new…
Posted by dwhetter |
Today is the final Sunday of the church year and as we bring the year to a close we celebrate Christ the King Sunday. This festival day was actually first created as a church festival day in 1925 by Pope Pius XI. Pope Pius instituted this celebration as a way of combating the secularism that was growing. It was a way of reminding the faithful that their real king was not some human government…
Posted by dwhetter |
In case you haven’t noticed, this time of year the days are getting shorter and darker and Mathew’s texts that we have been reading have been are getting darker, too. Jesus’ parable of the talents that we just read doesn’t exactly give us a warm and fuzzy feeling, does it? I mean it ends with that great command, “As for this worthless slave, throw him into the outer darkness, where…
Posted by dwhetter |
“Blessed are the poor in spirit… blessed are those who mourn…” Most of us know these words well. We call this passage the Beatitudes, and they are words attributed to Jesus as he gave his Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew. But to be honest, I often struggle with them because I don’t see how one who is mourning, for example, feels blessed.
The word we translate here…
Posted by dwhetter |
Today is Reformation Sunday, and aside from being the day we celebrate the Affirmation of Baptism, or Confirmation as we so often call it, for seven of our young adults, it is also a very special historical moment not just for Lutherans, but I would argue for all Christians, throughout the world. This year, we commemorate the 500th anniversary of Luther’s October 31, 1517 posting of the…