The Three Cs

This was the first sermon I preached to an actual congregation ... in that case, Ascension Lutheran Church in Fort Wayne, Indiana, in March 2016. 2 Corinthians 5:16-21 You’ve gotta love firsts. We cherish the first day of school, first communion, and our first anniversary. We love first place, our first paychecks, our first cars, our first houses, the first man on the moon. And if you are like me, some of you will remember the first time you went to church and how hearing the Gospel for the first time became so life-changing. Now, I’m not sure why I chose this for my first sermon. There is a concept in our epistle reading that is so big, that has so many syllables, I spent nearly my first week of preparation merely trying to wrap my head around it. I’m talking about the ministry of reconciliation. THAT is a mouthful of syllables. But to say it simply, the ministry of reconciliation is this: God followed through on HIS first priority: restoring creation and his relationship with us, thr...

This is the first sermon I wrote. Only two people heard it, my best friend who recorded it, and my homiletics professor, who listened to that recording. I ultimately revamped this sermon, significantly, for my first congregation. Text: 1 Peter 2:9-10 Hello! My name is Jerry, and I’m recovering from an identity crisis. For a half century now, people have been calling me Jerry. But that’s not my name. William Gerald Smith Junior. That’s me. By the way, that’s Gerald with a G. I’m Jerry with a J. Mom and Dad had planned to name me Michael. But surprise! I was born on Dad’s birthday. So they appropriately stuck me with the Junior tag. They couldn’t call me Bill, because that’s what everyone called Dad. But I did go by Bill for three years in high school. I suppose they could have called me Will, but, as it turns out, that’s what everyone outside the family calls my son. We call him Aaron though. Some people here call me William. Mysteriously, I have even been called Steve. So why Je...

There may not be a more precise expression of faith than Article X of the Augsburg Confession. In the Latin text, with just 33 words, the confessors present a profoundly clear explanation of one of the most important articles of the catholic faith: that “the body and the blood of Christ are truly present and are distributed to those who eat the Lord’s Supper.” The translation of the German text of the same article expands the confession slightly, declaring that the body and blood are “true” and “under the form of bread and wine.” Given what Scripture says about the Lord’s Supper, the confessors could not have explained it in a better way. There are four accounts of the Supper in Scripture — Mt 26:26-28, Mk 14:22-24, Lk 22:19-20, and 1 Cor 11:23-25. If not for more detail provided by Luke and Paul about what the cup is, those passages would be almost exactly the same. Paul expressed it with the most detail: “For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus ...

There is no Biblical writer who emphasizes the importance of prayer more than St. Luke. In his gospel, we encounter Jesus either praying or on his way to pray at least ten times (3:21; 5:16; 6:12; 9:18,28,29; 11:1; and 22:11,32,39,41,44), and we hear him encouraging prayer at least seventeen more times. In contrast, Matthew and Mark use the word “pray” just 31 times — combined. And interestly, although John records the longest, most detailed and most magnificent prayer in Scripture, the high priestly prayer of chapter 17, he uses the word pray only twice, both of which appear in 17:9. Luke will continue his prayerful theme throughout the book of Acts, where it comes up another 31 times. In contrast, Paul, despite his call for us to pray unceasingly, wrote about prayer just 37 times. Mary and Zechariah get credit for the most beautiful prayers in Luke’s gospel, but no prayer by Jesus is either more intense than the one recorded in Luke 22:39-46. Modeling what he taught us during the Se...

Behold, the glory of the Lord shone around them! It is hard to look past it in the Gospel of Luke because δόξα is at every turn: at the birth of Jesus, during his transfiguration, and in his resurrection. The shepherds saw it when the Angel of the Lord appeared to them (2:9). The heavenly host heralded it (2:14); Zechariah finally proclaimed it (2:32); the Father and Holy Spirit showered him with it in the river (3:22); Jesus, Moses, and Elijah appeared in it (9:31,32); and the disciples rejoiced in it (19:38), all before the Christ reached his final glory (24:26). The common denominator in all these events is Christ’s humility before them. The pericope on the transfiguration of the Lord is in itself about much more than glory, but, behold, you can’t look past it. The transfiguration is quite literally a watershed moment in Luke’s Gospel. Jesus has taken his three chosen witnesses up the mountain so that the Father can unveil in no uncertain terms just who the Chosen One is. The d...