Sacharja 9:9-12, Mark 11:1-11, Markieren 14:1-9

What a beautiful thing this woman did!  The text doesn’t tell us why she anointed Jesus, but we can assume that she had been moved by his ministry.  Perhaps it was his care and concern for those in need—exemplified by his presence that day in the house of Simon [...]

Genesis 17 – Our Amazing and Surprising God!

Liebe Freunde:

God calls, and God promises.  When Jesus began his ministry, one of the first things he did was to call people to follow him.  The Gospels record a number of those “call” stories.  Jesus called Philip and Nathaniel.  He called the fishermen—Peter and Andrew, Jakob [...]

Isaiah 40:21-31

Gnade, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus.  Amen.  Dear friends in Christ:

The Gospel lesson we just read begins with Jesus performing acts of physical healing.  Those of us who’ve read the Gospels know that many more healings will follow.  But [...]

Matthew 2:1-12

Gnade, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus.  Amen.  Dear friends in Christ:

When Jesus was born, the message of his birth was first announced to shepherds.  We heard about it on Christmas Eve.  The announcement was given by angels, who appeared [...]

John 8:31-36

Liebe Freunde in Christus, today is a very special day.  On this day, people throughout the world are observing the 500th anniversary of the beginning of a great movement that changed the world.  500 Jahren, a little-known Augustinian monk named Martin Luther, serving in a little-known town in Germany named Wittenberg, posted [...]

Pfingsten 3, Matthew 10:21-33

Today’s Gospel reading is the second of three consecutive readings from Matthew chapter 10.  This chapter is an extended teaching from Jesus on the subject of mission.  It starts with specific instructions to the Twelve as they head out on a time of training, but then adds statements which probably come [...]

The women who saw the empty tomb on that first Easter morning ran away from it with fear and great joy (Matthew 28:8).  I’ve always been struck by that description.  Fear and great joy—those are two emotions that don’t often go together.  But as I thought about it, I realized that I had experienced that [...]

Today’s Gospel reading is another of the long conversations, as recorded in John’s Gospel, between Jesus and a person he met during his days of ministry.  In chapter three Jesus spoke to Nicodemus, a ruler of the people, who came to him by night.  In chapter four Jesus spoke to a Samaritan woman whom he [...]

Lenten Theme: The Art of Living by Faith

Text:  Romans 4:13-25

“You are dust, and to dust you shall return.”  When the church says this to our face, while applying ashes to our face, it is reminding us, in the starkest and most direct of manners, that we are mortal.  Ash Wednesday symbolically slaps us [...]