We do not often think of a funeral as the best time for reflection on the Small Catechism. However, when I conducted my first funeral as a young pastor, I was struck by just how appropriate Luther’s explanation to the Seventh Petition of the Lord’s Prayer was for just such an occasion. I not only incorporated it into my first funeral sermon but also led the congregation in a recitation of it then and at every subsequent funeral service.
Christian love is defined by Christ and follows His example as confessed in 1 Corinthians 13. Christian love lives entirely for someone else.
Thoughts from the midst of the virus by Derek Lecakes. Life has changed.
Five common objections to Jesus’ resurrection and suggestions for countering them with simple explanations.
Christ’s death paid the price for your sins so that even though you “patiently await” physical death, you wait with the hope of the resurrection.
Listening to sermons on Sunday morning often requires wrestling with my sinful flesh to focus on what the pastor is preaching. It’s not easy; it takes work.
As dark days become brighter, Epiphany delivers us the Jesus who Himself is the Light of the World.
What exactly is the “priesthood of all believers”? And what does it mean for us?
Christmas and Advent are also about Christ’s coming in Word and Sacrament today, and about living in eager, joyful anticipation of His second coming.
Let us join the Holy Family and shepherds and angels in focusing our gaze on the babe in the crib, on the greatest Gift of God, born to bear all our sins and give us eternal life.
The atoning death of Christ is the fount of Christian thanksgiving.
Who could think of Lutherans without thinking of a people possessed of an unflagging, unabating, almost obsessive desire to sit in the back of the church during worship?