κήρυξον τὸν λόγον

What do you see? What do you hear? These are the questions of the day on this Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity. What do you see? And what do you hear?  Before we get ahead of ourselves by jumping to conclusions and declaring you can see and hear just fine ... you need to know ... not everybody sees what you see or hears what you hear. Every week your pastor gives three sermons: the one I write, the one I preach, and the one you hear. And each of you might be hearing a different sermon than the person next to you. More than that, some of you may be seeing one thing and others may be seeing something completely different. And some of us will just fall asleep not seeing or hearing anything at all.  As Jesus tells the disciples ... For I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to witness what y’all see and they didn’t witness it, and to hear what y’all hear and they didn’t hear it (v. 23-24). That is to say they longed to see Jesus, living, dying, rising, ascending. They long...

Preached to the saints of Mount Olive Lutheran Church, Bovey, MN and Grace English Lutheran Church, Marble, MN on August 22, 2021. Taking him from the crowd to himself, Jesus put his fingers into his ears and after spitting He touched his tongue. And looking up into heaven, he groaned and says to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “be opened.” And immediately his hearing was opened and the restraint of his tongue was released and he began speaking rightly. Silence - Although we sometimes ask for silence, it’s quite unnerving. Think of this man from our Gospel reading. Unable to hear and speak properly, he lived under a terrible curse of silence due to the sinful nature of all humanity. Imagine living in this silence. On the one hand, we would finally have peace. We wouldn’t be bombarded with all the anger that floods the airwaves. We wouldn’t have to hear constant complaining, bickering, and arguing about restrictions, regulations, and recommendations. We wouldn’t hear the hateful words from o...

Our Lord says, Listen, my people, and I will speak (v.7). Discern this, please, those of you who forget God (v.22).  I will come, and I will not be quiet (v.3). I know this is hard to believe because sometimes ... it seems ... he’s been silent for so long. But God will break his silence.  Too often we wonder, where is he? Is he even listening? If he is with me, is his silence golden? Does it mean that I’m A-Okay, that I’m right with God ... that he won’t address my sins of omission ... you know, the things I was silent about? If you’re like me ... you need to listen up, O Israel.  You need to hear this word of the day: God will break his silence ... and then ... YOU WILL HEAR AND SEE HIS SALVATION This is the theme of our Psalm for today.  Unlike last week when we heard Psalm 92, a song for the Sabbath ... or two weeks ago, when we broke our silence concerning our sin and opened our lips with Psalm 51 to thank him for his absolution ... it’s not really clear how a...

It is good to give thanks to Yahweh, to sing praises to your name, O Most High, to confess your steadfast love in the morning, and your faithfulness in the night, on the tenth and on a lute, upon the meditation with a lyre, because you, Yahweh, make me glad with your work. In the deeds of your hands, I sing a ringing cry of joy (vv. 1-4). For many of us here at Trinity, worship is not just part of our lives, it is our pacemaker. It keeps our heart in the rhythm with the Lord. We know it is good to give thanks to the Lord. We desire this time with our Lord. We long for his Divine Service to us to receive his gifts ... through the proclamation of his Gospel that he has reconciled himself to us on account of the life and death of Christ, whose blood has atoned for all our sins for all time..  This is why it is good to give thanks to the Lord (v.1) .  So we do ... as we celebrate in his means of grace ... as he leads us back to his baptism that now saves us (1 Pt 3:21), as he anno...

[Lord,] Return for me the joy of your salvation (v. 12). Today we are going to do something different. Today for our sermon meditation, we’re gonna return to the beginning, return to your confession. I almost always prefer preaching on one of the lectionary readings to continue our journey to the conclusion: absolution. But today (as always), God has given us a divine gift in our Introit ... our entrance into His service ... that we’ve probably forgotten about ... a return to the joy of our salvation ... his absolution. Do you remember that joy?  Did you already lose it? Too often we Lutherans forget it and lose it ... if we were listening at all. Then too many of us mourn our lot throughout the rest of the Divine Service. It is so easy for us to stop at Confession.  To begin with, too many of us think that confession is too Catholic, or something ... as if we aren’t catholic in the truest sense, catholics who confess their sins ... and in faith receive absolution. So we shy...