Services:  10:15AM
Holy Communion Each Sunday
 
 
 
 
 
 

FIRST SUNDAY IN ADVENT
(November 30, 2025)

 

 

Old Testament Reading                                  Isaiah 2:1-5

Epistle Reading                                       Romans 13:8-14

Gospel Reading                                      Matthew 21:1-12

 

The Lord Comes in Meekness and Humility

to Save Us Now

 

The Lord Jesus enters Jerusalem “humble, and mounted on a donkey,” riding on “a beast of burden” (Matt. 21:5), as He Himself bears the sins of the world in His body. Now He comes by the ministry of the Gospel to save us from sin, death, the devil and hell. Therefore, we sing, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” (Matt. 21:9). For we are called “to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob,” His Holy Church, “that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths” (Is. 2:3). By His Word, we “walk in the light of the Lord” (Is. 2:5). That is to live in love, which “does no wrong to a neighbor” (Rom. 13:10). We “cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light,” for “salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed” (Rom. 13:11, 12). Hence, the entire Christian life is a time to wake and watch, “for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming” (Matt. 24:42).
 
Sermon: He Comes As He Has Promised: Part 1
Sermon: He Comes As He Has Promised: Part 2
 

DAY OF THANKSGIVING

(27 November 2025)

 

Old Testament Reading                         Deuteronomy 8:1-10

Epistle Reading                                       Philippians 4:6-20

Gospel Reading                                            Luke 17:11-19

 

 

 

We Praise God for Sustaining Life in and through His Word

 

The nation resounds with thanksgiving for the earth’s bountiful harvest, crops of wheat and grains, all beneath the canopy of God’s almighty care. But “man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord” (Deut. 8:3). The Church is the vessel through which the Word of God penetrates the world with its Law and Gospel. It is this divine Word that proclaims Jesus as the sole source of life, health and wholeness. It is Jesus who heals lepers with His Word: “Go and show yourselves to the priests” (Luke 17:14). Of the 10 cleansed, only one expresses thanksgiving to Jesus. But true gratitude proceeds from a heart sustained by faith. Jesus bids this one Samaritan to “rise and go your way; your faith has made you well” (Luke 17:19). So also, we are sent from the Divine Service, bolstered in our faith by baptismal and Eucharist blessing to be thankful in our circumstances of plenty and hunger, abundance and need (Phil. 4:6–20).

 
Sermon: From the Compassionate Heart