SERMONS

LCMS Lectionary Summary B
 
Sunday – Divine Services:  10: 15AM
Holy Communion Each Sunday
 
Lent Theme:  The Hand Of The LORD ..
 
 
 
 
Palm Sunday/Sunday of the Passion
13 April 2025
 
Deuteronomy 32:36-39
Philippians 2:5-11
John 12:20-43

The Cross and Passion of Our LORD Are the Hour of His Glory
 
The King of Israel comes into His royal glory by the path of humble obedience “to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Phil. 2:8). He “goes as it has been determined” (Luke 22:22), according to the Scriptures, willingly submitting to His Father’s plan for the salvation of sinners. “Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name” (Phil. 2:9). His suffering and death open the way of repentance for the forgiveness of sins because He goes to the cross bearing the sins of the world. In His resurrection, God the Father vindicates His people and has compassion on His servants (Deut. 32:36). He kills to make alive; He wounds in order to heal. In remembrance of Him, we praise God, confessing “that Jesus Christ is LORD, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:11).
 
 
 
Lent Midweek 5
9 April 2025
 
“AS WE GATHER”
 
To the faithless, unrepentant world, taken together with the climax of the events of Holy Week, it appears that, after all, Jesus ends up only a disappointment, dead and gone! To the eyes of faith, however, all His deeds, including His suffering and death, describe the most powerful and mighty act of God, by which He redeems and saves the world and us! The Christian liturgy preserves certain words in their original language to express their full meaning. For instance, we do not end prayers saying, “Yes, yes, it shall be so,” but the original “Amen.” Likewise, every Sunday we sing the Sanctus, “Holy, Holy, Holy LORD God of Sabaoth.” Tsebaot in Hebrew means “hosts” or “armies.” “LORD God of hosts” is a way of saying God is over all—all powerful. So also, Greek art depicts the risen, ascended, and reigning LORD Jesus as Pantokrator, “the Almighty!” The church has always claimed that, before and after all, Jesus Christ indeed holds all things. By faith in Jesus, we know that we are forgiven, renewed, redeemed, and destined for eternal glory.
 
 
The Fifth Sunday in Lent
6 April 2025
 
Isaiah 43:16–21
Philippians 3:(4b–7) 8–14
Luke 20:9–20
God’s Beloved Son Has Redeemed Us
 
Our life and works apart from Christ, no matter how they may glitter to the eyes of the world, are ultimately rubbish and have no righteousness. Rather, in the scandalous cross of Jesus, we find our righteousness alone “through faith in Christ” (Phil. 3:9). By such faith, we “know him and the power of his resurrection” (Phil. 3:10). For the same God who brought Israel out of Egypt has done a “new thing” for us in Christ Jesus (Is. 43:19). He has sent His beloved Son into His vineyard to be killed by sinful men and to become “the stone that the builders rejected.” Yet, the One rejected by men “has become the cornerstone” of His Church (Luke 20:17). Through the waters of Holy Baptism, He provides us daily refreshment in our earthly pilgrimage, “a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert” (Is. 43:19).
 
 
 
 
Lent Midweek 4
2 April 2025
“AS WE GATHER”
 

Lent is about repentance of sin and faith in God’s forgiveness. When we confess our sins, we normally think about the wrongs we have committed, whether in thoughts, words, or deeds, as well as the good things we have failed to do. But sin is no simple or temporary issue. Sin is a matter of life and death; as we were reminded on Ash Wednesday, “remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” The ultimate punishment for sin is death. God’s ultimate salvation is, as we confess in the Nicene Creed, “the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.” Already in the Old Testament, the hand of the Lord raised individuals who had died, as at the hands of the prophets Elijah and Elisha. Everyone believed that the Messiah, the Savior, would raise the dead when He came. Today we hear of one such incident: Jesus raising the widow’s son in Nain (Luke 7). When Jesus raised His friend Lazarus from the tomb, it could no longer be denied who Jesus is. Jesus finally proved that He is, as He said, “the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25) by His own resurrection. In the resurrection, God has turned death from enemy into the remedy in our deliverance from sin. The risen, ascended, and reigning Lord promises to raise us daily in repentance and faith, and on the Last Day, free us from sin in eternal life in our human bodies. “For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last He will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another” (Job 19:25–27).

 
 
The Fourth Sunday in Lent
30 March 2025
 

Isaiah 12:1-6

2 Corinthians 5:16–21

Luke 15:1-3;11-32

 
Jesus Christ Has Reconciled Us to the Father
 

 

God the Father has opened His heart to us in love. While we were “still a long way off,” He saw us and “felt compassion” (Luke 15:20). Therefore, He gave His only begotten Son for us, making “him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21). By the ministry of reconciliation, He runs to us, embraces us in mercy and clothes us with His glory as beloved sons in Christ Jesus. And so we give thanks unto the LORD our God, who has taken away our ins and turned His anger from us (Is. 12:1). Because He has become our salvation, our strength and our song, we “will trust, and will not be afraid” (Is. 12:2).
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Lent Midweek 3
26 March 2025
 
“AS WE GATHER”
 
Quarantine is a term for isolating people suspected of carrying some infectious or contagious disease.
 In Latin, the term literally refers to “forty days.” The forty-day season of Lent serves as a sort of quarantine for sinners, a time when the medicine of repentance and faith in God’s Word brings healing and deliverance from sin, sickness, and death—whatever causes a person to be rejected, abandoned, or shunned by others, or even by God. The hand of the Lord is the reaching, touching, healing hand of the Son of God, Christ, the mighty Savior, that touches you, bringing healing and reconciliation with God and His people.
 
 
 
 
 
 
The Third Sunday in Lent
23 March 2025
 

Ezekiel 33:7–20

1 Corinthians 10:1–13

Luke 13:1–9

Jesus Calls You to Repentance

 

“Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish” (Luke 13:3, 5). By this warning, the Lord would turn us away from wickedness and bring us to life in Himself. For He is patient with us, that we would not be cut down in our sin but live and bear fruit in Him. As He lives, the Lord has “no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live” (Ezek. 33:11). So the Scriptures have been “written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come” (1 Cor. 10:11), that we should not desire evil but trust in Christ. He alone is faithful, the Rock who feeds us with His “spiritual food” and pours out His “spiritual drink” (1 Cor. 10:3–4).

 
 
 
Lent Midweek 2
19 March 2025
 

“AS WE GATHER”

In repentance we are compelled to take sin seriously. All people have inherited sin; it is the cause of our fallen condition. Human nature was created perfect, sinless, and at one with our Creator. “I’m only human” does not explain or excuse sin. When we seek where this deadly infection originated, we are directed by God’s Word to the reality of the fallen angel Satan and his minions. Satan is real. Temptation is real. Demonic activity is rampant and powerful. True repentance and faith require us first to admit that we are powerless on our own to defeat the devil. His grasp is too much for us. Faith then looks to our Lord, who took sin and Satan seriously for us. By the bloody battle He waged on the cross, He has defeated the old evil foe for us. With His victory at hand, given to us by the hand of His ministers in Holy Baptism, Holy Absolution, and Holy Communion, our hands are empowered now to wield the instrument of prayer. In that victory, we have the sure deliverance and salvation of the Crucified One, now risen and ascended and ruling for us from the right hand of the Father.
 
 
 
 
 

SECOND SUNDAY IN LENT

(16 March 2026)

 

Jeremiah 26:8–15

Philippians 3:17–4:1

Luke 13:31–35

 

Jesus Rescues Us from Death and Brings Us into Heaven

 

The prophet Jeremiah faithfully preached “all that the Lord had commanded him to speak to all the people” (Jer. 26:8). He called the people to repentance, lest the Lord’s judgment come upon them. The violence that Jeremiah suffered for this preaching foreshadowed the cross and Passion of Christ Jesus, who suffered the judgment of God for the redemption of all people. For Jesus “comes in the name of the Lord” (Luke 13:35) in order to lay down His life for the sins of the world. Earthly Jerusalem was blind to His gracious visitation, and it put Him to death like the prophets before Him. Yet, His sacrifice upon the cross became the cornerstone of the new Jerusalem, His Church. He visits us today in mercy with His preaching of forgiveness, to gather us to Himself within that holy city, “as a hen gathers her brood under her wings” (Luke 13:34), for “our citizenship is in heaven” (Phil. 3:20).

 

 

Sermon:
 

Lent Midweek 1 Divine Service
12 March 2025 at 3:30PM

Old Testament: Job 9: 1-12
Epistle: Ephesians 2: 1 – 10
Gospel: Matthew 14: 22 – 33

PREPARATION
“AS WE GATHER”


The God who is Creator of all came to save us from sin and death in the incarnate Son of Mary, Jesus, the Christ, the Son of the living God. He is God. He first revealed Himself to Moses with the holy name “I AM,” saying, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you’” (Exodus 3:14). When Jesus came to His disciples walking on the crashing waves of the sea of Galilee, He said, “Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid” (Matthew 14:27). “It is I” is the same term for the divine name, “I AM.” As He reached out His hand and grabbed the fearful, doubting, sinking Simon Peter, so does His compassionate hand save you in times of despair and helplessness. His greatest deliverance was when He allowed His hands to be nailed to a cross for your sins. As we are helpless like drowning Peter, our repentant prayer this day is in the words of the hymn, “Nothing in my hand I bring; simply to Thy cross I cling” (LSB 761:3).

 
Sermon:

 

 

 
 
 
FIRST SUNDAY IN LENT
(9 March 2025)

Deuteronomy 26:1–11
Romans 10:8b–13
Luke 4:1–13

Jesus Christ Is Our Champion Against the Devil

Jesus Christ, our champion against the devil, endures and overcomes “every temptation” (Luke 4:13) on our behalf. He worships the Lord, His God, and serves Him only by trusting the Word of His Father: “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased” (Luke 3:22). Jesus’ victory is now ours through His gracious Word, which is not far away but near us — in our mouth and in our heart, in the proclamation of repentance and faith. For “with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved” (Rom. 10:10). Our confession of Christ
includes the prayer of faith, which is not disappointed, “for ‘everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved’” (Rom. 10:13). The Lord is not oblivious to “our affliction, our toil, and our oppression” (Deut. 26:7), but has mercy upon us. He has brought us out of bondage through the “signs and wonders” of Holy Baptism, “with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm” (Deut. 26:8), and now He leads us by His Spirit even in the wilderness.
 
Sermon: