Posts with the tag “john”

Truly today we continue to celebrate that Christ is risen from the dead. Our Lord has died and risen again for our salvation. Not only have our sins been taken away on the cross, but our Lord has seal...  Read More

St. John mentions several times that Jesus dies on the Jewish Day of Preparation. What is the day of Preparation? Well, when God created the heavens and the earth, he created in six days and on the se...  Read More

It’s hard to consider that people may not like us. We generally want to be liked. We assume that if someone doesn’t like us it’s a misunderstanding on their part, or maybe a bad impression. If they re...  Read More

There was probably yelling, pushing, screaming children, people talking among themselves, all sorts of chaos. In the midst of this chaos is Jesus, ready to have compassion, ready to satisfy this huge...  Read More

The miracle of the water into wine may be one of Jesus’ strangest miracles. It is completely unnecessary for Jesus to do. This isn’t Jesus cleansing a leper who has been suffering his entire life, or ...  Read More

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. This creation of God in the very beginning, God’s absolute creation from nothing, was formless, empty, and dark. It was uninhabitable by anythin...  Read More

In modern American Christianity, a testimony is often what one person tells another person, usually a friend or acquaintance, about what God has done for them. Sometimes it can be a long story about h...  Read More

What does the freedom and slavery have to do with Reformation? Well, everything. What Luther did was to bring the truth that sets you free back to the center of the church’s life. That truth being to ...  Read More

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The world was formless, empty, and dark. God the Father, the God the Son who is the Word, and the Holy Spirit who hovered over the waters forme...  Read More

As often happens in death, Mary and Martha grieved differently for their brother. People came from all around to console them. It wasn’t until Jesus came that they really moved. At least Martha moved....  Read More

On this July 4, perhaps some of these complaints of Elijah feel like they ring true with you. People are divided, they don’t recognize God, everything seems to be turning away from God’s word. And yet...  Read More

Blessed be the Holy Trinity and the undivided Unity! While every other feast of the church year refers to an event – Jesus’ birth, baptism, resurrection, etc., the day of the Holy Trinity is one where...  Read More

Who is the Holy Spirit? He is not an impersonal force. He is not just some aspect of the Father and the Son. He is the Third Person of the Trinity, equally God to the Father and the Son....  Read More

In the Small Catechism explanation of Our Father who art in heaven, Luther explains that we come to God in prayer as dear children ask their dear Father, asking Him confidently and boldly for our need...  Read More

For baptism was created and instituted by our Lord Jesus Christ, and in it we have his promise of the forgiveness of sins. In baptism, the Holy Spirit comes to you and changes you. Your old man, the ...  Read More

John, writing from a post-resurrection perspective, is able to show how the resurrection makes understandable the words which the disciples did not fully understand before Jesus’ death. This is exactl...  Read More

This is the gospel of Jesus, our Good Shepherd, who lays down his life for the sheep. We have our own painting of the Good Shepherd here at St. Paul’s at the rear of the nave. Like many Good Shepherd ...  Read More

John always has a theological point he is trying to make in his gospel. One of John’s trademarks that the other gospel writers don’t do is to jump in and “take the mic” so to speak in order to explain...  Read More

Jesus also crossed the brook Kidron, leaving Jerusalem with his disciples. His betrayer, Judas, had already left to gather the forces who will come to arrest Jesus. There, on the Mount of Olives with ...  Read More

The great blessing of having the Bible, the Word of God, so accessible to us is that we can come back to it again and again to re-orient ourselves in the midst of life. To be ‘oriented’ is to be faced...  Read More

Jesus knew exactly what he was doing when he went across the sea of Galilee, leading the large crowd up onto the mountain. He was completing what began with Moses in the wilderness after the exodus. T...  Read More

In this final sentence of our gospel reading, we get the full summary of this lesson and why Jesus performed this miracle....  Read More

Long before He became man and was born as a baby in Bethlehem and laid in a manger, the Son of God created heaven and earth. ...  Read More

God sent a man named John to bear witness about Jesus. ...  Read More

For Advent means “coming,” and it is a season that anticipates the coming of Jesus as a baby in the manger in Bethlehem on Christmas morning. But this is not the only coming that Advent anticipates. A...  Read More

“A Mighty Fortress is Our God” is probably Luther’s best-known hymn across all denominations and one of the most well-loved by Lutherans. We identify it with Reformation Day, calling it “The Battle-Hy...  Read More