THE SECOND SUNDAY IN ADVENT This Sunday completes the Advent Cycle. The message of the First Sunday was: “Your King is coming! Prepare!” The Propers spoke of His visible coming to Jerusalem in humility and meekness, on His way to the Cross. This was a picture of His Constant Coming in His Word and Sacrament, […]

Too often, the church preaches resurrection but effectively denies the death out of which aloe the grace of resurrection proceeds. Its cure of choice, for its own ills or for the world’s, is not death but simply more doomed living. The church, for example, will keep sinners (the morally dead) in its midst only as […]

The Advent of the Lord The Church celebrates a threefold advent of Christ. The first is contemptible and humble in the sight of the world, His coming in the Flesh, about which Zechariah 9:9 speaks: “Behold, thy King cometh unto thee meek and lowly, sitting on a donkey, and upon a colt, the foal of […]

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit When Lutherans gather to eat, someone usually says, “Let’s pray together the common table prayer.” Everyone bows their heads and folds their hands…and does not say the common table prayer. Our common table prayer is in Luther’s Small Catechism: […]

All hymn numbers correspond to Lutheran Service Book. Some local ground rules: My congregation has two weekend Divine Services. It is our custom to sing Hymn 384 during the season of Christmas as a Sequence Hymn between the Epistle and Gospel. Yes, we celebrate New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. I’m hoping to include […]