The Lord Is with You Where the Wild Things Are

Because you are ransomed and redeemed by the Lord, reconciled to God, and righteous in His sight through faith in His Word, the roaring lion who is always on the prowl, always seeking to devour you, and the vicious beasts that would destroy you — they are all kept at bay. The wild things cannot harm you, because the Lord is with you. It often may not seem that way at all in your present experience. For here and now, in this body and life on earth, you still suffer harm and heartache, hurts and hungers, death and the grave. But have you not heard? Christ Jesus Himself has also suffered all of these things and more, and everything that you suffer. He has spent His time in the wilderness, where the wild things are.

Advent, SermonRick StuckwischDecember 16, 2023Advent, Gaudete, SermonComment

Preaching like Cyril on Moses' rescue by Pharaoh's Daughter

David PetersenSeptember 13, 2023Lutheran Preaching, Allegory, Cyril of Alexandria, hermeneutics, Lutheran Hermeneutics, Lutheran Exegesis, Sermon, Sermon writing, Lutheran Sermon Comments

The Resurrection and the Life by the Way of the Cross

Now it is that death itself suffers an intrusion, and its own violence is turned back upon its head, because Life Himself has entered in where He had no need to go. His own Love compels Him, nothing else. Here He befriends the whole world of sinful mortal men at their worst and most helpless. He does not intervene to spare His friends from the pain of death, but He approaches death in the Flesh, in order to reconcile the world to His God and Father. He invades the tomb in order to empty it, to raise the dead and give them Life and bring them to God in faith and love.

SermonRick StuckwischMarch 27, 2023Sermon, Lent, Raising of Lazarus, Cross and ResurrectionComment

The Lord Is for You and for Your Children

As before in the history of God’s people, another Joseph now brings his Father’s family into Egypt, lest they perish, in order to preserve the world from death. But as this story is unfolding, in the middle of the night, St. Joseph has no way of knowing what the outcome of these events will be. He has nothing to guide him or go by except the Word of the Lord, His warnings and His promises. With that, he goes in faith, and everything ensues and is fulfilled according to the Scriptures. Which is really to say that his situation then was not so very different from your own.

Blessed Are Those Who Hear and Receive this Word

What St. John and his fellow Apostles saw and heard and even touched and handled — the only-begotten God, the Word-made-Flesh, the incarnate Son of the Father, your Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ — no less than He is manifested and communicated to you in the apostolic Scriptures, as these have been written and as they are proclaimed within the Church. As the Father has spoken His Word to us in the Person of His Son, so is He now spoken to you in the apostolic preaching of the Gospel, whereby you have entered into the joyous friendship and glorious company of the holy Apostles, and into the fellowship of the Lord Jesus Christ, His Father, and His Holy Spirit.

After the Pattern of Christ Jesus

Stephen knew and trusted that he had a dwelling place with God, because God had made His dwelling place with Stephen in Christ Jesus. The holy martyr knew that he would be with Christ, with the Father in heaven, because the same Lord Jesus Christ was with him in his suffering and death. He knew that heaven was his home, and that heaven had been fully opened to him by the Cross and Resurrection of the incarnate Son of God. The Lord has just as surely done the same for you, as well. He has become Flesh for you. He has given Himself for you, even unto death. He has risen from the dead and ascended into heaven for you, also. And yet, He also remains with you here in His Church on earth, in His very own Flesh and Blood, with His Word and Holy Spirit. Behold, the Tabernacle of God is with you here.

We are beggars, that is true. Kyrie, eleison!

It is the Word of Jesus on His way to the Cross that defends you against those false and misleading voices of doubt and despair. So faith persists in the confidence of His Word, which declares that He is close at hand. And His Cross has taught you to know and believe these two most basic facts: You need Him, who alone is able to help and save you; and He has come for you in divine love.

Historic Lectionary, SermonRick StuckwischFebruary 27, 2022Quinquagesima, SermonComment

By the Ministry of the Word of Christ Jesus

The pastors and confessors of Christ Jesus bear and suffer His Cross in their body and life, as surely as they proclaim His Cross in their preaching and distribute the fruits of His Sacrifice by the Ministry of His Gospel. And they are content with the food and drink, the clothing and shelter that God provides through His people — just as the Lord also feeds His people and quenches their thirst with His Holy Supper, clothes them with His righteousness in Holy Baptism, and shelters them within His Church on earth through the labors of His called and ordained servants.

Lectionary Preaching defended

David PetersenDecember 15, 2020Lectionary, Hughes Oliphant Old, Preaching, Confessional Lutheran Preaching, History of Preaching, Sermon, Sermon writing, Scripture, hermeneuticsComment

Living with Santa Lucia in the Light of Christ Jesus

Whether or not you are joined to a husband or wife here on earth, you have been joined to Christ in the waters of your Holy Baptism, and you are knit together with Him as one flesh in the Holy Communion of His Body and His Blood. Thus are your body and life redeemed and sanctified in His Body. You live and die with Him who is your Savior and your Head. And you confess Him with all of your words and actions as you go about your days and fulfill your duties here on earth.

Celibacy, Saints, SermonRick StuckwischDecember 13, 2020Sermon, saints, LuciaComment

Singing the Priestly Song of Christ with St. Ambrose

Whether you are a pastor or a parishioner, a priest or a bishop, a deacon or an acolyte, or a member of the choir; whether you are male or female, young or old, rich or poor, married or unmarried, you also sing the Church’s song. With King David and the Levites, with St. Mary and St. Elizabeth, with St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, Dr. Luther, and all the faithful who have gone before us in the Word and faith of the Holy Trinity, you also sing and confess the Lord Jesus in His Holy Church.

Advent, Music, SaintsRick StuckwischDecember 7, 2020Sermon, Advent, Ambrose, Visitation, SingingComment

An Excellent Wife He Has Found

Now when He rose early on the first day of the week, He appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom He had cast seven demons. She went and told those who had been with Him, as they mourned and wept (St. Mark 16:9-10).

SermonRick StuckwischJuly 22, 2020Mary Magdalene, Sermon, Feasts & Festivals Comment