A Famine Not of Bread

"The Gathering of Manna" by James Tissot Click here to listen to this sermon. “The whole commandment that I command you today you shall be careful to do, that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land that the Lord swore to give to your fathers. And you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that He might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. And He humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord” (Deuteronomy 8:1-3). Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! Thanksgiving is a time for reflection and remembrance. A time for reflecting upon the bounteous blessings God has so freely bestowed upon us out of His lavish love...

"The Gathering of the Manna" by James Tissot   Click here to listen to this sermon. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! Forty years earlier, Moses had led the people of Israel out of Egypt toward the Promised Land. Now they are camped, looking across the Jordan River to the land that God had promised to their forefathers. Not able to go into the Promised Land himself, Moses recounts what had happened during the wilderness wandering and he prepares them for the new land they will now receive. “And you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that He might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not” (Deuteronomy 8:2). Forty years it had taken them to make the 300-mile-long journey, an average movement of about 100 feet per day. Obviously, there had been a few bumps in the road along the way. The people ran out of water mor...

JESUS MAFA. The Poor Invited to the Feast , from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, Tenn. Click here to listen to this sermon. [Jesus said]: “But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just” (Luke 14:13-14). Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! On first reading, this text appears to be an assortment of different, unconnected moments in the ministry of Jesus. We have a healing (vv. 1-6), a parable (vv. 7-11), and then a teaching about regard for the poor (vv. 12-14). When you look at the text more closely, however, you see this all happens on one occasion. The text begins with a reference to a meal on the Sabbath at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees and it is not until verse 25 that we leave this occasion. Recognizing this unity encourages us t...

"Palm Sunday" by Octavio Ocampo Click here to listen to this sermon. “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is He, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey” (Zechariah 9:9). Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! “Behold, your king is coming to you!” Were you to hear such a glorious announcement, what would you look for? Or to make it a little easier to imagine: Let’s suppose the president of the United States is coming to town. You pack up your family and drive to the route on which you suppose that he would travel to his speaking engagement. Your family sets up their chairs at the side of the road and you wait. Others gather, many holding welcome signs and American flags. Time slowly passes and the excitement builds. Your son notices that the traffic has begun to thin out on the road. Police officers ha...

The text for today is our Old Testament reading, the Song of Hannah, 1 Samuel 2:1-10, which has already been read. Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God the Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The theme of our midweek Advent services is “My pride, my defeat.   God’s pride my deliverance.”   We’ve been talking about the dangerous sin of pride.   Pride tricks us into believing that we are self-sufficient and self-made, that we don’t need anybody or anything to make our own way—not even God.   But such an attitude keeps us from realizing our great need: Before God we are beggars; we must rely on His grace and mercy to save us.   Pride is a dangerous sin that separates us from God, and in order to rid us of its grip God will go to extreme lengths.   As when King Nebuchadnezzar boasted of his mighty power and was driven out to live with the beasts of the field, his hair as long as eagle’s feathers and nails like bird claws.   Or when K...