A Famine Not of Bread

Click here to listen to this sermon. “His disciples did not understand these things at first, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written about Him and had been done to Him” (John 12:16, ESV). Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! There is some dispute within the Church over whether we should be celebrating Palm Sunday or observing the Sunday of the Passion today. While there are good arguments for both, I like the way that it is combined in our assigned Gospels, two accounts that, at first blush, seem so distant from one another, yet end up being so inextricably connected. We begin the service with the Palm Sunday procession from John 12:12-19. We conclude with the account of Christ’s Passion from Luke, chapters 22 & 23. Here in these passages we see the great mystery of concurrence —God working through the free actions of His creatures (Judas, the Jewish Council, Pilate, the crowds in Jerusalem) to...

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 and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! I’m sure you’ve heard that old phrase about March weather that goes, “In like a lion and out like a lamb.” Well, according to the late stargazer Jack Horkheimer, it appears that the phrase got its imagery from the two constellations, Aries—the Ram or Lamb, and Leo—the Lion. A long time ago, someone noticed that their movement in the March skies coincided with the fiercer weather at the beginning of the month and the milder weather at the end of the month. “In like a Lion and out like a Lamb.” That could describe Jesus’ movement as He comes into Jerusalem for Holy Week. As we just were reminded by the procession of palm waving children, Jesus ...

Click here for an audio version of this sermon.   The text for today is our Old Testament lesson, Deuteronomy 32:36-39, which has already been read. Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Moses is speaking to the Israelites.   They are about to enter the Promised Land, while it is time for him to climb Mount Nebo and die.   These are his last words to the people that he has led as a called servant of the Lord for these many years.   It has been a long, hard journey.   No sooner were the Israelites safe from Egypt than they built a golden calf and elected to call it their god.   The Lord mercifully spared them that day, but other apostasy would follow.   For their disobedience, they were rewarded with forty extra years in the desert.   Now they are finally to enter the Promised Land, and Moses preaches the Word of the Lord one last time and sings his final song.   He prophesies, in part, a terrible fut...