A Famine Not of Bread

Click here to listen to this sermon. And His disciples asked Him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him” (John 9:2-3). Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! Seeing this man’s condition, the disciples ask the question we continue to ask in such cases: “Why?” They apparently believe that such a physical defect must have been caused by some particular sin. In this case, they ask: “Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” People often think that way to this day: “I’m suffering; it must be for some sin I committed.” The question is difficult. If the man’s own sin caused his blindness, how could he have sinned so badly while in the womb? If his parents’ sin caused it, that seems unfair. Still, the disciples thought that one or the other was true. It was a commonly held belief, so they d...

Click here to listen to this sermon. The text for today is our Gospel, John 4:5-26, which has already been read. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! Men. They’re all the same. That’s what life has taught the woman who makes her way to the well. She’s been married five times, and there’s no hint that she’s been widowed even once. That’s a tough run even by 21st-century American standards, and it must be nearly the record for the ancient Middle East. Now, she’s with a sixth, though they haven’t gotten married. Why bother? We don’t know if she’s been picked up by a string of losers who’ve treated her badly, or if she’s proven so intolerable that she’s been kicked out for her own failings. Almost certainly, the truth is somewhere in between, and the blame rests on both sides. In any event, marriage has not proven to be what it’s supposed to be, with husband and wife working hard and serving one another. “What it’s supposed to be” is probably worth ...

Click here to listen to this sermon. The text for today is our Gospel, Luke 3, especially verses 21-22: “ Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended on Him in bodily form, like a dove; and a voice came from heaven, ‘You are My beloved Son; with You I am well pleased.’” Here ends the text. Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! “I can’t believe how quickly time passes. It seems like it was only yesterday when we brought our little boy home. Now he’s all grown up and has started his own career.” I’m sure that many of you have already pondered or expressed similar thoughts. As a father of four and a Papa of thirteen, I can assure you, that if you haven’t yet, you probably will. And much sooner than you’d ever think. Time flies. Children grow up so quickly. You turn around and they’re all grown up. And so it seems with Jesus—at least according to St. Luke...

Click here to listen to this sermon. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! Picture a society where the path to God is blocked by invisible barriers of ritual impurity, where even a slight touch can render someone unworthy to approach the divine. This was the burden imposed by the Law of Moses, which had evolved into a complex web of manmade traditions by Jesus’ time. As the Pharisees enforced these laws, their rigid adherence overshadowed the essence of God’s commandments and His message of grace and forgiveness. In our text from Mark 7, Jesus confronts this distortion head-on, revealing a more profound truth about what truly defiles us and how we can genuinely draw near to God. The Law of Moses contained a series of statutes about what could make a person “unclean.” This was not a question about sanitation or good personal hygiene but applied to ritual purity. Unclean things defiled a person so that he could not draw close to God without first purifying...

Click here to listen to this sermon. "He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces He was despised, and we esteemed Him not. Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was pierced for our transgressions; He was crushed for our iniquities; upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with His wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:3–6). Cindy, Erica, Chris, Craig, Nick, other family members and friends of Bart: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! Well, it appears that death has kept its perfect record intact. God had warned the first man and woman to not eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, “for in the day that you eat of it, ...