St. Paul's Lockport Sermons

Who were the wise men? Well, traditions around the wise men seem to have filled in a lot more of the story than we actually hear in scripture. The Bible calls them “magi” meaning magicians or astrologers. The idea of them being “we three kings” came about 500 years after their lives and is influenced by our Old Testament reading in Isaiah 60:3 “And nations shall come to your light, and kings to th...

While you should not consider this a law from God, it is usually best to baptize a child as soon as he is able to come to church. His need is great – despite innocent appearance every child born is corrupted by original sin and under the dominion of death and the devil unless Christ frees him. The good news is that Christ has died for us and taken away all our sin. In baptism, all the benefits of...

There is no need to dwell on such things that we hear every day, but no doubt practically everyone here had some kind of disappointment or loss this year, if not just stress from the constant bad news that people love to report in the media and social media. Along with this, there is an odd trend of people treating the year 2020 itself as if it were a person who brought about all these problems. A...

“Fear not!” Cries the angel appearing before the shepherds. Why does the angel cry this? What is there to fear with angels? Aren’t they pretty feminine creatures in robes? Or cute chubby babies? Aren’t they just the spirits of our lost loved ones?

God sent a man named John to bear witness about Jesus. He was not Jesus, but he came to bear witness about Jesus. God sent John into the wilderness to preach and to baptize. John preached, “Make straight the way of the Lord.” Many came to John. They repented of their sins and were baptized. John gained a following. He preached and baptized. He did not waver in his mission.

Here in Isaiah we have the Law and the Gospel given in clear terms as the Lord speaks through the prophet. As we just spoke in the Ten Commandments, the Law tells us what we should do and what God’s eternal will for us is. The Gospel, as we spoke in the Creed, tells us the Good News of what God has done for us, especially that He has forgiven us, as we cannot keep the Ten Commandments on our own....

“Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?” Why does John the Baptist send his disciples to ask Jesus this question? It is a question of doubt from the very one who was sent to prepare the way for Jesus. Could the very one who baptized Jesus, who saw the heavens open and the Holy Spirit descend like a dove, who heard a voice from heaven saying “This is My Beloved Son, with whom...

On a Day of Thanksgiving unlike any in recent years, when many of us may not be able to gather with family and friends as we wished, it may be hard to get into the thankful mood. When old traditions stop it can make us uncomfortable. So here’s something traditional, something always associated with Thanksgiving – the Pilgrims - those hardy Englishmen and women who came to the new world seeking rel...

On this last Sunday of the church year, we hear about the last things – Jesus Christ returning in glory to judge the living and the dead. In the last two weeks, we heard of the parables of the ten virgins and the talents, to know we need to be watchful for Christ’s return, and that to everyone who has, more will be given, and an abundance. Today’s reading from Matthew is often called the parable o...

Our world is full of distrust. We don’t have to look around much to see that trust seems to be at an all time low. Divided, polarized, split – all these terms are constantly used to describe the state of our society. Every election is the most important ever, more critical than the last, which was also the most important ever. Every change seems like it will bring doom, or every time things don’t...

On the night he was betrayed, after the last supper, Jesus led his disciples out to the garden of Gethsemane to pray. Going a littler farther, he took Peter, James, and John with him and asked them to keep watch with him. Then Jesus went on his own to pray. Knowing that he must suffer and die for the sins of the world, Jesus prayed to his Father that this cup may pass from him, but ultimately that...

All Saints Day is the most comprehensive of all commemorations in the church year. While most feast days remember a moment in Jesus’ earthly life, or the people who knew him, All Saints Day remembers all the faithfully departed in the church, that great cloud of witnesses – Christians who have died and are now with Christ. This is a day of great comfort, for we see that Christ our Good Shepherd ca...

“A Mighty Fortress is Our God” is probably Luther’s best-known hymn across all denominations and one of the most well-loved by Lutherans. We identify it with Reformation Day, calling it “The Battle-Hymn of the Reformation.” No one is completely sure when Luther wrote it. One of the most dramatic and appealing theories is that it was written for the Lutheran princes to sing as they came to present...

Sermon Text: Matthew 22:15-22 If you’ve been paying attention the past few weeks as we hear from Matthew 21 and 22, you should notice that the Pharisees and the leaders of the Jewish people have been taking a pummeling from Jesus. He has spoken parable after parable showing that they have not been faithful in the leadership position they are in. They have instead been hurting their own flock by tr...

Sermon Text: Matthew 22:1-14 Several hundred years before the time of Christ, in the land of Persia, the Jews had a great feast because a man had been hanged. That man’s name was Haman. Haman was a high-ranking official in Persia with an extremely high view of himself. He expected everyone to bow down when he went down the street. One day a man named Mordechai, a Jew, didn’t bow down. This ticked...

Sermon Text: Matthew 21:33-46 The sunk cost fallacy is a principle in business and economics where investment is continued in something simply on account of the amount already put into it. The sunk cost is the amount that has already been invested, and cannot be recovered, which is compared to the prospective costs, which may be added in the future if no action is taken. Say you have a car, which...

Sermon Text: Matthew 21:23-32 “We should fear, love, and trust in God above all things.” (Small Catchecism I.2) This is Luther’s explanation of the First Commandment in the Small Catechism. God says “you shall have no other Gods” (Exodus 20:3) and Luther deftly explains what a false god means in a way much more broad than merely talking about Allah, Shiva, or Zeus. A god is whatever we put our fea...

Sermon Text: Matthew 20:1-6 When I was teaching on today’s gospel lesson in seminary, someone asked me, “If the first men who were called to work didn’t get good pay, why did they even go? I would have gone to work somewhere else.” I thought that was a legitimate question. Questions like this that dig into the meaning of the parables are great. Too often we just take parables, or any scripture tex...

A blessed feast of St. James to you all, a wonderful day also for a baptism. In our readings today we remember St. James, son of Zebedee and brother of St. John. This is not the James who wrote the book of James, but one of the three of Jesus’ closest “inner circle” of disciples with John and Peter. James was one of the three allowed to see the transfiguration, Jesus’ revelation of his glory befor...

One of the biggest obstacles to faith in the Christian life is thinking that God is like us. We may think God is better than us in every way, but still fundamentally He acts like we do. We can see this in false religions – in every person’s attempt to reach God. One Lutheran theologian wrote that every false gospel can fall into one of three categories – moralism, mysticism, and rationalism.1 Thes...

The previous two weeks I have spoken about faith in Christ in both the good times and the bad. With the ten lepers we learned that often when our need is met, the gratitude to Christ is lost. We cannot treat Christ as one who is just a means to our own ends. Both the good and the bad we receive from God is to turn us more to Christ and further from ourselves. So also last week we heard not to worr...

St. Paul tells you in the epistle lesson to “look carefully how you walk,” which is always good advice. It was a fun game when you were a kid to close your eyes and see how far you could get in your house without running into something. It’s not a good way to run your life. You usually run into something rather quickly.