Trinity Lutheran Elkhart Homilies

Mark 4:26-34

When God asked Adam and Eve after the Fall, “Where are you?” He wasn’t inquiring about the location of their bodies, but the location of their hearts. By eating the forbidden fruit and straying from the Lord, our first parents lost their identity and began to search for it behind fig leaves. Our fig leaves have gotten more sophisticated over the years, but they have the same goal: to hide the deca...

All the blood in Scripture is hard for us to understand. It seems gory and barbaric. But in Scripture, blood is life. And shared blood is shared life. Sin, however, brings death. So blood - life - is poured out.  But God pours his lifeblood into us. Foreshadowed at Sinai (Ex. 24) and on Yom Kippur (Lev. 16), Jesus takes his divine blood and pours it out in sacrifice on Good Friday and in Sacrament...

“God himself is an eternal exchange of love, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and he has destined us to share in that exchange.” (CCC 221) “In the core of the Trinity, the Father laughs and gives birth to the Son. The Son laughs back at the Father and gives birth to the Spirit. The whole Trinity laughs and gives birth to us. All things love God.” (Meister Eckhart) Our human minds may not be able plun...

As we come to the culmination of our Fan the Flame journey we are braving it! The vision and dream before us is big - crazy big. But the Spirit given at Pentecost gives us the courage to do it and fulfill the dreams of our Father.

Love makes all things Natural.

We must stay in the fire. Or as Jesus says, like branches in a vine. Which is difficult. We are often detached, disobedient, distracted and distressed. But in the end, a suffering vine makes finer wine.  1. You will Bear Fruit. We don’t just get fed, we feed. 2. You get what you want, what you really want. Jesus! 3. Jesus gets what he wants - to live through you.  4. A suffering vine makes finer w...

Like sheep, we must follow and trust our Shepherd. Our readings today tell us to Know, Hear, and See. 

As we kick off our Fan the Flame journey, we want to see that this is about the fire of faith in each of our hearts. Our readings illustrate the “triangle of fire.” In order to have a fire you need heat, fuel and oxygen. If any are missing, no fire. But Jesus gives all of these things to us!

It is the second Sunday of Easter, the end of the great octave. The vestiges of our Easter joy can still be felt. Yet, a faint shadow has snuck into our celebrations in the form of Thomas’ doubt and our own. Jesus is risen, and yet we can’t help but still be gripped by the reality of the darkness, sin, and brokenness that still plague us. When doubts arise, we revert to what we know and try and go...

"Who will roll away the stone for us?" the women ask. This is a profound spiritual question. Had Jesus not rolled it away, we would be stuck in our graves forever. But even now, that stone traps us in this life, a life filled with the fear of death and misery. The stone rolled away is a portal to a new life with Jesus. 

March 31, 2024

March 29, 2024

March 28, 2024 at 12 noon service.

March 27, 2024 at 12 noon

March 25, 2024 at 12 noon

March 26, 2024 at 12 noon service.

March 24, 2024

Too often we have a false perspective of our suffering and only want to escape it. Jesus wants to show us through his suffering that there is some good in our suffering. Jesus welcomes us into his wounds so that we can see that perspective. 

The great spiritual paradox is shared by Jesus today: “Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life.” (John 12:25).This is not self-hatred. It means that you think so little of your life in comparison to how much you love God, you are willing to sacrifice your life. Which is how you save it. The key to this is just like how a side “fal...

Apologies, the gospel reading was not recorded correctly by Pastor Vieth so please skip forward to 1:40. Thank you

Today, Jesus asks us to sacrifice our crooked, disordered desire so that he might give us a greater, divinized desire. This is terribly difficult because our desires seem to be one of the deepest things about us. Satan has manipulated us into thinking that we are the only ones who can fulfill those desires. Yet, our hearts have become enslaved and have lost their freedom, leaving us looking only f...

There is objective truth. The more we hold onto our own, subjective truths the more they kill us.  Jesus who is THE TRUTH comes to free us from the lies that deceive us and reminds us of the truest thing in the world: God and his love for us.