"Stay awake!" Jesus tells us in our Gospel text from Matthew 24:36-44. No one knows when He's coming back; therefore, we must always stay awake. It's easy to drift off into sleep. The evil one is always looking to steal you away from faith in Christ. But Jesus has awakened us from sleep and will keep us awake until His coming. As baptized Christians, we look forward to that day. Indeed, come Lord Jesus!

On this Last Sunday of the Church Year, also known as Christ the King Sunday, Luke's account of the Crucifixion (Luke 23:27-43) gives us a powerful reminder of the reign of God in Jesus. How does He reign? We prayed in our collect for today, "Lord Jesus Christ, you reign among us by the preaching of your cross." Our King rules with grace for sinners and life for the dead. The cross is His throne. His verdict to the thief is His verdict to us who have been crucified with Him in baptism.

Ask a physicist, a climatologist, a historian, or a philosopher. Everyone has some belief about how the world will end. How, then, should a follower of Jesus look to these things? What does scripture, and what does Jesus have to say about these things? Join us as we explore what these things mean for a follow or Jesus, and how they inform our faith and lives.

Our text for LWML (Lutheran Women's Missionary League) Sunday is Luke 17:1-10. Jesus gave His Apostles a hard task: they must forgive—even if it means forgiving the same person seven times in one day. Upon hearing this, they asked Jesus to increase their faith. Jesus told them, "If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, 'Be uprooted and planted in the sea,' and it would obey you." What is Jesus saying? In our attempt to accomplish the impossible, we place impossible burdens on our shoulders. So, when it comes to impossible tasks, we'll just have to trust the only One who can do them.

All Saints' Day is a defiant celebration. We dare to count ourselves—by God’s grace and declaration—among the saints who will join those who are with Jesus now and await with us the day of His return when He will raise us to new bodily life and make everything new. No, we don’t look holy. We don’t look righteous. But our hope is not in ourselves. We stubbornly rest in Jesus, who has, by His finished work of His death and resurrection, made us saints. That is who we are.

Psalm 46 declares to us that God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble (Psalm 46:1). Because that's an objective fact, we have nothing to fear "though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling" (Psalm 46:2-3). The earth will give way. Our lives will come crashing down around us. Our "mighty fortresses" that we seek will ultimately fail. But Jesus won't. He IS our refuge and strength, and He will make it all OK in the end.

The Parable of the Persistent Widow (Luke 18:1-8) surprisingly portrays God as the unrighteous judge. Jesus even tells us to "hear what the unrighteous judge says." This judge gives justice to a widow, not based on the merit of her case, but based on the fact that he wants peace. That's not what Judge Judy would do, but God is not Judge Judy. He's a better judge—our unrighteous judge—who can't help but act in favor of the undeserving sinners He loves and has called His own.

Our Gospel text from Luke 17:11-19 can quickly become a travel agent for guilt trips. No, we're not as thankful as we should be, but guilting someone into giving thanks doesn't help. Instead, let's cancel our travel plans and rest in the grace of God in Jesus. Thankfulness comes from remembering just how much God has done for us. He redeems our entire lives.

Sometimes, we are called to speak difficult truth, as it is the most loving thing that we can do. So, when Jesus, who IS sacrificial love, speaks to us a hard truth, we can be assured his words are given in love. In this Sunday's Gospel, we heard the parable of the unworthy servant. In this lesson, we heard a truth that is hard for many of us: that God's grace, mercy, and forgiveness cannot be earned, but have been given freely and abundantly to us, the unworthy servants. And as His servants, we are called to serve as we are given grace to, even as nothing is earned, but everything is given.

We live by faith and not by sight. The story of the Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31) teaches us that the only bridge between the promises of God and our lives as we experience them is faith. We do not receive a Gospel of success, wealth, or health. We receive a Gospel of new, resurrected life that only comes through death.