Sunday Sermons

Joseph receives a promise from God in the form of a dream. But then Joseph experiences betrayal, slavery, imprisonment, and years of seemingly divine silence. It’s interesting to note that there are no record accounts in Genesis of God speaking directly to Joseph. In life, we can interpret God’s apparent silence as abandonment. However, Joseph’s story teaches us that God not speaking does not mean God is not present. It is important to remember that when God is silent about the plan - He is still very much present in the process (see Genesis 39:2,3, 21, and 23). We can learn from Joseph to trust God in the silence.

Paul doesn't describe baptism merely as something that happened to us in the past. Baptism establishes a new identity and therefore a new way of living. Luther believed that everyday a Christian should remind him or herself of their baptism. Why? Because the Christian has been united to Christ's death and resurrection. That means the old identity - the sinner who lives for him or herself - has been put to death, and the Christian now lives from a new identity in Christ. Paul asks: “How can we who died to sin still live in it?” (Romans 6:2). He isn't saying Christians will no longer struggle with sin. Rather, sin no longer has the final claim over the baptized Christian. Why? Because the Christian's identity has changed. In this sense, the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper belong together because both continually anchor the Christian in the same Christ and His forgiveness. Baptism gives us our identity as those who have died and risen with Christ, while the Lord’s Supper continually strengthens and nourishes that baptismal faith by giving us Christ’s true body and blood for the forgiveness of sins.

Paul presents a fundamental biblical reversal: God reveals His wisdom and power precisely where human beings would least expect to find them - in the weakness, suffering, and apparent foolishness of the cross. This is at the heart of Luther's theology of the cross. The cross tells us that we cannot discover God by looking for Him according to our own expectations of glory, success, strength, or human wisdom. Instead, God reveals Himself through Christ crucified. For Luther, this is more than a doctrine about what happened on Good Friday. It describes how God deals with sinners and how God teaches us to know Him. The sinner naturally wants to approach God through achievement, morality, wisdom, strength, or religious experience. The theology of the cross says: Look instead to Christ crucified. For Christ alone is our salvation!

Both Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are means of God’s grace. But also important is the practice of confession and absolution. Forgiveness is a gift that allows us to live freely as God’s sons and daughters. Forgiveness releases us from the impossible task of justifying ourselves. The Law tells the truth about us: we are sinners who cannot save ourselves. But the Gospel tells the greater truth: God has justified sinners through Christ. Therefore, in confession, we are free to stop hiding; in absolution, we are free to stop carrying our guilt; and in faith, we are free to stop trying to earn God's love. Christ has done it. We are forgiven. And because we are forgiven, we are free - not to live for ourselves - but free to live in love for God and our neighbor.

Wisdom (personified as a woman), offers a gracious invitation to all who live apart from the life she longs to bring. Opposite is Folly (also personified as a woman) who strives to seduce people away from the truth of God and His Word. NOTE: Jesus addresses this theme at the end of the Sermon of the Mount when He shares the difference between the wise and foolish builder, both of which having to do with how a person responds to God’s Word.