Talking About the Passion: Sermons from Holy Cross Lutheran Church

Our status as "children of God" is not ours by nature. It is a free act of God for us. We are initiated into a new story, given every good gift, brought into a new story that is larger than what we could imagine or create for ourselves!

Jesus’ resurrection frees us to live in the power and love of God. 

Not just in the future, but NOW.

Jesus’ resurrection is icon & testament to God’s power at work in our present world, infected as it may be with sin and death. 

That power is enacted in OUR lives through the work of the Holy Spirit.

Paul sees sin as a powerful cosmic force that has enslaved all of creation. But it’s not simply external to us. And the conflict between God and the forces of sin plays out WITHIN each one of us. 

Sin distorts our vision, warps our will, and like a malfunctioning steering wheel, pulls us constantly off course.

What are we to do? 

It’s breathtaking— even OFFENSIVE to us— that Paul insists that, like slaves, our identity, our purpose in life, our goals, our success, our very bodies, as baptized Christians, are dependent upon someone who is our master.

But all the same. Here it is. In scripture. And despite the challenge and the offense, this image is good news for us. Because, ultimately, it’s only our TOTAL belonging to God, body & soul. It’s only our complete service to the Lord. That makes it possible for us to  be free from a life of sin. Free to serve as messengers of Jesus' love.

The apostle Paul reminds us that we are participants in a cosmic drama that has eternal significance for all creation. 

Through our baptism, God has joined each one of us to the death of Jesus Christ, so that we in turn can share in the resurrection life of Jesus. 

Jesus is never nearer to us than when we are desperately in need of him.

Today our church celebrates the feast of the Ascension, 

which is, believe it or not, 

one of the high holy days for Christians. 

And on this day, in particular, 

we remember that the resurrected Jesus, 

never again to die, 

now reigns over the universe 

at the right hand of God the Father. 

The ascension not about Jesus going away. 

But the mode of his presence with us changing. 

So that he can be present with us

—and for us— 

in a more intimate and powerful way. 

Most of us are familiar with a few Biblical images of the church: the flock of the good shepherd, the body of Christ, a temple of the Holy Spirit. But we often neglect one image Paul uses: the aroma of salvation. 

Today's gospel lesson echoes that powerful image. Jesus is the resurrection and the life, and because of his life-giving power, we are equipped to become the "aroma of salvation" in the world.

Seeing is not believing.
Because we always SEE the world through the framework of our presuppositions. We apprehend the truth about things through the lens of our beliefs.

What we SAY we believe is true in our heart of hearts. This is what shapes— determines— what we can see.

We say “Seeing is believing.” But the Gospel shows us that, actually,

BELIEVING is SEEING.

Jesus has in store for us abundantly far more than we can ask for or imagine. He offers us— in himself— the gift of salvation and transformation that not only fill up our reservoirs, but flow out beyond our lives to water and nourish our communities, and the whole cosmos