Immanuel Lutheran Church—Bremen, KS || AUDIO
Bethlehem Lutheran Church—Bremen, KS || AUDIO
INI + AMEN.
The Lord gives His Word. He speaks. His Word isn’t off somewhere, in some unknown place, so that you’re left wondering where He is, where His Word is. If He gives His Word, He wants it received, wants it heard, and so He puts His Word somewhere. Continue reading
Immanuel Lutheran Church—Bremen, KS || AUDIO
Bethlehem Lutheran Church—Bremen, KS || AUDIO
INI + AMEN.
The Word of God comes first and is faithful and true: “This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” That’s what the Father said about Jesus at His Baptism. There the Spirit descended upon Jesus in the form of a dove. There the Son goes through sinner’s Baptism, takes on the Spirit, His anointing as the King of the Jews, and in Jesus rests the pleasure and delight and righteousness of God.
“Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.” Now things are totally different. No one looked weaker than Jesus: “after fasting forty days and forty nights, He was hungry.” Then the devil strikes at Jesus. His weapon is his word that he wields against what is most faithful and true: the Word of God. Continue reading
March 5, 2017
Bethlehem Lutheran Church—Bremen, KS || AUDIO
Immanuel Lutheran Church—Bremen, KS || AUDIO
INI + AMEN.
The Word. It doesn’t seem like much. Just words on a page. Ink and paper. Pretty simple nowadays. But now we’ve progressed beyond paper. The Word can now displayed on screens of various sizes and shapes. But no matter how the Word meets you, it’s still the Word. It can be read aloud or silently, spoken from memory or read nose in the book. It can even be taken to heart, but—no matter how it engages you—the Word has power.
Jesus, the Word made flesh, goes toe to toe with the devil. The devil has his word, and Jesus has His. Now, we know this from own experience with the devil and temptation, but, through our Gospel lesson, we see that the devil can be called “master of a thousand arts.” (Large Catechism: Preface, 12) But we can also see that Word-made-flesh Jesus uses the written Word, which really is His Word, and He “drives away and brings to nothing this master of a thousand arts…The Word must indeed be the master of more than a hundred thousand arts.” (LC: Preface, 12) Continue reading
