The Joshua Victor Theory

[The following sermon is adapted from sermons from Rev. Lyndon Korhonen and Rev. Michael Salemink on Lutheransforlife.org  You can find more encouraging, life-affirming materials and resources on their website]. If we did not have the Word of God, wouldn’t we wonder what is going on in our world? Life, as many of us have known it, is under attack. Over 40 years ago, our nation legalized the killing of babies in the womb. The “right to death” is seemingly being treated as an enshrined right, rather than the “right to life.” In several states, people have been given the right to end their lives through legal suicide. The value that we place on the elderly continues to decline. Marriage has been redefined by the U.S. Supreme Court. The sex one is born with is now up for change. The world is ever pushing to redefine even fundamental realities. And yet with all this so-called “progress” in getting what we want , people are profoundly unhappy and discontent. Jesus unmasks the conf...

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. In the reading from Isaiah 49, the speaker calls us to attention: “Listen to me, O coastlands, and give attention, you peoples from afar.” Are you listening? Who is it that is speaking? Read the text before you in your bulletin. The speaker says “The Lord has called me from the womb, from the body of my mother he named my name.” And the Lord God said: “You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified.” So what is the identity of this speaker, who calls for our attention, says that God called Him from the womb, and God gave Him a name while He was still in the body of His mother? Of course it’s Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Jesus Christ is the servant of God who would bring glory to God, and who was chosen from long before His birth to be God’s servant. And He was named Jesus and titled Immanuel, God with us, from before His birth. Only when this was written, this was some 7 centur...

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. I have Good News for you! Though we live in a world that is dead and dying, though we live in a world that often chooses death over life, God speaks love and life, hope and healing to us in His Word. He has made us and He has re-made us alive in Christ. That is why we’re here. That is why we listen to His life-giving Word on this Sanctity of Human Life Sunday. Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. People that God dearly loves—babies—are everywhere! They’re selling Michelin tires. They’re babbling away about e-trading. And they’re even roller skating to rap music to sell Evian water! It’s cute! And cuteness works. But what does it say that we accept babies in advertising, yet discard them like old tires even before they are born? Babies are everywhere! Hardly a week goes by that the celebrity gossip shows don’t gush over another “tummy popping out,” ...