The Joshua Victor Theory

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. Today on Reformation Day, we conclude our mini-series on some of the things that made the Lutheran Church distinctive. We’re going to look at two core ideas to Lutheranism, from our reading in Romans 3: Sin and Grace. These two teachings of the Bible are at the heart of salvation—they define both our great need before God, and His even greater solution to our predicament. Predicament , or can we say an epidemic ? We have all heard a lot in the news lately about the deadly Ebola virus and the epidemic that has people worried worldwide. An epidemic is when an infectious disease rapidly spreads through a large number of people. Technically, an epidemic is usually temporary, not permanent, and widespread, but not global in reach. The term for something truly universal or worldwide would be “pandemic.” Can the analogy of disease and viruses help us understand something about sin? Sin i...

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. I have to admit that as a pastor, when I see a big, unfamiliar, theological word in our readings, like “propitiation,” it’s just too juicy to resist. These words grab our attention if for no other reason than they are so uncommon and strange. But this word is pregnant with meaning, and has a rich and personal meaning to tell us about the significance of Christ’s death on the cross. I owe special credit to Pastor Steven Starke, a brother in the ministry whom I haven’t met, but who’s a prolific hymn-writer for our new hymnal, and whose excellent sermon on this topic did much to motivate my message today. Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Propitiation. Not the word you want to get stuck with in the spelling bee. Probably a word we don’t run across in our average reading, and one that none of us use in our everyday conversation. Archaic? Irrelevant? Bu...

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. Today in our Gospel reading Jesus contrasts true greatness with the self-promotion of the world. Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. James and John were fairly shameless in their request to be granted whatever they wanted…as if Jesus were a genie in a bottle to do their bidding. And what a request! To be the right-hand and left-hand men to Jesus, when He came in His glory. Of course, who was better qualified? They were the go-getters, bold and over-confident in their abilities. They were confident that whatever honor or greatness Jesus would rise to, that they were equal to that ascent. They were fit to share in that honor and glory. Apparently the other ten disciples had less confidence in James and John, than they had in themselves. The ten disciples became indignant or sorely angry when they found out about this request. Was it because they thoug...