Coming Soon...

Audio sermons from Good Shepherd will soon be posted on this blog. I hope to be posting them by the middle of October.

A great sermon by Rev. William Weedon

May be listened to at Issues, etc. [Rev. Wilkens gives some commentary, which one may or may not find helpful, but the sermon is great with or without the commentary.]

Want to preach good funeral sermons?

Then start by preaching the commemorations and feast days of those blessed saints who have gone before us in the faith whenever possible (although I think it best to keep with the Sunday readings unless a saint's feast day falls on the Lord's Day and it is not already a feast of Christ).

That is how I look at funerals, as feast days of saints of God in Christ, for that is truly what those faithful departed are, full and complete saints, revelling the in the glory of the Lamb who was slain. When preaching on a saint day or commemoration, we Lutherans know that we do not preach about the individual, but rather about that golden and precious thread of faith that binds them to Christ and through Him to all the Church, militant and triumphant. Indeed, precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints!

Travel Itineraries

For my family's history, I have traveled quite a bit. I was born and raised in a northeastern Indiana farm family. My entire family (all aunts, uncles, cousins, great-aunts and great-uncles, 2nd cousins, grandparents, etc.) live within 20 miles of each other (most still do to this day!) When I was young, a two-hour car drive to the huge city of Indianapolis was a HUGE trip and very special.

But, I was not content (or really able) to stay in my family's homeland. After getting married my new bride and I moved to St. Louis so I could attend seminary and she grad school. I never imagined living that far from home for so long! My vicarage year took us to central Texas and I was not blessed to see the flat lands of corn, soy beans and wheat for a whole year. Back to St. Louis and now in Western Michigan.

My wife and I have done a lot of traveling by car in our five years of marriage. One constant about any kind of travel or moving is having an itinerary. You need to plan a trip. Know your stops, plan how far you want to go in a day, where you want to eat, pack up everything that you could conceivably need (and now with a little one, that list of "conceivable" needs boggles the mind!)

One thing is certain: when you travel, you want to be prepared. Nothing, in my mind is worse than getting to your destination and finding you have left a key component at home. Or worse, not even getting to your destination because you didn't plan well enough! I guess given my family's history of putting down deep roots in a place, my sometimes obsessive trip planning is understandable.

Perhaps that is why the Gospel reading for the fifth Sunday in Pentecost (Matthew 9:35-10:20, Series A) causes me to worry just a bit.
These twelve Jesus sent out, instructing them, "Go nowhere among the Gentiles and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And proclaim as you go, saying,'The kingdom of heaven is at hand.' Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons. You received without paying; give without pay. Acquire no gold nor silver nor copper for your belts, no bag for your journey, nor two tunics nor sandals nor a staff, for the laborer deserves his food. And whatever town or village you enter, find out who is worthy in it and stay there until you depart. As you enter the house, greet it. And if the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it, but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you. And if anyone will not receive you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet when you leave that house or town. Truly, I say to you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than for that town.

Jesus sends His disciples out without any earthly travel itinerary! They have a very broad destination (the lost sheep of the house of Israel), they have a truly miraculous and earthly impossible goal (heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons), and Christ goes so far as to tell them NOT to prepare for their trip (Acquire no gold nor silver nor copper for your belts, no bag for your journey, nor two tunics nor sandals nor a staff). They are sent out with Christ's word and promise as their only preparation! And this terrifies me!!

Could I be so faithful as to leave all the preparations and comforts I have set up for myself to follow Christ's word? Could I go someplace without making any plans other than to proclaim the kingdom of heaven? Is it possible that Christ is really able to do what He says? Even more amazing than that, is it possible that I could actually put my faith completely in His sufficiency?

As if all that weren't bad enough, the destination for Christ's disciples is not even that rosy. Check this out: "Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. Beware of men, for they will deliver you over to courts and flog you in their synagogues, and you will be dragged before governors and kings for my sake, to bear witness before them and the Gentiles. When they deliver you over, do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say, for what you are to say will be given to you in that hour. For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you."

What would we do if told to leave every thing we know and love, make no provision for our journey, and be persecuted severely as a reward for our faithful following? No doubt, our practical side would scream "GET OUT OF THERE!! THIS MAN IS CRAZY! HE'S TRYING TO GET YOU KILLED!!" And indeed, Christ is trying to get us killed. He desires to tear down the old, sin-filled, foul, diseased Adam in each of us so that He may build up a new creation that is perfected in His life, death and resurrection. He calls us to deny ourselves completely and rely fully on His guidance. He calls us to loose ourselves and find in Him a perfection of righteousness and holiness. He calls us to let Him do everything, to relinquish power and control, to be found in His loving-kindness and all sufficient grace.

This is the radical call of Christ: to throw away our perceived eternal travel itinerary and to trust in Him to get us to our heavenly home. Do not be anxious about how He will do it, do not be anxious about how He will use you, but trust in His guidance and His work, for in loosing ourselves we are found in His perfection.

St. James the Elder

This coming Sunday, the Good Shepherd saints will give thanks for the faithfulness of one of the Sons of Thunder, St. James the Elder. You remember James, in one gospel we see his mother asking for her sons glory in the coming kingdom, in another gospel we see James and John asking for glory in the coming kingdom. Again, we see these sons of Zebedee seeking glory rather than suffering when they ask to call down punishment on the inhabitants of Samaria.

In the midst of all this glory seeking we are interupted by the epistle from Romans 8:28-39.

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, "For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered."

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

And then, as so often happens, I am reading along for fun, not even thinking about sermon preparation, and God hands me a jewel to adorn His Gospel. This quote from The Hammer of God we see the beauty of the theology of the cross:

“You see, atonement comes only through suffering. Through suffering our Savior opened the gates of Heaven, through suffering his apostles carried the Gospel out in the world--rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer. It is a great favor to bear testimony to Christ by suffering in His fellowship. I believe Scripture calls it bearing in the body the marks of the Lord Jesus. Usually we suffer only for our own sins. But sometimes we are given the favor of suffering for the sins of others. That is part of the mystery of the Atonement: when one is joined to Christ, one is given the task of lifting a portion from a certain sinner and suffering in his stead, so that he does not have to carry alone all the bitterness of his deeds.”
The Hammer of God, pg. 312

Sermon for the Fourth Sunday after Epiphany

A sermon delivered on January 28, 2007, the 4th Sunday in the Epiphany of our Lord.

I Corinthians 12:31b-13:13

And I will show you a still more excellent way.

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Sermon for the First Sunday in Advent

This sermon was preached on December 3rd (my little sister's birthday!) at Beautiful Savior Lutheran Church in Bridgeton Missouri. Special thanks to Roy Anders for his faithful and skilled work at getting these babies up on the website so quickly!

NB
The audio is muffled for about the first 10-20 seconds, but gets clear after that.

The LORD's Eternal Covenant with David

From the Prophet Jeremiah, chapter 33:14-16

14"Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. 15In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David, and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. 16In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will dwell securely. And this is the name by which it will be called: 'The LORD is our righteousness.'

Stir up Your power, O Lord, and come, that by Your protection we may be rescued from the threatening perils of our sins and saved by Your mighty deliverance; for You live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
Amen.
Collect for the First Sunday in Advent, Lutheran Service Book.

Sermon for Reformation Sunday 2006

To hear my sermon delivered October 29, 2006 at Beautiful Savior Lutheran Church in Bridgeton, click here

Sermon for Pentecost 18

This link will take you to an audio recording of a sermon I delivered from the Gospel reading for Pentecost 18. It starts out a little bad and hard to hear, but it gets better after about 10 seconds. The sermon was delivered at my field education congregation, Beautiful Savior in Bridgeton, Missouri.

Mark 9:30-37 (English Standard Version)
Jesus Again Foretells Death, Resurrection
They went on from there and passed through Galilee. And he did not want anyone to know, for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, "The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him. And when he is killed, after three days he will rise." But they did not understand the saying, and were afraid to ask him.

Who Is the Greatest?
And they came to Capernaum. And when he was in the house he asked them, "What were you discussing on the way?" But they kept silent, for on the way they had argued with one another about who was the greatest. And he sat down and called the twelve. And he said to them, "If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all." And he took a child and put him in the midst of them, and taking him in his arms, he said to them, "Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me, receives not me but him who sent me."

My First Sermon "This is the House that God Built"

This is the very first sermon I wrote and delivered.
This is the House that God Built!
Sermon Manuscript for II Corinthians 5:1-10

Grace, peace and mercy to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Amen.

The sermon text is the epistle reading for today, II Corinthians 5:1-10
1Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. 2Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, 3because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. 4For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. 5Now it is God who has made us for this very purpose and has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come. 6Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. 7We live by faith, not by sight. 8We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord. 9So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it. 10For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.

My friends, I have a question for you. Where do you want to live?
I’ll make it easy and give you two choices:
A.) In a frail and faulty tent in the deserts of Iraq or B.) In a warm and welcoming home filled with love and family.

At first this question seems like a no-brainer.
Of course, I want to live in a home, where I am safe and secure, where I am part of a family, where I belong. However, as is so often the case with us sinful mortals, our actions contradict our desires.

St. Paul himself even lamented this in Romans “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing(7:19). We may say that we want to live in a home with all the comforts that entails, but we continue day after day to live in a tent, full of holes, stinking, weathered and windblown. We choose lifestyles that are like stinking piles of rags and despair, we moan and groan about the injustice of it all, about how it stinks and we try on our own to get out of it. We strive to prop up the tattered rags, to mend them, but the more we sew pieces together the more pieces fall apart. We are blind to the fact that all we accomplish is putting more holes in our pathetic little shelter. We open up more weak spots for misery and despair to seep in.

The epistle reading for today speaks of tents and homes. Paul describes our bodies as tents, the physical elements that make up our hands, feet, arms, legs, and all our members, the things that seem to make us who we are. Our earthly home is the in the flesh and we have corrupted that flesh that God gives by our sinfulness. These sin corrupted tents of flesh are a pathetic defense against the temptations that buffet us from all sides. Jesus spoke of His body in a similar way when He said, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.” (John 2:19). Jesus was not referring to the temple in Jerusalem, not to a thing built with human hands, but about His own body.

Describing the flesh as a building or dwelling place is a good metaphor. The flesh has a builder, God “formed my inward parts; [He] knitted me together in my mother's womb.” (Psalm 139:13), it protects from the elements to a certain extent, and because of our sinfulness it is bound to see decay. My friends, our tents are not long for this world. The frail coverings of flesh give minimal protection from the daily trials and tribulations this world throws at us. Our sinfulness has created this state. Our sinfulness, which we cannot of our own good works overcome, is the storm that tatters our pathetic little tent. It is the hail that batters, the rain that soaks, the sun that bleaches and bakes, the snow that freezes our hearts into hard lumps of ice. We daily fall into sin and we daily have to be cleansed of that sin in the waters of our baptism. Paul says we groan in this tent, and not just us, by no means, our sinfulness is not secluded from the rest of humanity, nor from the rest of creation. Paul says in Romans that we groan with all creation (8:23). We can see all around us that our world is in decay. Just within the past few weeks we have bore witness to the sin corrupted creation; the devastating tsunami in Asia is a result of the all of creations fall into sin. We are burdened with the putrid and smothering weight of our sinfulness.

This, my friends, is Paul, great theologian and evangelist, the man of God who was chosen to convey so much of God’s Holy Word to us. He isn’t writing to heathens, he isn’t writing to heretics or false teachers, he isn’t confronting the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. No, he is writing to other Christians. He is writing to us. These are our hearts that his quill is reaching out through the ages to prick.

He knows that we will struggle. He knows that if we aren’t reminded, we will wallow in our rags. We will wallow in hopelessness, despair, debauchery and all kinds of filth. More importantly, God knows that we will struggle. God knows that we are weak. God knows that His laws are impossible to keep. God knows and He cares.

Up to this point, I have focused on the tent of the flesh, but there was another option, one you all likely picked and wish I would talk more about. We have a home! That’s right, we have a HOME! It is not a home that we build, so that no one can boast. Only God has the power to give us this home.

He not only gives it to us, but he built it for us. This house is not made with human hands, it will not crumble or see decay. This, beloved in the Lord, is the house that God built! It is eternally set in the heavens. The cross of Christ is the weight-bearing beam. On that cross, Christ suffered the ultimate humiliation, suffering, alienation and death because He loves us, even while we are still sinners. All the filthy tents and putrid rags of our humanity have been piled on top of His glorious cross and it holds that burden off of us. Because of Christ’s work on the cross for us, death is swallowed up in victory! Thanks be to God!

As our brother Paul told the Corinthians, he also boldly and joyfully proclaims to us “He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.” (5:5). What a miracle! What an extreme comfort. We, who were bound to be swallowed up by life, can be of good courage. With our eyes firmly fixed on that precious cross we can walk by faith and not by sight. We know that the things that are unseen are eternal. We are away from our homes now, we reside in the tents now, we are in a hostile place now, but we have the assurance and the clear Word of God that through Jesus Christ we have a home. And this is not just any home. This is the home that God built with the cross of Christ holding it all up.

What is our response to such great comfort? What is our goal as we overcome this terrific problem? Paul tells us in verse nine: “So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him.”(5:9) Not so He’ll build us a room or a nice condo, but because he has build us the house, the whole dwelling is ours and set eternally in the heavens. This is our aim because, having received such grace, what else can we possibly do? What other response would be appropriate?

One day soon, we will appear before God in this house. We will be lead to the very Judgment seat of Christ. But we will be able to stand. “Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.”(Romans 5:2).
My friends, this is the house that God has built! We will have a home there for all eternity, a new physical creation, thanks to the sacrifice that has atoned for all sins. Thanks to the cross of Christ, the tents of our flesh and sinfulness have been lifted off of us and replaced with robes of His righteousness. We know that when the tent, which is our earthly home, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

Let us pray:
O gracious and loving Father, you have set an eternal dwelling place for us who cling to the blessed cross of Christ. Help us to be of good courage and to see by faith rather than sight. We are looking forward, O Lord, to a new heaven and a new earth, our home of righteousness.
Now may Your peace, O God, which surpasses all human understanding, guard our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

Sermon: The Love and Power of God in Christ

May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, in whose name this message is given.

Our dear Lord Jesus knew what loss was. In the beginning of our Gospel reading for today, we are shown a portrait of Jesus in mourning and loss. Jesus had just heard of the violent death of John the Baptist and Forerunner of Christ: the man who had been sent to prepare the way for the Christ, the man who had leapt in his mother’s womb in the presence of the unborn Lord and His mother. The man who baptized Jesus himself. John was most likely a friend of the Lord and undoubtedly an assistant to His ministry.

Jesus just wanted to be alone. He wanted to sort out His grief and mourn for His loyal messenger who had just died such a gruesome death. So He got into a boat by Himself and went to a solitary place. It was certainly an understandable response to the loss of a loved one. But such an important man as Jesus could not find a solitary place.

Matthew tells us, “when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns.” What was it that the crowds heard? Was it that Jesus was near? If that was the case, then their following was not very considerate. Maybe they were coming to console Him. Maybe they too had heard about the death of John and wanted to mourn with Jesus. The death of John was also a loss for them. John was a well-known teacher and had quite a following. Maybe these multitudes wanted to mourn with the man they perceived as John’s successor. Certainly Jesus would know what to do. Surely He would have some words of encouragement or at least their sorrow would have company with His.

Whatever their motivation, the crowd did not perceive that Jesus was so much more than John, or any other teacher or prophet they had encountered before. “When he [Jesus] went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them and healed their sick.” When Jesus has compassion He gives more than comforting words or a pat on the back, He works miracles. He shows the love and power of God.

Our Gospel lesson for today says He had compassion on these people. Jesus’ earthly ministry was all about compassion. In Matthew 9:36 we are shown a motivation for His compassion that likely applies to this situation too. “He had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” The crowd that met Jesus on the shore was without doubt “harassed and helpless.” John, the Messenger of Christ and their teacher and Baptizer, was gone. They were sick in body and soul and couldn’t heal themselves. So Jesus, who was their shepherd and who is our shepherd, healed them with His great love and power.

Our Lord’s own emotional needs to mourn the death of His faithful messenger were cast aside. He, like the Good Shepherd that He is, put all of His own feelings and needs aside so He could tend His flock. Jesus had compassion on them and healed them. He showed them His love and power. Matthew doesn’t say how many He healed, or from what afflictions, or how He did it. Matthew doesn’t even spend much time on this miracle. The disciples had been with Jesus long enough to know that He could do such things. It was becoming a “normal” thing. To be with Jesus was to see extraordinary things. Jesus had a special understanding and mastery of human ailments and disorders. It was no big deal that He should heal these people.

There were a lot of people in that crowd that needed to be healed, well over 5,000. It was getting late. The disciples knew Jesus would stay all night and heal His beloved flock, but they, and the crowd, were getting tired and hungry. The crowds had come out from the town on foot and were grimy with dust and sweat. There were no provisions for these people, it was a desolate place. There was no plumbing, no drinking water, no food, no comfort and no rest.

The disciples saw that it was getting late and felt they needed to do something. They could see their dear Master was exhausted from His grief and healing the crowd. So they took matters into their own hands. Can’t you hear the concern in their words? “Jesus, don’t you worry, we know these people need to get going, we’re out in the middle of nowhere and it’ll take awhile to get back to town. We know you’re tired and maybe not thinking clearly with all the commotion. So we’re telling you it’s ‘ok’ to send these people to the town to get some food and go on home.” Sounds perfectly reasonable to me! The disciples were tired, some of them were sick of the smelly crowd; many of them were concerned for Jesus’ well-being. He was their Master, but they knew that He would just get too caught up in helping the people. They knew better than He did and were just trying to help. For the sake of their Master’s health and His ministry they had to take matters into their own hands.

Jesus was the Master, though, and He had one more miracle to show them before the day was over. To make it stick in their minds even better He presented the disciples with the impossibility of what He was about to do. “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.” Outrageous! They only had five loaves and two fish, barely enough for them, let alone all these people. Jesus must have been really tired and hurting from the news about John. Poor Jesus. If He only understood how little they had and how many people there were He would understand. But of course, the disciples knew better and would just chalk this crazy talk up to grief and exhaustion.

Jesus had no interest in what the disciples could offer or what they could do for the crowd. He knew they could do nothing. Jesus was interested in what He could offer and do for the crowd. With the five loaves, two fish and a blessing, Jesus showed His love and power. Despite the disciples disbelief Christ showed forth His awesome power. Jesus fed the people, every last one of them, until they were so full they were throwing bits and pieces that wouldn’t fit into their full stomachs on the ground. With meager rations that would not have even satisfied the disciples for a meal, Jesus satisfied over 5,000 people. He filled their cup to overflowing. This crowd came to Him with nothing, “without money and without price” (Isaiah 55:1) and He filled them with twelve basketfuls left over, one for each of the disbelieving disciples.

“And they all ate and were satisfied. And they took up twelve baskets full of the broken pieces left over.” Jesus worked a great and astonishing miracle that day. He did it because He loved the people and wanted to fill their needs. Jesus would continue to show His love and power to people throughout His ministry. Despite abuses and humiliation, Jesus gave all people, without money and without price, without any works of their own, the food they so desperately needed to be satisfied.

After dying on the cross for the sins of all, He rose in glory and victory! He showed His love and power for you, and you, and you and me and all sinful people. His death paid the penalty of all sins, from the very first bite of that fruit in the garden to the very last evil thing that will ever be done before His glorious return. Again, He invites all to come to Him, without money and without price, and be filled in body and soul.

Dear friends, Christ’s work did not end at His death and resurrection. This work of Jesus feeding a crowd and satisfying their needs was not the only time He would show concern for the physical needs of people. He continues to satisfy us to this day. Despite our sin and forgetfulness of His great sacrifice, He continues to show us His love and power. He provides us with homes, food, relative prosperity and safety. He also provides us with all our soul’s needs as well: total and free forgiveness of sins and life everlasting. Jesus satisfies our physical needs and He fills our soul’s needs by providing us with His atoning death on the cross and the means of His grace in Word and Sacrament.

We are often like the disciples. We don’t want to bother Jesus. We think we can just do it on our own. But, despite our best efforts to make it on our own, Christ still works for us and in us. In the Gospel Christ worked for the people by showing His love and power in a miracle. But Christ did not want them to simply see a miracle; He wanted them to see the complete fulfillment and satisfaction He offers. He doesn’t want us to only see a miracle. He wants to show us, His dear flock, His complete love and power that was shown perfectly on the cross and at His resurrection.

He continues to show His love and power in the waters of baptism. By the washing of the water along with the Word, which is Christ, we are made new. He shows His love and power by the preaching of His Word. By hearing His life-giving Word we have the sure knowledge that we cannot obtain salvation on our own but that He has won it for us and has forgiven all our sins. He shows us His power and love when we come to the altar to be fed by His very body and blood. Jesus is in the midst of this crowd feeding us without money and without price. We need not leave this place empty, for Christ has filled us to overflowing with His love and power!

Let us pray:
Dear Lord and giver of life, You have shown Your immeasurable love for us in the Person and Work of Jesus. We come to you in need and you have compassion on us. Feed us, oh Life giver, that we may be ever satisfied. Now, oh Holy Father may your peace, which surpasses all human understanding guard our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus.
Amen.