Lutheran Church of the Resurrection

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Through this season of Epiphany, we are being exposed to the divinity of Christ. The season of Lent follows, and there we will be exposed to the humanity of Christ. There was a time when the great question about Christ and Christianity centered upon the humanity of Christ. The divinity of Christ was taken for granted. It was His humanity that was doubted. People wrestled with questions like, ‘how can Christ, who is divine also be human? How can the infinite be finite? How can the eternal have a birthday and even more incomprehensible, have a death day? How can the Christ be human? And these doubts were being expressed by those in the Church – Christians.

Today, the situation is exactly reversed. (more…)

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St. Luke begins his gospel about Jesus with a flurry of activity by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit came upon the virgin Mary and she became pregnant. The fetus in Elizabeth’s womb kicked up a storm when the fetus in virgin Mary’s womb entered the house because the Holy Spirit came upon him. The Holy Spirit came upon Zechariah and his locked lips were loosed and he named the child, John. The Holy Spirit came upon Jesus as He was standing in the Jordan River dripping with baptism’s water.

Now, with this beginning to the gospel, what we might expect to see as the story continues is a record of the Holy Spirit coming upon one person after another like a bee pollinating flowers. And we’d expect to see lots of people trying to get the Holy Spirit to come upon them. Trying to get the Spirit’s attention, with hands lifted high, swaying back and forth, singing “Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on me…” (more…)

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Don’t you just love it when things make sense? Don’t you hate it when things don‘t? He had an accident on the highway because he was speeding. That makes sense so his trouble doesn’t really bother you too much. You were going the speed limit and this guy came speeding out of nowhere and hit you. That makes no sense and don’t you just hate it? There’s a spot on her lung. Makes sense, she’s a smoker. That you’ve never smoked in your life and now you have cancer makes no sense. There’s something really wrong about that. Makes sense that you got a A in the exam because you studied so hard for it. But the fact that he got an A in the same exam makes you mad because he never studied at all.

When bad things happen to bad people it really doesn’t bother us much because, after all, that just makes sense. But when bad things happen to good people, it really bothers us. Why? Because it doesn’t make sense. (more…)