Heritage Sermons – Page 25 – Holy Trinity Lutheran Church

Easter Sunday 2011 (bilingual)

Feasts and Festivals, Series AApril 24, 2011313Views 0Likes 0Comments

Matthew 28:1-10 / Easter A / 24 April 2011 / Holy Trinity Lutheran Church - Hacienda Heights, CA Christ is risen! Alleluia! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

It feels good to shout that again, doesn’t it! After 40 Lenten days of hushed Alleluias in and a full year since the last Easter season, it feels to shout the Easter acclamation once again. Jesus who was crucified is risen from the dead just as He said He would. Death has lost its sting. The grave has lost its grip on humanity. Death, the greatest enemy of our humanity has been defeated single-handedly by the Son of God who came in our flesh to conquer Sin and Death for us.

Behold the Lamb of God

Feasts and FestivalsApril 22, 2011355Views 0Likes 0Comments

Good Friday / 22 April 2011 / Holy Trinity Lutheran Church - Hacienda Heights, CA The following is an excerpt from a sermon originally preached by the sainted Rev. Kenneth F. Korby at Valparaiso University. It is offered here as the sermon for Good Friday. Abraham was right. That faithful old man, the “father of believers,” was caught in the deepest anguish of his faith when God stuck him on the spear-point of his order to sacrifice his son. Laden with wood on his back, the boy asked, “Father, where is the lamb?” With fire in his box - and in his own heart - and with the knife in his hand, Abraham was faithful.

Holy Thursday 2011

Feasts and Festivals, Series AApril 21, 2011304Views 0Likes 0Comments

Exodus 12:1-14; 1 Corinthians 11:23-32; John 13:1-17,31-35 / Holy Thursday / 21 April 2011 / Holy Trinity Lutheran Church - Hacienda Heights, CA Tonight is the first of the three holy days leading up to Easter. On these days, we will meditate on what Jesus did for us in order to save us, how He laid down His life as a ransom for many, how He went to the cross as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. How He took our sin and death to His grave and buried them there so that we would no longer be slaves to Sin and held captive to Death.

Passion Sunday 2011

Feasts and Festivals, Series AApril 17, 2011320Views 0Likes 0Comments

Mt 26-27 / Palm/Passion Sunday A / 17 April 2011 / Holy Trinity - Hacienda Heights, CA And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Philippians 2:8

We call it “holy week” and rightly so. It is the most holy of weeks, that week between our Lord’s entry into Jerusalem to shouts of Hosanna and culminating in His death and burial. What a week! Everything that Jesus is for us, everything that Jesus is for the world, His mission, is all packed into this one week and is summarized in this one verse from Philippians, “He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”

Can These Bones Live?

Series AApril 10, 2011300Views 0Likes 0Comments

John 11:17-27,38-53 / Lent 5A / 10 April 2011 / Holy Trinity - Hacienda Heights, CA “Son of man, can these bones live?” Can the bones of Lazarus four days dead in the grave live? Can your dry dead bones live? The answer with Jesus is “Yes. By His Word and breath they can live, for He is the Resurrection and the Life.”

The prophet Ezekiel was given to see Israel in all her deadness. A valley full of dry, dusty bones, the remnants of a battle perhaps. The bones were very dry because the people were very dead. Bones dried up, life dried up, hope dried up. “Our bones are dried up,” the Israelites said. “Our hope is lost; we are clean cut off.” Dead as dead can be.

Blind Religion

Series AApril 3, 2011386Views 0Likes 0Comments

John 9 / Lent 4A / 03 April 2011 / Holy Trinity - Hacienda Heights, CA Religion can make you blind. That may sound strange in church coming from the pulpit, but that’s the gist of our Gospel reading this morning. Religion can blind you to who Jesus is and what salvation is all about.

A Sassy Samaritan

Series AMarch 27, 2011312Views 0Likes 0Comments

John 04:05-26 / Lent 3A / 27 March 2011 / Holy Trinity - Hacienda Heights, CA She came for well water; she found living water. She came to quench her thirst; she found the cleansing of her sin. She came to Jacob’s well; she found Jesus, the source of living water.

She was a Samaritan, this woman who came to Jacob’s well with a water jug balanced on her head at high noon. I picture her with lipstick just a little too red; hair dyed just a bit too much. Maybe cracking gum. Living in a double-wide trailer on the other side of town. Quick wit, sassy smile, a few too many lines around her eyes. They write country songs about her. By the conventions of her day, she had three strikes against her: she was a woman, she was a Samaritan, she had been married five times and was shacked up with number six. Three reasons why any respectable rabbi would not have given her the time of day. Yet Jesus addresses her: “Give me a drink.” We don’t know if Jesus ever got his drink of water from her. It doesn’t say. But we do know that she got a lot more from Jesus that she could have bargained for, or hoped for.

The Faith of Abraham

Series AMarch 20, 2011369Views 0Likes 0Comments

John 03:01-17 / 2 Lent A / 20 March 2011 / Holy Trinity - Hacienda Heights, CA The word that runs through our three readings this morning and connects them is the word “faith.” Trust in the promise of God. “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.” “God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in Hims should not perish but have eternal life.”

This is bottom-line Christianity. This is the core of what you and I believe and confess as Christians. This is what makes Christianity “Christian.” It’s the chewy nougat center without which Christianity becomes just another religion among religions. This is what sets Christianity apart from the world’s religions and what many people, even those who call themselves Christian, don’t get. God justifies the ungodly. God counts faith in His promise as righteousness. God grants this as an unearned and undeserved gift, completely apart from any work that we do.

Earthquakes, Tsunamis and the Temptation of Jesus

Series AMarch 13, 2011317Views 0Likes 0Comments

Matthew 04:01-11 / 1 Lent A / 13 March 2011 / Holy Trinity - Hacienda Heights, CA Every once in a while, events in the world trump the liturgical calendar and even the assigned readings. Such was the case in September of 2001 and such is the case this morning, the first Sunday in Lent.…

What? No Ashes?

Feasts and Festivals, Series AMarch 9, 2011401Views 0Likes 0Comments

Joel 02:12-19 / Ash Wednesday 2011 / 09 March 2011 / Holy Trinity - Hacienda Heights, CA “Rend your hearts and not your garments.” Joel 2:13 Today is Ash Wednesday. So where are the ashes? Why is our Ash Wednesday ashless? The reason is NOT that we are not Roman Catholic. That’s never a good reason. The reason…