Cwirla – Page 33 – Holy Trinity Lutheran Church

The Way, The Truth, The Life

Series AMay 22, 2011386Views 0Likes 0Comments

John 14:1-14 / 5 Easter A / 22 May 2011 / Holy Trinity - Hacienda Heights, CA Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. John 14:1

Well, you’re here this morning, seeming to have survived the May 21st rapture madness. In case you hadn’t heard, Jesus was supposed to have come secretly to whisk off his believers yesterday, at least according to Harold Camping who was wrong about this in 1994 and was wrong again yesterday, leaving his followers looking like Linus in the pumpkin patch waiting for the Great Pumpkin. In the OT false prophets were stoned to death, so they didn’t get a second chance to fleece the sheep. In our day, we just have to put up with it and try to convince our friends and neighbors that we are not like those crazy people who believe that the world is going to end and Jesus is going to come again.

He Walks With You and He Talks With You

Series AMay 8, 2011381Views 0Likes 0Comments

Luke 24:13-35 / 3 Easter A / 08 May 2011 / Holy Trinity - Hacienda Heights, CA Imagine that you are one of those two disciples walking on the road to Emmaus that first Easter Sunday. It’s late in the afternoon, around 4 o’clock. You are on foot, walking from Jerusalem to Emmaus; it’s about a seven mile journey. You’re talking. It’s been quite a day. You’d been awakened early in the morning, before sunrise. The women who had gone to the tomb of Jesus to complete his burial had come running back with some astonishing news. The tomb was open. The grave was empty. There was some almost incoherent talk of angels who said he was alive. Peter and John had rushed to the tomb and saw the grave cloths folded up neatly; the head covering folded separately. Mary Magdalene was nearly hysterical, claiming that she had seen Jesus and that He had called her by name.

A Skeptical Disciple, A Certain Word

Series AMay 1, 2011351Views 0Likes 0Comments

John 20:19-31 / 2 Easter A / 1 May 2011 / Holy Trinity - Hacienda Heights, CA Today’s Gospel for this second Sunday of Easter is about a certain Word and skeptical disciple. The certain Word, of course, comes from Jesus, the Word incarnate, newly risen from the dead. The skeptical disciple is Thomas. And the certain Word of Jesus turns a skeptic into a believer.

Thomas was called Didymus, “the Twin,” presumably because he had a twin brother. He is listed in the second tier of the Twelve, usually between Matthew the tax collector and Simon the Zealot. Tradition says that he went on to bring the Gospel to India, where one of the oldest churches in Christianity still exists today.

Easter Sunday 2011 (bilingual)

Feasts and Festivals, Series AApril 24, 2011348Views 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, 2011391Views 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, 2011334Views 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, 2011352Views 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, 2011338Views 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, 2011434Views 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, 2011348Views 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.