Scripture Readings Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen! Back in the old country, a grandpa and his grandson were walking home from the market with their donkey. As they walked along, the folks along the way began to laugh and make fun of them. “Why are they both walking beside the donkey?! You’d think one of those fools would ride!” Upon this scorn and peer pressure, the old man put his grandson on the donkey’s back

Scripture Readings Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen! Do you ever notice how pretty much everyone loves Christmas? There in the manger lies the little Lord Jesus, cute and cuddly, asleep on the hay. Shepherds, angels, Mary, Joseph, and barnyard animals all gathered around the newborn King. The prophet Isaiah painted this beautiful picture centuries earlier: “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the

Scripture Readings Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father and Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen! Happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there! Father’s Day is another great reminder that none of us would be here without you! It really is fascinating when you think about it. God Himself instituted fatherhood and motherhood for the purpose fulfilling the original “great commission” at the dawn of creation: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of Go

Scripture Readings Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father and Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen! One evening, a man was out for a walk along a beautiful beach on the pacific ocean. As he journeyed along his way, he was admiring the gorgeous sunset and the sound of the waves crashing onto the shore. He noticed another man down the beach in the distance. As he approached this other man, he noticed that from time to time this man would stoop down, pick something

Scripture Readings Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father and Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen! Pretty much the last place on planet earth I’d ever choose willingly to go is to the hospital. Especially the ER. I’m impatient and hate waiting. In Moose Jaw, it’s an automatic 3 hours and probably more like 6-8 of just sitting around waiting to get looked at. Don’t you long for the days when the doctor came to your house and fixed you up with merely the contents

Scripture Readings Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father and Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen! I’ve got a real interest in early church history. As Lutherans, we tend to kind of default to the Reformation with Luther and the other Protestants. But that was only around 500 years ago. What happened before that? How did Christians understand God and theology way back, like 1,900 years ago!? It’s fascinating really. Often we have ideas about God and faith that r

Scripture Readings Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father and Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen! Last Sunday at confirmation we were talking about God’s presence with His people. When you read the Scriptures, you can see a definitive pattern emerging about this. Eden, the garden-temple that we talked about last Sunday, was the starting point. God was present in a very intense way with Adam and Eve. In a world without sin and death, you had a literal paradise.

Scripture Readings Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed! Alleluia! Our ‘once-Christian’ culture still bears some of the fingerprints of the Church. Christmas. Easter. Thanksgiving. The bigger holidays are still there in concept, even if the actual Christian meaning has become eclipsed by Santa and a bunny and a turkey. Even our weekend days of Saturday and Sunday reflect the Sabbath and the day of our Lord’s Resurrection that used to be days off from work. Now they’ve just bec

Scripture Readings Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed! Alleluia! A little boy was furiously riding his tricycle around the block over and over and over again, all the while tears streaming down his face. He was holding a teddy bear and his blue blanket was dragging on the ground as he went. A nearby police officer, having seen the crying boy go around and around, stopped him and asked him if he was OK. The little boy told the cop that he was running away from home! The offic

Scripture Readings Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed! Alleluia! Back in the day, when I was in Seminary, we got to go on a field trip of sorts to Calgary, AB. And who doesn’t love a school field trip, right?! I remember in Kindergarten going down south of Moose Jaw to the Bunnyview Pet farm! The Seminary field trip unfortunately didn’t involve farm animals. It was quite the opposite. It was an inner city immersion kind of experience so we bumpkins could see what it was like

Scripture Readings Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed! Alleluia! “Hey Dan, what are you doing here?” “Oh hey! We just moved to Chaplain.” … “Chaplain? … Do you have family there?” … “No.” … “Do you like salt?!” That’s basically how it all started, right out there in the Narthex! When God brought Pastor Dan and Connie to Emmanuel it was a very exciting time indeed. Immediately, I saw an opportunity … to make life easier on myself! … If we call Dan, that means I don’t have to

Scripture Readings Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed! Alleluia! Old Beatrice Brown was known as the ‘chicken lady’. She loved chicken and made the best chicken soup this side of Parkbeg! She went down to the local butcher shop to go and buy a fresh chicken. “I’ll have a chicken please” said Beatrice. The butcher went into the back and grabbed his last remaining bird from the cooler. After weighing it he said “that will be $12.54 ma’am.” “Do you have a larger one?” Beatrice

Scripture Readings Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed! Alleluia! Today’s Gospel lesson is definitely one of my all time favourites. The Disciples on the Emmaus road. St. Luke alone records this event and he places it as the first detailed post-resurrection appearance of Jesus, immediately after the women’s report of the empty tomb and Peter’s independent fact-checking: he “rose and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; and he went h

Scripture Readings Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed! Alleluia! In this last Lenten Bible Study we did on The Chosen, Season 3, they pointed out a phrase that the Jews often said to each other. “Shalom Shalom.” If you remember episode 7 where the Roman Gaius asks Peter why he says it twice, he answers “Well, once means ‘peace.’ Twice means ‘perfect peace’ … complete wholeness.” This isn’t just The Chosen movie magic, either. It is actually a Biblical greeting that comes fr

Scripture Readings Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed! Alleluia! Christ is Risen! Christ is Risen! Christ is Risen! No matter on which syllable you place the emphasis, it is all true! The stone was rolled away and the tomb was empty! The crucified Lord and Savior Jesus Christ was not there! The neon sign outside the tomb flashed “vacant!” “He is not here! He has risen,” the angel said to the bewildered women. “Come, see the place where He lay. Then go quickly and tell Hi

Scripture Readings: St. John's Passion Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen! The cross . You literally see it everywhere. It hangs around peoples’ necks. Athletes often make the sign of the cross before competing in events. Hospitals frequently have crosses or crucifixes in the halls. And of course, churches are adorned with crosses inside the sanctuary and on top of steeples. The cross is a very popular symbol of re

Scripture Readings Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen! “For the Lord will pass through to strike the Egyptians, and when he sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the Lord will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you” (Ex 12:23). There you go, folks. That’s the whole reason we have gathered here tonight at God’s house. On this night that is not like an

Scripture Readings Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen! Back in the good ol’ glory days of the Roman Empire, there was no shortage of pomp and circumstance. To boast about the achievements of the Empire was ingrained into every single citizen. At times of war this concept was never more clear. The Roman Triumph was a prime example. It was one of the most prestigious customs in ancient Rome. It coupled a grand civil

Scripture Readings Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen! Way back in 1905, a guy named Frederick Wells conducted a routine inspection of a diamond mining operation that he was managing. The story goes that Wells spotted a flash of light reflecting from the wall of the open pit about 18 feet below the surface during the inspection. He climbed up to the location and pried it out with a pocket knife. Initially he though

Scripture Readings Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen! Most of the time, when people think about Religion or the church, it often drifts into morality. I need to be a ‘good person.’ Or I’ll put my kid in Catholic or Christian School so they learn some good morals. And this is because our sinful and fallen human nature instinctively wants to work with works. Maybe I’ve been bad, therefore I really need to be good. O