Sermon for Palm Sunday – March 29, 2026

by Jeffrey Spencer | Mar 31, 2026 | Sermons

CLICK HERE for a worship video for March 29

Sermon for Palm Sunday – March 29, 2026

Matthew 27:11-54

Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.

The centurion had seen many crucifixions before. It was a common Roman practice, so he had probably witnessed hundreds of them before this one. His Grandpa may have told him stories of the slave revolt a generation before that led to 6,000 men being crucified along the Appian Way.  It was part of Roman lore.

Crucifixions weren’t at all uncommon among the Romans. As a centurion, he’d seen plenty of them. He would have carried them out himself.

But this one was different. It was different from the very beginning.

Usually when someone is charged with a capital offense, they have a lot to say in their own defense. They will say anything to beat the charges, and if that doesn’t get them anywhere, they will plead for their lives. But this Jesus remained silent before his accusers.

Usually when someone is mocked and spit upon and beaten, they react in one way or another. They might return the insults. They might try to fight back. They might squirm and try to escape. No matter how hopeless the situation might be, it’s just human nature. That fight or flight reaction is so strong. If nothing else, they will plead for mercy. But this Jesus bore it all without any hint of protest. He seemed to be doing it all willingly.

Yes, this was no ordinary crucifixion. This one was different from the very beginning.

And then, as Jesus was dying, weird things started happening – calamities that were cosmic in scale. The sky grew dark. It started at Noon, and by the time it was 3 o’clock it was as dark as night. That’s when Jesus cried out with a loud voice. That’s when he breathed his last. That’s when he died. It was as though the sky itself was grieving what was happening. It was like the sun was setting on an entire era of human history.

Then there was an earthquake! You take it for granted that the ground is reliably stable, and so it is terrifying to feel it shaking beneath your feet, rolling and heaving, throwing you off balance. The earthquake was strong enough that enormous rocks were split, cracked open like eggs when they’re dropped on the floor. It was as though the very foundations of existence were being shaken. This was no ordinary crucifixion.

The centurion had heard Jesus referred to as the Son of God. The chief priests and the scribes and the elders used the term to mock Jesus, saying “If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross!” They used that title “Son of God” to taunt Jesus. But could it be true? After all that this centurion had seen with this crucifixion, he came to believe that it was true. And so with a trembling voice, he looked up at Jesus on the cross and said, “Truly this man was God’s Son.”

Note well here that the first person to confess Jesus as the Son of God after his death was not a disciple. Neither was it a priest or a theologian. It wasn’t one of God’s chosen people, the people of the covenant. It wasn’t any of the people who prayed at the temple. It wasn’t anyone particularly holy or good. It wasn’t someone known for their clean living, for their clean record, their clean hands.

No, the first person to confess Jesus as the Son of God after his death was a Gentile. It was a Roman soldier. It was someone who had carried out hundreds of brutal crucifixions as part of their job. It was someone with blood on their hands – Jesus’ blood.

What was it that made this centurion go from seeing Jesus as just another inconvenient human being to euthanize to seeing him as God’s Son? What changed his mind? What changed his heart? It wasn’t a miracle. It wasn’t a dramatic healing or a multiplication of fish and loaves. It wasn’t any of Jesus’ sermons. It wasn’t his teaching. It wasn’t a clever parable.

What changed him was the cross. What changed his mind about Jesus, what changed his heart, was the cross. This was no ordinary crucifixion. It meant something. It still does.

Jesus took his sentence without argument. Jesus took all that abuse without protest. As Isaiah prophesied in our first reading, “I gave my back to those who struck me, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard; I did not hide my face from insults and spitting.” Jesus was the fulfillment of what the scriptures said God would do to save his people. Though the idea of a suffering Messiah had been long forgotten, Jesus was the fulfillment of the promise of a Savior who would suffer in order to save his people.

As Saint Paul says in our epistle reading, Jesus, although he was God, emptied himself. He submitted himself to death, even death on a cross. He emptied himself on purpose, with intentionality, willingly taking our sin upon himself in obedience to the Father, so that every tongue would confess that he is Lord.

When the sky drew dark, the sun was indeed setting on an entire era in human history. Sin was being defeated, conquered, destroyed, atoned for. When the earth heaved and rolled, the foundations of our existence were indeed being shaken. Death itself was dying. Through this crucified Messiah, humanity was being redeemed, resc those who stand in harm’s way on our behalf. Establish through their labors places of safety and calm ued, saved. Sin and death no longer separate a fallen humanity from a holy God! Now, all who look upon Jesus and his cross and confess that he is the Son of God have forgiveness, life, and salvation. And if God can put this saving confession on the lips of the very soldier who oversaw his crucifixion, then there is hope for everyone.

This was no ordinary crucifixion. Jesus did it for you. He suffered for you. He died for you. He did it to save you. He did it to redeem you. He did it in order to defeat sin, death, and the devil. He did is so that there would be nothing left that could ever separate you from God.

This was no ordinary crucifixion. Truly this man was God’s Son.

And as we will learn next Sunday, he still is.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer

Oak Harbor Lutheran Church

Sermon for the Fifth Sunday in Lent – March 22, 2026

by Jeffrey Spencer | Mar 23, 2026 | Sermons

CLICK HERE for a worship video for March 22

Sermon for the Fifth Sunday in Lent – March 22, 2026

John 11:1-45

Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.

Death stinks. It literally stinks, of course, but it stinks in every other way as well. It stinks because it brings grief, which can be overwhelming, even debilitating at times. It stinks because it means loss. Death brings an aching absence in your life that used to be filled by the person who died. If it was someone especially close to you, this absence can be as profound as losing a limb. Death also stinks because it can also make us confused about what God is up to in our lives. It can make us wonder whether God hears our prayers, whether God cares about us.Yes, death stinks in more ways than one.

You can almost picture Martha and Mary giving Jesus the stink eye when he showed up a day late and a dollar short after their beloved brother died. “If you had been here, Lord, our brother would not have died,” they each said to him. When these sisters sent word to Jesus that their brother Lazarus was gravely ill, Jesus didn’t rush to their side. He didn’t immediately respond to their request.

John tells us, “Though Jesus loved Martha and Mary and Lazarus, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.” It is almost as though John feels a need to reassure us that Jesus loved them, because his dallying, his delayed response, sure didn’t look like love. By the time Jesus headed out to Bethany, Lazarus was already dead. And so came the stink eye directed towards him from Martha and Mary. Then came the thinly veiled disappointment in him as they said, “Lord, if you had been here, our brother would not have died.”

I sometimes hear echoes of Mary and Martha’s words in the grief and the disappointment and the confusion and the anger of those who have lost loved ones. When grief is raw, it can feel like God has failed us. When grief lingers, years or even decades later, we struggle to feel God’s comforting love. When things don’t happen the way we would like, Jesus can feel cruelly absent.

When Jesus was confronted by these two grieving sisters, he didn’t scold them for how they felt. He didn’t scold them for their passive aggressive comments. Instead, he gave them a promise. “I am the resurrection and the life,” Jesus said. “Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.”

Jesus didn’t give these two disappointed sisters an explanation for why he allowed things to unfold as they did. But he did weep with them. Even though he knew what would ultimately happen, Jesus had empathy for them. He understood what death did to people. He was moved by their grief and shared in it. His emotions flowed so freely that some in the crowd noticed it, saying, “See how he loved him!” Others were cynical about it, saying, “If he loved him, why didn’t he come a little earlier and save him?”

But Jesus did love Lazarus. He loved Lazarus so much that he asked to be taken to the tomb. They brought him to the tomb, which was a cave with a stone lying against it to seal it tight. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.”

Martha said no. She said no because death literally stinks. “Lord,” she said, “already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.” I like how the King James Version translates this passage, which has Martha objecting because, “he stinketh.” Tombs weren’t something you just opened up again. They stinketh! They were filthy places. They made you unclean, both physically and, in Jewish tradition, spiritually as well. But Jesus loved Lazarus enough to enter the stink. Jesus loved Lazarus so much that he was willing to get dirty.

I did a graveside service for a woman once. Her husband, who absolutely adored her, had been taking care of her for a long time, during a long illness, and now he found himself in his best suit, standing over her open grave. He insisted on staying until she had been lowered into the ground. When that was done, he still didn’t want to leave. People milled around for a while, but he lingered, and lingered, and lingered, until it got awkward and people started to head to the reception.

But not him. He wouldn’t budge. Eventually it was just me and him and the funeral director left there. Before he finally left, he got down on the ground, laying on his belly next to her grave. He reached his arms down to his wife and called out her name. It didn’t matter to him that he was getting mud all over his nice suit. He loved her and he didn’t want to let her go. It was gut-wrenching and beautiful at the same time.

Jesus loved Lazarus enough to get dirty too. This is the kind of love Jesus had for him. It’s the kind of love he has for you too.

“Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” Jesus said. So they opened up the tomb. Jesus came right up next to it. Jesus spoke into that dark cave as the stink wafted out. Jesus called out his name: “Lazarus, come out!” And Lazarus came out. Jesus said to the people, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

If there was any question about whether Jesus loved him before, there wasn’t now. If there was confusion about what Jesus was up to, it had now given way to the joy and wonder of Jesus’ power over death. If there were any doubts about Jesus before, they now gave way to faith in him. As John tells us, “Many of the Jews, therefore, who had come with Mary and seen what Jesus did, believed in him.

Although Jesus didn’t respond to the sisters in the way they wanted him to, he did transform Lazarus’ death into an opportunity to show the glory of God. He did use it as an opportunity to show that his voice, his word, is more powerful than death.

Many heard this word and came to believe in him as a result. They heard this word and trusted in him, even in the face of death.

The stink of death has been wafting through our congregation over these past few months. I have some mementos from David Lura’s ministry in my office, which are an honor to have, but which also remind me how much I miss him. We had a memorial service this past week for Gene and Dottie Gilbert, and I was talking with a couple of our members about how we now have one remaining charter member who is active in our congregation. Sande Mulkey is being remembered today. I’ll be meeting with Nancy Tipton’s family after Easter to bury her, and in the meantime, I still look out expecting to see her in her usual spot. I’ve talked to others recently who have had to travel for funerals, or who have lost loved ones and have marked milestones and birthdays and anniversaries which have stirred up a fresh round of grief. In the past 10 days or so two of our council members have lost loved ones. There’s been a lot of death lately, and a lot of grief, and it stinketh.

Jesus can take your stink eye, if that’s what you are feeling towards him. He can take your questions, your disappointment. Mary and Martha had similar reactions, and Jesus never once scolded them for it.

What he did do is give them a promise. What he did do is weep with them. He came alongside them in their grief, sharing in it. What he did do is bring glory to God by showing his ultimate power over death

Jesus does the same for you. He gives you a promise. He says, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.” Jesus acknowledges the reality of death, saying, “even though they die,” but he promises that death not have the last word. He will.

Jesus weeps with you. He knows the toll death takes on our hearts and our lives. He knows the aching absence. He weeps for us and with us, and so we are never alone in our grief. Christ is with us.

Best of all, Jesus has shown us his power over death. What happened here with Lazarus was a sneak preview. God was just getting warmed up! The raising of Lazarus is a foreshadowing of what we will be celebrating just two weeks from now when we gather to bask in the resurrection of Jesus, which breaks the curse of death for all of us.

Because of his resurrection, even now our Lord begins to move us from confusion to hope and peace, perhaps with time even joy and wonder.

Because of his resurrection, even now our Lord Jesus begins to move us from disappointment and doubt, to believing in him as our savior and trusting in his power over death.

Because of his resurrection, we can go to our own graves trusting that Jesus will do for us what gives God the greatest glory. He will come to our tomb. He will open it up. He will get down into the dirt and stink of it all to be close to us, refusing to let us go. In his great love for us he will reach his arms down into our graves and call out our names. And his voice has a power that ours do not. His word is more powerful than death.

And so when we die, the first thing we will hear is the voice of our Lord Jesus calling our name. It is then that we will be unbound from death, and that stink will be gone forever.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer

Oak Harbor Lutheran Church