by Jeffrey Spencer | Jun 16, 2026 | Sermons |
CLICK HERE for a worship video for June 14
Sermon for the Third Sunday after Pentecost – June 14, 2026
Matthew 9:35-10:8
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
As Christians today, it is easy to look at the world around us and feel discouraged, angry even. The buzzword of the day is decline: the decline of Christianity, the decline of the church, the decline in worship attendance, the decline of Western civilization, the decline of our cities, the decline of our public spaces, the decline of civility, the decline in character and virtue among our leaders, the decline in basic morality in our culture – which keeps legalizing every vice and then wondering why things keep getting worse. It is very easy to look at all of this and be discouraged, angry even. I admit I’ve had moments when I’ve felt this way.
When Jesus looked at the world around him, what did he see? To be sure, he saw a big mess. There was sickness of every sort – physical sickness, spiritual sickness, moral sickness, societal sickness. He saw the fallen world we still live in today, a world that rejects God, a world that chases pleasure at the expense of righteousness, a world full of sin.
But that’s not all our Lord saw. When Jesus looked at the crowds, he saw people who were harassed and helpless. When he looked at the world, he saw people who were like sheep without a shepherd. To be harassed is to face danger and threats from outside of yourself. To be helpless is to be without the means or strength or resources to handle those dangers and threats by yourself. To be like sheep without a shepherd is to be vulnerable to these dangers and threats. It is to need help from something or someone more powerful than you. It is to need the Shepherd.
And so, when Jesus looked out at the world, he saw a big mess, to be sure, but he wasn’t discouraged and he wasn’t angry. Instead, he was compassionate. “When he looked at the crowds,” it says, “he had compassion for them.” He proclaimed Good News. He brought healing and hope. He was the shepherd people needed.
Instead of being discouraged or angry, Jesus also saw an opportunity. He said to the disciples: “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore, ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”
Jesus then empowered his disciples to address this opportunity. He gave them authority over the unclean spirits, so they could cast them out. Jesus sent his disciples out into those ripe fields to proclaim the Good News that in Jesus, the kingdom of heaven had come near. Jesus sent them first to their fellow Jews. The mission would expand to Gentiles later with the Great Commission to make disciples of all nations, but for now they were to focus on those opportunities which were close at hand.
As Jesus’ disciples today, this is still the mission. We too are given authority from Jesus to speak in his name. We are given authority over unclean spirits, to cast out the wicked one and his lies. We have Good News which can chase away hopelessness and despair. We have a word that is more powerful than any wickedness, any evil, a word that can bring healing and hope to others as we share the Good News that in Jesus Christ, the kingdom of heaven has come near to us. We can share the Good News that in Jesus Christ we have the shepherd we need, a shepherd who can protect us from evil, a shepherd who can guide us into paths of righteousness, a shepherd who can bind up our wounds, forgive our wandering, and give us peace.
This is still the mission. But if we are going to carry it out, we need to begin to see the world differently than we sometimes do. We need to begin to see the world more like Jesus sees it. Instead of being discouraged and angry all the time, we need to look at the world around us with compassion. We need to look at the world and see the opportunities God has given us.
To look at the world with compassion is to understand that we are all born into brokenness, every last one of us. It is to recognize that some people are fighting battles we can’t see. It is to acknowledge that many people are harassed from the outside, negatively influenced in ways they probably don’t realize. It is to be mindful that many people lack the ability or the resources to help themselves. Our response to all of this needs to be compassion, not just anger.
Anger has its place. Jesus was pretty angry with the money changers who desecrated the temple. There is such a thing as righteous anger towards the evils of this world. But the Bible is also clear that anger is dangerous. It can consume us. It can disfigure our hearts. Anger is a response, but it is not a virtue. Compassion is a virtue, and compassion is how we are to look at the world as Christians.
Now, there are versions of compassion out there which are unhelpful. Compassion doesn’t mean enabling someone’s destructive behaviors. Compassion doesn’t mean not holding people accountable. Compassion doesn’t mean automatically turning victimhood into virtue. It doesn’t mean living in a permanent state of naivete. Compassion cannot be held apart from truth. Compassion cannot be separated from righteousness. Compassion should not be exercised without wisdom. Don’t take it from me. Just a few verses later in this chapter of Matthew Jesus himself tells the disciples to be “wise as serpents, and as innocent as doves.”
So, compassion needs to be balanced by other important biblical values. But that said, compassion must always remain a primary lens by which we view the world. It must be so, because that’s how Jesus looked at the world.
We also need to look at the world and see the opportunities God has given us. Rather than moping about the declines in Christianity and number of people actively participating in the life of the church – which I will again admit I have done from time to time – we need to see the opportunities we have to reach out, the opportunities we have to invite, the opportunities we have to share the Good News that in Jesus, the kingdom of heaven has come near! The harvest is still plentiful, and when we pray for God to send out more laborers to bring it in, don’t be surprised if you are part of the answer to that prayer!
And just as Jesus sent his disciples to their own people, at least at first, oftentimes it is still the case that the opportunities to reach out to others are close at hand, among people you already know. We have three people joining our congregation today, two through baptism and one through affirmation of faith, and all three of them came as our members saw an opportunity which was close at hand, an opportunity to show compassion and kindness, an opportunity to bring someone into the care of the Shepherd. Dave Myers invited a co-worker to our Lenten soup suppers. Tom Piper invited a new friend at Regency to come to our church, even offering to give her a ride. This is how it is done, folks! These opportunities are often close at hand – if you keep an eye out for them.
When our Lord Jesus looks at you, he looks at you with compassion. He sees the ways you have been harassed by evil forces, by lies, by suffering, by temptations. He sees the ways you are helpless, unable to rescue yourself from your bondage to sin.
He sees all of this, and instead of being angry, he has compassion for you. He has come to be the shepherd you need. He has come to protect you and guide you and heal you and forgive you and give you peace. When he looks at you, his heart is filled with tenderness, with grace, with love. As the Apostle Paul tells us in our reading from Romans, Christ proves his loves for us in that while we were still sinners, he died for us.
When we put our trust in Christ’s compassionate love for us, our hearts begin to beat with that same compassion, and our eyes begin to look at the world through that lens.
When our Lord Jesus looks at us, he also sees an opportunity. First, he sees an opportunity to make us his own, an opportunity to redeem us from the fallen world in which we live.
Then he sees an opportunity to recruit some laborers for the harvest! He empowers us with his Spirit, he authorizes us to speak the Word he has given us, and he sends us out into world with all of its decline and all of its sickness to go to work sharing the Good News which brings healing and hope.
The opportunities are all around us, so look for them.
And because it is ultimately the Lord’s harvest, don’t ever be discouraged.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
by Jeffrey Spencer | Jun 7, 2026 | Sermons |
CLICK HERE for a worship video for June 7
Sermon for the Second Sunday after Pentecost – June 7, 2026
Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
We have three stories in quick succession in our gospel reading for today, and what ties them together is a tragic spiritual condition which some theologians refer to as “cooties.” (When I say, “some theologians,” I mean me.) You know how cooties works: when someone has them, you stay away from them so that you don’t become infected with them yourself! There is the playground version of this, where children avoid the opposite sex or the oddball or the new kid, but there are many, many adult versions as well. We human beings have a tendency to turn away from others, particularly from various kinds of human brokenness – afraid that it might infect us too.
The Bible is rife with outbreaks of cooties, only in the Bible it isn’t called that. In the Bible it is called being unclean. Whether you were ritually unclean or morally unclean or physically unclean, you were to be avoided. Close contact with an unclean person made you unclean too! To be unclean not only made you unfit for relationships with others; you were also thought to be unfit for a relationship with God.
The three stories we have in our gospel reading for today each feature Jesus encountering various strains of spiritual cooties, different types of uncleanliness, and in each of them, instead of turning away from the afflicted, Jesus turns towards them. Instead of Jesus catching cooties, they catch Jesus! By his turning towards them in mercy, they are made clean and given a new life.
First up we have Matthew. Matthew was a tax collector. As a tax collector, Matthew had moral cooties. He was morally compromised. We often think of Matthew as the modern equivalent of an IRS agent, but it is worse than that. (Sorry to any IRS agents listening today.) The issue wasn’t merely that he collected taxes, but that he was doing so as a collaborator with Rome, who had invaded and pillaged and occupied Israel, their Promised Land. And so, tax collectors were thought of as traitors to their own people.
Most Jews marked and avoided tax collectors. But not Jesus. Jesus went right up to Matthew’s tax booth and said to him, “Follow me.” Matthew got up and followed Jesus, leaving his old life behind.
Later, Jesus sat down and ate dinner with him. There were other tax collectors and sinners in attendance too. We need to understand that rabbis didn’t just sit down with unclean people and share dinner with them, dipping their bread into the common bowls and rubbing elbows with them. This was a prime vector for spreading cooties!
Most rabbis wouldn’t do that, but Jesus did – and when the Pharisees saw it, they couldn’t believe their eyes. They asked some of the disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” And Jesus, overhearing them, explained, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.”
With this statement, Jesus acknowledged that these guys he was eating with were not well. They were indeed unclean. Jesus doesn’t make light of their sin. He doesn’t excuse it or justify it or redefine it. He certainly doesn’t encourage it. Instead, he is there eating and drinking with them so that he might cleanse them by his mercy and call them into a new life with him. And at least in Matthew’s case, that’s exactly what happened. He followed Jesus into a new life. Instead of Jesus catching his cooties, Matthew caught Jesus!
Next up we have a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years. Talk about unclean! In the ancient world a woman’s regular cycle rendered her unclean for a limited time each month. This uncleanliness was not a moral issue, as it was with the tax collectors and sinners. This was a natural process related to fertility – a good thing. This, rather, was a hygienic matter. Any time there was blood outside of the body, it was a major concern. You were expected to stay away from others. You were expected to stay home from synagogue. This woman had been dealing with these hemorrhages non-stop for twelve years! This meant twelve years of social and religious isolation. This meant constantly having people turn away from her.
But not Jesus. When this woman reached out for Jesus’ cloak as he passed by, when she reached out in faith and touched him with her unclean hand, Jesus didn’t turn away. Instead, he turned towards her! Instead of avoiding her, he spoke to her. He said, “Take heart, daughter, your faith has made you well.” Her bleeding stopped. Her life was restored. Her faith in Christ made her well. Instead of Jesus catching her cooties, she caught Jesus!
Finally, we have the most difficult story of the three. A leader of the synagogue came up to Jesus, begging for his help. His daughter had just died. He asked Jesus to come lay hands on her, so that she would live. Jesus went to the house where the girl was. There was already a crowd of mourners there. There were already flute-players playing a funeral dirge. When Jesus told the crowd to go away, that she was not dead but sleeping, they all laughed at him. Jesus went into the house where this precious daughter laid still in her bed.
Blood was bad enough when it came to uncleanliness, but a dead body was a whole new level of unclean. The Jewish Mishnah describes a human corpse as “the father of the father of all uncleanliness.” It was considered the ultimate impurity. Touching the dead made you unclean for seven days, and then there was a complex rite of purification you had to go through to be made clean again. And so nobody wanted to be near the dead. Aside from perhaps her parents, everyone would have turned away from this precious little girl’s body to avoid being made unclean.
But not Jesus. Jesus went right up to her. Jesus took her by the hand, and she got up. She was no longer a dead body to be avoided; she was now full of life once again. Instead of Jesus catching her cooties, she caught Jesus. She was filled with life from him.
These three stories, in one way or another, reflect our own stories, our own lives. Sin continues to mess up our relationships with others and our relationship with God. We are sick with it and need to be made well. Many have experienced how debilitating and isolating it is when we are physically sick or when our bodies don’t work the way they are supposed to. We all have, or will, lose loved ones. Most of us already know well the somber notes of the funeral liturgy.
But instead of turning away from us in our brokenness and need, our Lord Jesus turns towards us.
Jesus turns towards us through his Word, forgiving us for our sin and calling us to follow him. He calls us away from our old lives and into new life with him.
Jesus Christ continues to eat and drink with sinners, rubbing elbows with us, taking all that is unclean in us upon himself and giving us his holiness in return.
Jesus comes to us through these means of grace that we might take hold of him, that we might reach out to him in faith and touch his cloak, and in so doing be made whole again, restored to fellowship with one another and fellowship with God.
Jesus has come to show us that he has power even over death, and so when the final uncleanliness comes, he will not turn away. He will instead take us by the hand and raise us up to eternal life.
Jesus is not concerned about catching your cooties. He instead wants you to catch him! And so instead of turning away from us, he turns towards us, making us clean, and holy, and alive.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
by Jeffrey Spencer | May 31, 2026 | Sermons
CLICK HERE for a worship video for May 31
Sermon for Holy Trinity Sunday – May 31, 2026
Genesis 1:1-2:4a, 2 Corinthians 13:11-13, Matthew 28:16-20
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from our Triune God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
This is the one Sunday on the church calendar devoted to a doctrine, to a church teaching. On Holy Trinity Sunday we celebrate that God has revealed himself to us as one God existing as three persons, as a blessed Trinity.
Some congregations will recite the Athanasian Creed today – one of the ecumenical creeds alongside the Apostles Creed and the Nicene Creed. While each of these creeds are trinitarian, describing the three-fold nature and being of God, it is the Athanasian Creed which describes the Trinity in the greatest detail, going to great lengths to do so. It took up two full pages in the old LBW, our previous book of worship. It isn’t even included in the new book, to our shame. We aren’t going to recite the Athanasian Creed this morning, but I do want to give you a taste of it. It begins with these words:
Now this is the catholic (or universal Christian) faith:
That we worship one God in trinity and the trinity in unity,
neither blending their persons
nor dividing their essence.
For the person of the Father is a distinct person,
the person of the Son is another,
and that of the Holy Spirit still another.
But the divinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is one,
their glory equal, their majesty coeternal.
And a little later it says:
Nothing in this trinity is before or after,
nothing is greater or smaller;
in their entirety the three persons
are coeternal and coequal with each other.
So in everything, as was said earlier,
we must worship their trinity in their unity
and their unity in their trinity.
As strange and convoluted as this might sound, this is foundational Christian theology. It articulates the nature and being of God as one God who has been revealed to us in three persons. You don’t need to understand it in a logical sense – in fact, you can’t understand it in that way! It is ultimately a mystery! But it is essential to believe that this is who God really is! The Father is God, Jesus is God, the Holy Spirit is God, AND there is only one God.
You can’t really explain a mystery, but perhaps a simple symbol can help here, a simple shape. The Trinity has often been represented as a triangle. You can see a couple of triangles representing the Trinity in your bulletin for today. There’s one on the cover. There’s one in the middle pages. You also see a triangle design on the screen today.
Other shapes or designs are used to illustrate the Trinity too. For example, you often see three interlocking circles, such as we see on our banner for Trinity Sunday. Circles have no beginning and no ending, and so they represent eternity. With three of them connected to each other you get a picture of a triune, eternal God. It is wonderful symbolism for the Trinity. The shapes in this design work too. But I can’t help but notice that if you were to superimpose a frame over those circles, you would get a triangle! When there are three of them connected to each other in that way, even there you have a triangle!
I am the furthest thing from an engineer. I have two sons who have Engineering degrees, and how they managed to do that with my DNA in them is a mystery to me second only to the Trinity. But my engineering major sons will tell you that the strongest shape in engineering is a triangle. You see it in the design of roofs. You see it in trusses for bridges. You see it in braces that hold up square and rectangle-shaped walls. You never want to be on scaffolding that doesn’t have some triangles somewhere, because on their own those other shapes tend to topple over! But not triangles. Triangles are stable. Triangles exist in perfect structural balance, evenly distributing tension. Triangles are foundational.
In the same way, the doctrine of the Holy Trinity is foundational for Christian theology. It holds up other important Christian teachings, such as the divinity of Jesus. It gives us the theological structure by which to claim that Jesus is God while also claiming that there is only one God.
Some critics of Christianity, and even some within Christianity, like to point out that the word Trinity never appears in scripture, like that’s some big gotcha. But that’s beside the point. The word “Trinity” is just a word describing the shape of God that we find in scripture. The word “Trinity” is a word referring to the triangle shape of this one-in-three and three-in-one God we find over and over again as God reveals himself to us in this way in his Word.
We find this triangle shape in the very first verses of the Bible. We see the Trinity at work already in the first chapter of Genesis. When God created the heavens and the earth, a wind swept over the waters. The word “wind” here can also be translated as Spirit. They are the exact same word in both Hebrew and Greek! God the Father is with his Spirit at the very beginning!
Where is the Son? Well, God created the world by speaking. “Let there be light!” God said, and there was light. “Let there be waters and dry land and living creatures,” and they all came to be. God creates by his Word. We know from the gospel of John that “in the beginning the Word was with God and the Word was God.” We also learn from John that this same Word “became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, as the glory of a father’s only son.” The same Word of God that created all things became flesh in the person of Jesus Christ.
And so from the very first verses of the Bible, at the very beginning of creation, before anything else existed, there was this foundational triangle shape of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
We also find this triangle shape in our reading from Second Corinthians, where St. Paul blesses the Christians in Corinth with a three-fold blessing, saying, “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” The God Paul is invoking here is three, and yet one.
We find this triangle shape most clearly in our gospel reading, where Jesus himself commands us to go and make disciples of all nations by baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Note that the word “name” is singular. There is one name, because there is one God, but God’s name is threefold. God’s proper name, Jesus says, is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This is the name in which we are to baptize. This is the name of the God who claims us in those waters. This is who God is. Jesus himself has made God known to us as a Holy Trinity, as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This is not merely a metaphor. This is not a cultural relic which can be changed at will. This is a revelation from the One who has all authority in heaven and on earth! And so, this is foundational! It is foundational to Christian theology. It is foundational to the Christian church.
It is foundational for us as individual Christians too. It is foundational for our lives.
You see, the same Holy Trinity who called creation into existence, also called YOU into existence. The same Trinity who spoke life into being spoke you into being too! To believe this is to believe that your life has meaning and purpose and value. To believe this is to believe that you are not a cosmic accident. To believe this is to believe that God himself wanted one of you and wants you still. Believing this, trusting that it is true, is foundational for our lives!
The same Holy Trinity Paul invokes in his blessing over the Christians in Corinth is spoken over you in the Apostolic Greeting which has become part of the Christian liturgy. Every week this Holy Trinity blesses you with the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ to cover your sin, with the love of God the Father to fill your heart, and with the communion of the Holy Spirit to draw you into fellowship with God and with God’s people.
The same Holy Trinity Jesus names as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit makes you his own when baptism is bestowed in this Holy Name, when this name is put on you. The same Holy Trinity continues to teach us to live as disciples, to live in obedience to everything Jesus has commanded us. The same Holy Trinity promises to be with us always, even to the end of the age.
To paraphrase St. Augustine, we all have a God-shaped hole in our lives – and that shape is a triangle. It can only filled by the Holy Trinity of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, one God in three persons, blessed Trinity.
Our gospel reading for today says that as the disciples worshipped Jesus, some doubted. This doesn’t mean they were rejecting Jesus. They weren’t. It just means they had a hard time taking in everything they had seen and heard. But Jesus was patient with them. He kept teaching them. He preached a word to them that moved their hearts from doubt to trust.
You don’t need to understand everything about the Holy Trinity or the Athanasian Creed. In fact, you can’t understand it. Not completely. There may well be parts that make your head hurt, parts you can’t quite take in. But by trusting in Jesus, by trusting in the triangle-shaped words of Holy Scripture, by trusting in the God who reveals himself to us as a Holy Trinity, you can find something better than mere understanding. You find a strong foundation for your life. You find a God strong enough to hold you up, no matter what. You find that triangle-shaped hole in your life to be filled with the grace of Jesus and with love of God and with the communion of the Holy Spirit. You find a strong promise assuring you that this powerful, loving, forgiving, life-giving triune God will be with you always, even to the end of the age.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
by Jeffrey Spencer | May 26, 2026 | Sermons
CLICK HERE for a worship video for May 24
Sermon for Pentecost Sunday – May 24, 2026
Acts 2:1-21, John 20:19-23
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
We have two Holy Spirit stories before us on this Pentecost Sunday, and they couldn’t be more different from one another. One is loud: The Spirit comes with a sound like the rush of a violent wind! The other is quiet: It comes as a whisper, as a breath. Jesus gives the Holy Spirit to the disciples by breathing on them.
One Holy Spirit story, the one we hear in the book of Acts, is showy and dramatic and full of fireworks: Tongues of fire rested on the disciples. A large crowd gathered, people from all over the world who had come to Jerusalem to celebrate the Jewish harvest festival. The disciples miraculously began to speak other languages, proclaiming God’s deeds of power in the native languages of those who were there. It was such a big, loud public spectacle that the scoffers accused the disciples of disorderly conduct. They were accused of being drunk – which Peter countered by pointing out that it was only nine o’clock in the morning.
The other Holy Spirit story we hear, in the gospel of John, is more intimate and simple: Jesus met the disciples in the Upper Room. He showed them his hands and his side. He gave them the Holy Spirit quietly and softly, with a breath. He spoke to them, saying, “Peace be with you,” gently calming their fears.
In both stories, the Spirit is at work through language, through speech, through talking, through a Word. In one, the Spirit is loud and dramatic, in the other, the Spirit is quiet and calm, but in both, the Spirit uses language to change hearts, to change minds, to change lives. In both, the Spirit uses verbal communication to bring forgiveness, life, and salvation to people by telling them of God’s deeds of power through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
I love it when we have these two Holy Spirit stories back-to-back on Pentecost Sunday because it shows us that the Holy Spirit works in a variety of ways. The predominant view in popular American Christianity is that the Spirit is always flashy, always dramatic. There is this idea out there that if you haven’t had some kind of flashy, dramatic, usually highly emotional experience, then you don’t truly have the Spirit. Some Christians even say that if you haven’t had a flashy, dramatic experience of the Holy Spirit, the really loud kind, then you aren’t truly saved. This idea is what Lutheran theologians call, “horse pucky.”
But this idea even sneaks in among Lutherans from time to time. It sneaks in when we think the Spirit is more present in big crowds than it is in small gatherings. It sneaks in when we think the Spirit is more at work when things are loud and upbeat than when things are quiet or reflective. It sneaks in when we think that other Christians have more of the Spirit than we do.
I also notice this idea sneaking in when people hear that someone has become a Christian, or when they hear that someone has had a renewal of their Christian faith. There is often an assumption that something big must have happened. There must have been a sound like the rush of a violent wind. Usually though, what has happened instead has been more like a series of whispers, a series of small breaths.
I love how C. S. Lewis spoke of his conversion to the Christian faith. He spent much of his adult life as an atheist. He had lots of conversations with Christian friends, including his good friend J.R.R. Tolkien. He read a lot of G.K. Chesterton, the great British Christian intellectual. And through words on a page, through speech, through quiet conversations, God slowly changed his heart. God slowly changed his mind. God eventually changed his life. There were no loud sounds, no dramatic experiences. Lewis recounted that one day he was riding a motorcycle to spend the day at the zoo with his brother. He said that when he left his house, he didn’t believe that Jesus was the Son of God, but when he arrived, he did. That’s the Spirit at work too!
Just this past week I had someone ask me about my call to ordained ministry. Often people assume that there’s some dramatic Holy Spirit story lurking in the background of a pastor’s life. I’m kind of embarrassed sometimes that there isn’t for me. Instead, it was a series of whispers, a series of breaths, a series of quiet nudges. I was thinking about it this week after I was asked about it, and I remembered that the first time that being a pastor ever crossed my mind came when I was talking to my mom while she was in the bathroom. I was really excited about some theological insight I’d had after a conversation with the pastor of my home church, and I was telling my mom about it through the bathroom door. As the conversation ended, she said, “Maybe you should be a pastor.” And then she flushed the toilet. That’s my Holy Spirit story! There was more to it than that, of course, but my call to ministry was a series of quiet, simple, unremarkable, ordinary moments. The Holy Spirit got to me through whispers, through breaths.
Now maybe God got to you through something loud and flashy and dramatic. Maybe God got to you through a sound like the rush of a violent wind. Maybe God got to you through fireworks. If that’s your story, God bless you! God be praised! The loud story in Acts is indeed an example of God pouring out his Spirit on all kinds of people. The loud story in Acts has sometimes been called the birth of the Christian church, which seeks to speak loudly of God’s deeds of power to people of all nations and tongues, changing peoples’ lives in powerful ways.
But the loud story isn’t the only Holy Spirit story we have. It isn’t the only way God pours out his Spirit. In fact, I think it is more often the case that the Spirit works quietly, in whispers, in breaths. I think it is more common for the Spirit to work in ways that are simple, ordinary, even unremarkable.
The Spirit is at work in those seemingly unremarkable conversations you might have with a friend, maybe when they’re driving you to a doctor’s appointment, or coming to see you after a surgery, or inviting you out to lunch at a time when you really needed the company.
The Spirit is at work in those quiet moments with your Bible or book of devotions, when a passage lands right where it needs to, easing your fears, giving you perspective, giving you peace.
The Spirit is at work whenever we gather around the scriptures, whether that’s in Sunday school or Adult Bible Study or Lydia circle or Deborah circle or the Brotherhood of St. Bernard. Those conversations around the Word, even when we go down rabbit holes, are the Spirit’s workspace.
The Spirit is at work each and every Sunday when we gather for worship, no matter how routine or ordinary it might seem. What happens here in worship is sometimes boisterous and loud and celebratory, but more often than not it is quiet and simple. But don’t be mistaken when it is quiet and simple. What is happening in our routine Sunday services is a powerful work of the Spirit too! Our quiet, simple Sunday morning moments are an echo of what we see happening in the Holy Spirit story we hear today in our gospel reading. Jesus comes to us. He breathes on us, giving us his Word, coming close to us. Like the disciples, we often come to this Upper Room confused or afraid or troubled, and Jesus says to us, “Peace be with you.” And then, because he knows how badly we need his peace, he says it again, “Peace be with you.” On our ordinary Sunday mornings, Jesus shows us his hands and his side, he shows himself as our crucified and risen Lord. What is he doing in the Lord’s Supper if he isn’t showing us his wounds? Giving us his body and his blood? He shows us that he has taken care of everything necessary for our salvation. Jesus comes to us to assure us that our sin is forgiven, and then he renews us in our calling to share that forgiveness with others. This all comes through breaths, through whispers, through ordinary words spoken in a more quiet, intimate setting. This is the Spirit at work too!
There’s a saying I like very much. It isn’t a biblical saying, but it is still pretty good. You’ve probably heard it. It is a quote from the writer Kurt Vonnegut, who said, “Enjoy the little things in life, for one day you will look back and realize they were the big things.”
We can apply this to the work of the Spirit in the little things. We should pay attention to them. We should notice them. We should treasure them. We should enjoy them. Because one day we will realize that those little things – those little breaths from Jesus over the course of our lifetime – those are the big things.
I pray that that day of realization for us is today. My prayer for each of you is that you know that the Spirit is at work in your life even now. In the little things of a pastor’s meager voice, in the little things of bread and wine, in the little things of ordinary Christians gathered together to share conversation and consolation, the Spirit is at work – right here, right now.
The Holy Spirit is at work in many ways. Don’t overlook the little ones. They are bigger than you might think.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
by Jeffrey Spencer | May 17, 2026 | Sermons
CLICK HERE for a worship video for May 17
Sermon for the Ascension of our Lord – May 17, 2026
Acts 1-11, Luke 24:44-53
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our ascended Lord Jesus Christ.
On April 1st, I watched live on my computer as the Artemis II rocket was launched. Up, up, up it went. There were people on the ground near the Kennedy Space Center in Florida who were watching, and every once in awhile the cameras would show them craning their necks, shielding their eyes from the sun, watching as that rocket got smaller and smaller and smaller, until it disappeared into the upper atmosphere.
After the launch, I followed the progress of the mission through an app on my phone. There was a running ticker showing how many miles away from Earth the Artemis II capsule was. It went further and further and further away – farther than any human being has ever traveled in the history of humanity! At their furthest, they were 252,756 miles from Earth. On an evening walk with my wife, I looked up at the moon and mentioned to her how crazy it was that human beings had recently been on the back side of that glowing orb out there in space. It was both awe-inspiring and terrifying to think about. I can’t imagine being an astronaut hurtling through space like that, watching Earth get further and further away, your home planet getting smaller and smaller in the rear view mirror, while space got darker and darker and colder and colder. I know it was awe-inspiring for them, because they have said as much. But it had to be terrifying too.
I couldn’t help but think about the Artemis mission as I’ve been studying our scripture readings for this Sunday as we celebrate the Ascension of our Lord – the capstone of the Easter season. The story of Jesus going up, up, up into the heavens is told in both our Acts reading and our reading from the gospel of Luke. St. Luke, who wrote both Acts and his gospel, describes the disciples as watching Jesus as he went up into the sky, higher and higher and higher, further and further away from them. The disciples were gazing up into heaven until he disappeared from their sight. You can picture them like those people watching the Artemis launch in Florida, craning their necks and shielding their eyes from the sun, watching him until they couldn’t see him anymore.
In the gospel account of the Ascension, it says that after Jesus was no longer in sight, the disciples worshiped him. It says they were filled with great joy. It says they were continually in the temple blessing God. This seems, on the face of it, to be a strange reaction. Jesus is gone! Hooray! He just blasted off into the heavens, let’s celebrate! He’s out of here, let’s go thank God!
It seems like a strange reaction, but it is actually an entirely appropriate one, and when we understand why the disciples were celebrating, why they were full of great joy, why they were continually in the temple blessing God, we can begin to see why the Ascension of our Lord is such Good News for us here today too.
One of the reasons the disciples were filled with great joy was that Jesus had opened their minds to understand the scriptures. Now they understood how what we call the Old Testament writings pointed to him. Jesus was the offspring of Eve who crushed the head of the serpent, defeating sin. Jesus was the fulfillment of the promise given to Abraham that through his descendants all the families of the earth would be blessed. Jesus was the Lamb of God in Exodus who delivers people from death. Jesus was the suffering servant in Isaiah, by whose wounds we are healed. Now they understood that Jesus’ death on the cross was not an accident or a failure, but God’s means of salvation. The Messiah was indeed to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day. It was all part of God’s endgame from the beginning. Now they understood this, and so Jesus’ leaving was not a “so long, farewell, I’m outta here.” His Ascension was instead his triumphant enthronement at the right hand of God after his mission was complete.
In addition to opening their minds to understand the scriptures, Jesus also promised to clothe them with power from on high. Jesus promised them the Holy Spirit. Through the Holy Spirit they would continue to deepen their understanding of the scriptures. Through the Spirit they would be empowered for their own mission, which was just beginning – their mission of proclaiming repentance and forgiveness of sins in Jesus’ name to all nations. Through the Holy Spirit, Jesus’ ministry would continue. The Ascension didn’t mean Jesus’ ministry was over – it meant it was just getting started!
As Jesus left them, as his risen body began to ascend, he lifted up his hands and blessed them. This was the posture the priests in the temple used to put God’s blessing on the people at the end of worship. It is the posture priests and pastors continue to use to bless God’s people, to put his word, his mercy, his love, his blessing on them. Jesus lifted up his hands in blessing. His hands, still bearing the wounds of his great sacrifice for them, were over them, covering them, shielding them, assuring them, blessing them. These disciples knew that these hands would remain over them, and so they could go back to their daily lives in great joy. They could even go back to Jerusalem, where so much ugliness had happened, without fear. The Ascension meant that God’s blessing was upon them.
This is all drawn from the gospel account of the Ascension, but perhaps the most meaningful detail of all is found in the account we have in Acts. There Luke tells us that Jesus was taken up into a cloud. It is easy for us in the Pacific Northwest to dismiss this as par for the course. We’re used to clouds, right? But to the disciples this was important. To students of the Bible in all times and places, this is a crucial detail. You see, throughout the Bible a cloud serves as a symbol of God’s presence. In the book of Exodus, we read that as the people of Israel traveled through the wilderness, the Lord God went ahead of them in pillar of cloud. When Moses went up Mount Sinai to receive the commandments from God, the mountain was covered by a cloud, from which God spoke. A cloud hovered over the tabernacle and over the ark of the covenant, and when it did it was described as the glory of God. Drawing on all this, there are psalms which describe God’s presence taking the form of a cloud. When Jesus was transfigured, God appeared in a cloud. And so, when Jesus ascended and a cloud took him out of their sight, it meant something. Luke wasn’t just recording the weather that day. It meant something. Jesus was being taken bodily into God’s presence, and if Jesus has been taken bodily into God’s presence, now he is capable of being everywhere!
This is a point Martin Luther made about preaching on the Ascension. Luther said: What good will it do you if you merely preach that he ascended up to heaven and sits there with folded hands? … For this purpose did he ascend up…that he might be down here, that he might fill all things and be everywhere present; which he could not do had he remained on earth.”
Today we have external computer data storage we call “the cloud,” which is capable of keeping all our files so we can access them from anywhere, right? That isn’t unlike what the cloud in Acts represents! This is essentially what Luther is saying about the Ascension! By being taken up into the cloud, Jesus is now everywhere present, accessible from anywhere.
Everything that made the Ascension Good News for the disciples makes it Good News for us too.
Jesus is the key to understanding the scriptures, and it is there that we find him. It is all about him. He opens our minds to understand the scriptures. This doesn’t mean our baptism magically confers immediate perfect knowledge about every verse. Those of you who have been in my Revelation class know that there are still passages that make me scratch my head. We need ongoing Bible study! But Jesus has given us a key to unlock the scriptures in that we are to go to every page looking for him! He has promised that we will find him there, and we do! And so Jesus is not just up in the heavens, he is found in his Word.
Jesus continues to clothe his church with power through the Holy Spirit. To be sure, it might not look like worldly power, but we have the power to proclaim repentance and forgiveness in Jesus’ name. We are empowered by the Holy Spirit to continue Jesus’ ministry. And so, Jesus is not just up in the heavens, he is found in his church, where his hands are lifted over us in blessing.
Because Jesus ascended up into a cloud, he is down here too. He is everywhere present in a way that wasn’t possible had he remained on earth. There is nowhere we can go where he is not present. As it says in my favorite psalm, “If I ascend to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the grave, you are there also.” (Psalm 139:8)
Victor Glover ascended higher up into the heavens than any human being ever has. He was the pilot on the Artemis II mission. Glover has been very open about his Christian faith. In fact, he mentioned in one interview that he took a Bible with him on the Artemis II mission. That capsule was roughly the size of two minivans and had to house four people for 10 days, along with all the equipment for their research. You can bet that every square inch had to serve a purpose for the mission. But as a disciple of Jesus, Glover was part of a bigger mission. As he traveled farther away from Earth than any other human being in the history of humankind, even there Christ was with him. As he hurtled through the deepest darkness and the coldest reaches of space, even there Christ was present. Christ was with him through his Word, in that Bible he brought. And when Glover returned to Earth, Christ’s mission and ministry continued through his witness. As Glover told reporters from all across the globe: “We need Jesus, whether on Earth or circling the moon.”
The Ascension of our Lord means that Christ is with you too. He is everywhere present, everywhere accessible. He is with you even in the darkest, coldest moments of your life. He can be found in his Word. He can be found in his church. His hands are lifted over you in blessing – his blessing of forgiveness, his blessing of divine mercy and love. By his Holy Spirt he continues to empower our mission, which is to bear witness to everyone on this beautiful planet that we all need Jesus, and that because of his Ascension, he everywhere present, available to all.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
by Jeffrey Spencer | May 13, 2026 | Sermons
CLICK HERE for a worship video for May 10
Sermon for the Sixth Sunday of Easter – May 10, 2026
John 14:15-21
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
Although we are still in the Easter season, our gospel readings for both last Sunday and this Sunday take place before the resurrection. We might think of them as flashback scenes. Jesus is preparing his disciples for all that is to come. He is telling them what will happen and what to expect in the days ahead. He is laying the groundwork for what his church will look like after his death and resurrection.
Jesus is also seeking to calm the hearts of the disciples, which, as we heard last week, had become troubled. Jesus had told them that he would be leaving them soon, and this news caused quite a stir. The disciples became nervous. They became anxious and afraid. And so, as we heard last week, Jesus said to them, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in me.”
Today we pick up right where we left off last week. Jesus continued to speak to the disciples, preparing them for what was to come. He had a lot more to say to them. In fact, Jesus goes on for four entire chapters with his farewell address to the disciples!
In the snippet we hear from this much longer farewell address, Jesus again speaks to the disciples’ troubled hearts. He addresses the fear they have of being left alone. He addresses the grief already creeping into their hearts at the prospect of his absence from them. And in doing so Jesus uses a word that is the same in both English and Greek. He uses the word orphanos, orphan.
An orphan, strictly speaking, is a child who has lost both mother and father, but Jesus uses the word more broadly here. He uses it to refer to the disciples’ fear of being cut off from him, cut off from this profound source of love in their lives – as orphans are. Jesus uses the word “orphan” to describe their fear of his departure from them leaving an aching absence in their lives, the absence of the one who gave them life.
I think there are many people here today who know what this is like. I think there are many people here today who understand why Jesus uses the word “orphan.”
Today is Mother’s Day. This is a secular holiday. It is not on the liturgical calendar. But that said, it is a holiday which Christians can certainly get on board with. The church should do more to lift up the vocation of motherhood, which is way undervalued in our culture today. One of the commandments given to us by God is to honor mothers, and while we should do this every day, while it should be a lifestyle and a worldview more than just a one-off event, it is a good thing to have a special day set aside to celebrate and honor mothers with joy.
But that said, I know that this is an emotionally fraught day for many people. It can be a painful day, for a variety of reasons. One of those reasons is that many of us don’t have our moms around anymore. And so, this day is at least in part a reminder that we have lost a profound source of love in our lives. It is a reminder of an aching absence in our lives that never completely goes away.
My son’s wedding this past December was an emotional day for me. I was choking back tears most of the day, which will surprise almost none of you. I thought I was out of the woods after the ceremony was over, but at one point during the reception I was visiting with my sister-in-law. She was talking about what a wonderful time it was, what a beautiful wedding it was, about how great Luke looked in his Air Force uniform and how great he and Bekah are together. And then she looked at me with a sweet, loving, wistful smile and, with the best of intentions, said, “Don’t you wish your mom could have been here?”
There it was. There was that aching absence.
I know there are a lot of you who know exactly what I’m talking about. I have heard your voices catch when talking about a loved one who is gone. I’ve seen your tears.
This was the experience Jesus was putting his finger on when he used the word “orphan.” This is what the disciples were afraid of. They were afraid that Jesus wouldn’t be there with them anymore. They were afraid that they were about to lose the one who had given them life. They were afraid they were about to lose the one who loved them more than anyone else they had ever known.
And so, Jesus gave them a promise. “I will not leave you orphaned,” Jesus said. Jesus promised that he would not leave them alone. He promised that he would be with them in a different way.
Jesus promised he would send what he called “the Advocate” to be with them forever. This is a vaguely legal term for someone who would defend you and protect you. The opposite of this is the Accuser, the devil, the Enemy who goes on the attack, trying to drag you into despair. Jesus promised to send the Advocate, someone who would forever be in their corner, defending them from these attacks, protecting them from the evil one.
This Advocate, however, also has a soft side, a tender, nurturing side. In fact, some Bibles choose to translate the word “Advocate” as either comforter or helper. So, this Advocate both defends and comforts. You might think of it as a Mama Bear who will hold her cubs close in the warmth of her love and tenderness but is also capable of ripping the face off anyone who messes with them.
This Advocate Jesus is talking about is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit holds us close in God’s love while fiercely defending us from our enemies of sin, death, and the devil. “This is the Spirit of truth,” Jesus said, “whom the world does not know, but you know, because he abides with you and will be in you.” And so, they will never be alone. His Holy Spirit would always be with them.
Jesus also promised the disciples that he himself will come to them. “I will not leave you orphaned,” Jesus says, “I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live.”
This refers specifically to the fact that the risen Jesus will literally come to them, and they will literally see him in his resurrection appearances, many of which we have heard about this Easter season, but this also alludes to how Jesus will come to his church after his ascension. The Spirit of truth will make the risen Jesus known to us. That Spirit of truth is his Spirit, which will be with us forever, giving us life with him. Jesus promises that by this Spirit his disciples will know that he is in the Father and that they are in him and that he is in them. That’s a lot to get your head around, I know, but the essence of this is simply that Jesus will not leave his disciples alone. He will come to them. He will be with them. He will not leave them orphaned. He will continue to love them and reveal himself to them.
This all happens in the church, which Martin Luther called our mother. In the Large Catechism, Luther says that the church is “the mother that conceives and bears every Christian through God’s Word.”
The fear the disciples had still shows up among Christ’s disciples today. We are desperately afraid of losing the people we love, the people who love us. When we do lose them, there is an aching absence which never completely goes away. As much as Mother’s Day can and should be a day of gratitude and celebration and honoring of the mothers among us, some of us are missing the moms in our lives.
But it is good that we are missing them here, in the church, because the church is also our mother. It is here that we encounter the love of the One who gave us life. It is here that we rest in the presence of the Advocate who defends us and comforts us. It is here that the Holy Spirit abides with us. It is here that Jesus is truly present for us, revealing himself to us in Word and Sacrament, healing us and renewing us in his loving grace.
I know that there are worries and griefs and heartaches and longings of all kinds out there in the pews this morning. Our Lord Jesus speaks to every one of them when he uses the word orphanos, or orphan. In a fallen world filled with death and distance and aging and alienation and broken bodies and broken relationships, Jesus comes near to us with his mercy, his forgiveness, and his love, drawing us to himself. In a world full of loneliness, he promises us that we will never be alone. In a fallen world where we lose mothers and all kinds of other people who are dear to us, Jesus promises us that we will never lose him.
By his Spirit, he has called us here to our other mother, the church. And it is here that he speaks to your deepest fears. It is here that he speaks a word of promise that reaches into every aching absence. It is here that he says to you: “I will not leave you orphaned.”
And he hasn’t.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
