by Jeffrey Spencer | Jan 6, 2026 | Sermons
CLICK HERE for a worship video for January 4
Sermon for the Epiphany of our Lord – January 4, 2026
Matthew 2:1-12
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
“Follow the crowd.” I’m not sure anybody really thinks this is good advice, and yet, we all seem to do it over and over again in one way or another.
“Follow your heart, or your gut, or your instinct.” This is the theme of just about every romantic comedy and every Disney movie ever made – many of which I enjoy very much. It seems to be the guiding principle of our age. Sometimes following our heart, or our gut, or our instinct, is helpful. Other times, not so much.
“Follow the science.” This isn’t as simple or easy as it sounds. While science is affirmed in the Lutheran Christian tradition, it is seen as a good way to deepen our understanding of God’s creation, and as a tool for serving our neighbors, it doesn’t take too much looking to see that science is always a work in progress. For instance, for a while the science said eggs were bad for you. Then the science said no, only the yellow part is bad for you. Now the science says, actually the whole thing is good for you. It makes it hard to know what to believe.
Follow the crowd. Follow your heart, or your gut, or your instinct. Follow the science. These are the guideposts that often influence our lives. These are the guideposts which seem to have influenced the magi as well.
The magi followed the crowd, at least in a way. In their journey from the east, probably Persia, they are sure to have followed major thoroughfares. We often see the magi depicted as traveling across a barren desert alone, but it is more likely that they followed trade routes, which were safer and faster and teeming with people.
The magi followed their heart, their gut, their instinct. They knew they were headed to Israel to worship a newborn king, and their gut led them to Jerusalem. That seemed to be the right place to go. It’s the big city. The temple was there. The current king resided there. Their heart told them that surely this is where they would find the newborn king.
The magi followed the science. “Magi” is where we get the word “magic,” but these magi were not magicians who did card tricks. They weren’t pulling rabbits out of hats. These were astrologers. They were the scientists of their age. They looked to the skies above and made complicated calculations which they believed could guide them. And when they saw a new star at its rising, signifying for them the birth of a new king, they followed it.
These magi, or wise men, followed the crowd. They followed their heart, their gut, their instinct. They followed the science. And where did these guideposts lead them? It led them to Jerusalem, not Bethlehem. It led them to Herod, not Jesus.
It was not until they heard a word from scripture that they found what they were looking for. Herod consulted with the chief priests and the scribes about where the Messiah was to be born, and these students of the Word came back with a passage from Micah, chapter 5:
“‘And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who is to shepherd my people Israel.’ ”
Herod, with a dark ulterior motive, shared this word with the magi, and now the wise men showed true wisdom as they trusted this word. The star now alighted over Bethlehem, and they followed it to Jesus. Overwhelmed with joy, they entered the house. They saw the child with his mother, Mary, and they knelt down in homage and worshipped him, offering him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
In writing about the detour of the wise men to Jerusalem, Martin Luther wrote:
“Why did the star not take the Wise Men straight to Bethlehem without any necessity of consulting the Scriptures? Because God wanted to teach us that we should follow the Scriptures and not our own murky ideas.”
There are many kinds of knowledge, many types of intelligence – and God can use them! God DID use them to draw these eastern astrologers to worship his Son! These guideposts at least got them in the vicinity! But what ultimately got these wise men where they were trying to go was the scriptures, the word of God.
So too for us, there can be ways to pursue knowledge that is helpful. You can be smart as a whip and ask a lot of questions. Christianity is not anti-intellectual! But to be truly wise is to follow the scriptures and not our own murky ideas. The scriptures lead us to the deepest spiritual truths about ourselves and our world.
Today these very scriptures lead us to the Christ child, the one who is the way, the truth, and the life.
The scriptures lead us to the newborn king, who was given a tribute of gold by the wise men, which was a common way to honor a king.
The scriptures lead us to the one who is our great high priest, our great intermediary between a holy God and a sinful humanity. The wise men gave Jesus frankincense, which was burned by the priests in the temple as their prayers and sacrifices rose up to God.
The scriptures lead us to the one who is our savior, to the one who would give himself for us as an atoning sacrifice. The wise men gave Jesus myrrh, which was a fragrant ointment used to prepare bodies for burial.
Our own murky ideas can lead us astray. But today we join the wise men on their course correction as the scriptures lead us to Christ, who is our king, our priest, and our savior.
Let us join the wise men in worshipping him. Let us join the magi in offering our gifts.
And let us commit in the new year ahead to following the scriptures, that we might continue to know the overwhelming joy he brings.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
by Jeffrey Spencer | Dec 21, 2025 | Sermons
CLICK HERE for a worship video for December 21
Sermon for the Fourth Sunday of Advent – December 21, 2025
Matthew 1:18-25
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
When my oldest son was little, maybe six or seven years old, he was an angel in the Christmas program. After the program we were in the fellowship hall. He was still in his angel costume when an older gentleman from our church came up to him and with a twinkle in his eye asked him, “So, are you always a little angel?” And our son looked up at him and said, “No, sometimes I’m Joseph.”
This is a Sunday for Joseph. It is easy to overlook Joseph, Jesus’ earthly father. We live in a culture where fathers are often dismissed as unimportant. I’ve had pastoral conversations with fathers who tell me they feel invisible and unappreciated. In popular culture fathers are regularly ridiculed as fools or reviled as patriarchs. We have gone from “Father Knows Best” to fathers being seen as an optional accessory. In a time when fathers and fatherhood aren’t as valued as they should be, it is easy to overlook the importance of Joseph.
But this is a Sunday for Joseph. We get one Sunday for Joseph every three years, so I’m going to lean into it. Today we hear the story of Jesus’ birth from Joseph’s perspective. In this story we see the great lengths God went to in order to keep Joseph in the picture. We see how God helped him take up his vocation as husband to Mary and as the earthly father of Jesus. We see how God intervened in order to form what the church from the very beginning has called The Holy Family. God thought Joseph was important, and so we should too!
One of the first things Matthew tells us about Joseph is that he was engaged to Mary. Engagement, or betrothal, in those days was a legally binding contract in which a bride and a groom were joined together legally. It might be a year before they moved in together and consummated their relationship, but once the betrothal was made, the marriage was official.
So, Mary and Joseph had already committed themselves to one another. Joseph had promised to be Mary’s husband. Mary had promised that she would be Joseph’s wife. They had promised each other that they would give themselves to each other in that special and exclusive one-flesh relationship. It was just a matter of time. But then Mary came to him with a baby bump and a story that had to be very hard to believe.
We don’t actually know what Mary might have said to Joseph or what he might have heard, but we do know that Joseph was aware of Mary’s pregnancy, and because he knew that he had nothing to do with the pregnancy, he assumed their relationship was over. The scriptures tell us that he planned to dismiss her, cancelling the betrothal and ending the marriage.
It isn’t a stretch to imagine Joseph being deeply hurt by Mary’s unplanned pregnancy. It isn’t hard to imagine him feeling confused and betrayed and heartbroken at this turn of events. What else could he do but end the relationship?
But God intervened to keep Joseph in the picture. God values fatherhood. God knows what babies need in order to thrive and knew that his own Son would need an earthly father. God knew that Mary would benefit from having a husband in her life to help her carry out what he was asking her to do. And so God sent an angel to Joseph to keep this Holy Family intact.
My wife and I have been supporters of the Whidbey Island Women’s Clinic, our local pregnancy resource center, pretty much since we moved here 15 years ago. We have attended many of their Fall fundraising banquets along with several members of OHLC. Every year at the banquet one of the staff from the clinic tells a story of how they helped a client experiencing an unplanned pregnancy. The stories they tell are full of complicated and difficult life situations. Obviously, the stories are usually about the women they serve, which is understandable and appropriate, but some of the stories have also involved men. There is a lot of care provided by the clinic to scared young fathers too. Some of these men want to help, but they are confused. Some of them want to do the right thing, but they aren’t sure where they fit. Some of them want to step up, but often lacking fathers of their own, they don’t know how. And so the clinic also provides support for the fathers. They offer mentoring. There are parenting classes. More than anything, there is accompaniment. They come alongside these fathers-to-be with support and guidance and love to help keep them in the picture.
This ministry is a good illustration of what God is up to here with Joseph. This is a complicated and confusing situation, to say the least. Joseph is in a tough spot. We can see that Joseph is one of the good guys, because despite any hurt feelings he might have had, he was still kind towards Mary. He didn’t want to expose her to public disgrace. He didn’t want her to face the possibility of being stoned to death for adultery, which was the punishment prescribed by the law. Can we say that despite what looked like a terrible betrayal, he still loved her? I think we can. And so, he decided to make it easier for Mary. He decided to end things quietly.
But God intervened to keep Joseph in the picture. God sent an angel to Joseph in a dream. This messenger from God told him to take Mary as his wife, explaining that the child conceived in her womb was indeed from the Holy Spirit. The angel told him that this was exactly what the prophet Isaiah said would happen – that a virgin would conceive and bear a son, a son who would be called Emmanuel, which means “God is with us.” Emmanuel is more of a description than a proper name in this case, because Joseph was further instructed to name the baby Jesus. “For he will save his people from their sins,” the angel said.
And, remarkably, when Joseph woke up from this dream, he said, “Okay!” Joseph said, “I’ll do it!” Joseph trusted the word of the Lord and obeyed it. He took Mary as his wife. And once Mary delivered her baby, Joseph claimed her child as his own. In the ancient world, a father established parentage by naming the baby. This is what the angel told him to do, and this is what Joseph did. With God’s help, he stepped up. With the accompaniment of the angel encouraging him along, giving him guidance, he carried out God’s will. He took up God’s calling to be a husband to Mary and an earthy father to Jesus.
God’s intervention to keep Joseph in the picture in order to form this Holy Family is important for how it lifts up the vocations of husbands and fathers. St. Joseph is a beautiful image of kindness and mercy and sacrificial love and obedient faith for husbands and fathers to follow.
But Joseph’s story is for everyone – male or female, single or married, parent or child. Joseph’s story is for everyone because we all have life situations that come along which are complicated or confusing or painful. Granted, Joseph is the only person in the history of humanity to be asked to marry a pregnant virgin and then raise the Son of the holy, Almighty, and ever-living God. So, there’s that. But even so, there are so many stories which are like Joseph’s, stories like the ones told at those banquets, life stories that are fraught with uncertainty and anxiety, with turmoil and complexity, full of knotty problems and twists and turns. There are so many stories like that in our congregation. In fact, I’ll bet each of you has a story like that. Maybe it is a story you are living through right now.
Joseph’s story shows us that God accompanies us through these difficult situations in life. God comes alongside us. God sends messengers into our lives, which is what angels are – supernatural or otherwise. God sends messengers to give us encouragement and guidance and support. God intervenes in our lives through his Word, teaching us to do his will, guiding us into obedient faith. The God we come to know in Christ is truly Emmanuel, God with us!
And not only that, but Joseph’s story is our story because along with Joseph, God has given us Mary’s baby. Just as God laid Mary’s baby in Joseph’s arms, so too has God given us his Son. God has given us Mary’s baby to be our savior. Mary’s baby was named Jesus because he saves us from our sins.
And so, no matter how complicated or painful your own life is, or has been, in Jesus there is hope. In Jesus there is forgiveness. In Jesus there is new life. No matter how messy or broken your own family life might be, through Jesus God calls us all into the Holy Family of the church, where we are loved and cared for by brothers and sisters and live in communion with our Father in heaven, who loves us and will never let us go.
“Are you always a little angel?”
“No, sometimes I’m Joseph.”
Sometimes we are all Joseph. Life gets messy. Life can be confusing. But God has intervened to keep you in the picture. God sends his Word to guide you into obedient faith, and God has given you Mary’s baby to save you from your sins. Through him we have all been made part of his Holy Family, today and forever.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
by Jeffrey Spencer | Dec 16, 2025 | Sermons
CLICK HERE for a worship video for December 14
Sermon for the Third Sunday of Advent – December 14, 2025
Matthew 11:2-11
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
Jesus described John the Baptist as the greatest of all the prophets. It isn’t hard to see why. While still in his mother’s womb, John famously leapt with joy at the presence of the unborn Messiah as his pregnant Aunt Mary came to visit. Even then he was preparing the way! John was a spiritual superhero, living under vows of strict asceticism, depriving himself of worldly pleasures like comfy clothes and good food, utterly devoted to his calling as the forerunner for God’s promised savior. John was asked to baptize the Messiah, and in doing so he witnessed a manifestation of the Holy Trinity as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit each made themselves known as Jesus rose up from the water. There was no greater prophet that John the Baptist. Nobody else experienced some of the things he experienced. No one was as dedicated to the tasks of being a prophet as he was. And yet, there came a point in John’s life when he was confused about what God was up to in Jesus. There came a time when doubts and disappointments crept into his heart. There came a time when he wrestled with some questions. Questions like, “Is Jesus really the one?”
The John we meet in our gospel reading for today is a very different John than the one we met last week. Last week John was preaching boldly and bravely, pointing that blessed finger of his at both sin and the savior, calling people to repent, for the kingdom of heaven had come near. John lambasted Pharisees and Sadducees, calling them a brood of vipers. John was fearless and loud!
Later, John’s loud mouth and pointing finger would get him in trouble with Herod Antipas, the Jewish king who served as a puppet ruler for the Romans. Herod had his own personal sexual revolution going on which became a bit of a public scandal. Herod abandoned his first wife in order to marry his sister-in-law. Herod passed himself off as a pious Jew when it fit his purposes, but then he ignored God’s will for marriage in order to indulge his appetites. Well, John just couldn’t let that slide. He publicly rebuked Herod for his behavior, and he ended up in prison for it.
Perhaps John was expecting that his bold preaching on the sanctity of marriage and the sinfulness of adultery would earn him special protection from God. Perhaps, once he was imprisoned, he thought Jesus would put together a tactical squad to come orchestrate a jail break, or maybe that he would negotiate for a prisoner swap. After all, wasn’t the Messiah supposed to overthrow their oppressors and bring liberty to the captives?
John sat in his prison cell, waiting for something to happen. He had plenty of time to think. As weeks, and then months, went by, some troubling questions started to come into his mind. “Is Jesus the one? Was I wrong about him, because this is not at all how I expected things to go! Should I be waiting for someone else, some other Messiah, some other savior?”
John’s questions are not unfamiliar to us. They are not uncommon, even amongst the most devout and faithful Christians. We shouldn’t be surprised by this. If John the Baptist, whom Jesus called the greatest of all the prophets, experienced this season of confusion, if he asked these troubling questions, why should we expect to be spared from them?
And it seems to me that this confusion and these questions are especially common during the holidays. We are told over and over again that it’s the most wonderful time of the year, and then people get confused or troubled when things aren’t so wonderful. People watch hours and hours of Hallmark Christmas movies, where everything gets wrapped up neatly in a nice bow by the end, where every problem gets resolved by some last-minute Christmas miracle, and then people get confused and troubled when they don’t get a Christmas miracle of their own.
The truth is this is a hard time of year for many people. It is a season with so many expectations that it leaves many people disappointed and despairing. There are gifts that land flat and recipes that are a bust and plans that fall through. More seriously, there are those fault lines in family life that come under strain, threatening to break loose with conflict as emotions run high. There is the financial stress of trying to fill every wish and make everything special. There is the aching from the absence of loved ones – the spouse who is deployed, the family on the other side of the country, the kid who isn’t coming home this year. More seriously still, there are people who can’t enjoy Christmas cookies or egg nog because they are nauseous from chemo, and widows and widowers who are facing their first Christmas without their beloved.
First there is the confusion: It wasn’t supposed to be like this. And often this confusion leads to questions, questions like John’s: “Who is this Messiah again? Who is this savior? Because I don’t feel very saved right now. Where is he? Why isn’t he breaking me out of this awful situation? Is Jesus the one? Is he my savior, or should I be looking somewhere else?”
When John faced these questions, he sent for Jesus. He had a few of his friends go and ask Jesus precisely this question. And Jesus sent word back to him. Jesus responded by sending his friends back with a word of reassurance. Jesus didn’t scold John for asking the question. He didn’t say, “How dare you ask that?” Instead, through the witness of these friends Jesus pointed John back to the promises of scripture. The scriptures said that when the Messiah came, the blind would receive their sight, the lame would walk, the lepers would be cleansed, the deaf would hear, the dead would be raised, and the poor would have good news brought to them. This is what Jesus was doing! Jesus encouraged John to look beyond his circumstances to the promises of scripture. He told John to stop looking inwardly at his feelings, and instead to keep his eyes on him, even if he isn’t doing exactly what John expected. “Blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me,” Jesus told him. Jesus encouraged John to live by faith.
And then Jesus went on to say some wonderful things about John. In spite of his struggles, Jesus says he is strong. He is no reed shaken by the wind! Jesus calls him a prophet – and not only a prophet, but the greatest of all the prophets. In spite of his confusion, Jesus praises and blesses him.
John may have had some questions, maybe even some doubts, but John took those doubts to Jesus. He took those questions to Jesus when he reached out to him for help. This is faith, and Jesus proclaims John righteous on account of this faith.
Jesus has a proclamation and a promise for you here too. Jesus says that among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist. And yet, Jesus says, the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he! Jesus is talking about us here! He’s talking about all of us who have been made part of the kingdom of heaven through Christ’s death and resurrection. We may be the least, we may not hold a candle to John the Baptist in many ways, we may not have seen all the things John witnessed, but we have the benefit of living on the other side of Jesus’ death and resurrection. We have seen things John didn’t live to see. We have received a greater, fuller picture of Christ’s saving grace than John did during his lifetime. We have seen the vindication of Jesus as the Messiah of God and the savior of our souls. We have seen his ultimate victory over the worst captivity of all, our captivity to sin and death. We have been set free from those dark prison cells once and for all.
Some of you might still have questions. That’s okay. Some of you might not feel very saved as you face various troubles in your life. That’s okay too. If John the Baptist had those struggles, we shouldn’t expect to be spared from them.
Whatever your situation in life might be today, our Lord Jesus encourages all of us to look beyond our circumstances to the scriptures, to the promises of God we find there. Jesus encourages us to look beyond our feelings and to instead live by faith in him, putting our trust in what he has done for us. Jesus isn’t angered by those tough questions. He can take them. But he doesn’t want you to stay stuck in confusion. He doesn’t want you to stay stuck in doubt. He wants you to know the truth, the truth that he is your savior. He wants you to know the truth of his saving love, the truth that he has made you his own, the truth that he has made you part of the kingdom of heaven, bringing you into right relationship with God both today and forever.
It can still be the most wonderful time of the year, even when we are facing troubles and doubts, because when we send for Jesus, he sends word back to us that it is all true. The gospel, the good news, is true. Jesus sends his Word to reassure us that he is who he says he is. He was born to save us. He is coming again to make all things right once and for all. He has made us part of his kingdom even now, and so we are never alone, and never without hope.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
by Jeffrey Spencer | Dec 9, 2025 | Sermons
Sermon for the Second Sunday of Advent – December 7, 2025
Matthew 3:1-12
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
Throughout the centuries, when John the Baptist has been depicted in Christian art, he usually has his finger out, pointing. Artists have felt free to take liberties with his clothing, interpreting for themselves just how rough or refined that camel’s hair tunic might have been. They have given him a variety of hairstyles, often with a wild, frizzy mane, making him look like he’s the lead singer of an 80’s rock band, other times giving him a goofy medieval bob and bangs cut like we see in the picture on our screen today. But in nearly every depiction of John the Baptist, across centuries and styles, there is that finger, pointing.
What we see on the screen this morning[1] is a close-up of a section of the Isenheim Altarpiece by the Reformation-era artist Mattias Grunewald. Just look at that finger, pointing. Notice how it is unnaturally elongated. Grunewald wants you to notice it. He wants you to notice it because it is John’s job to point.
Pointing is considered rude most of the time, and some of the pointing we see John doing in our gospel reading for today does feel a little offensive. John is pointing to people’s sin. He is pointing to their need for repentance.
“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” This was John’s message. Citing the prophet Isaiah, he called people to prepare the way of the Lord by making his paths straight, by removing every obstacle that gets in the way of receiving him. People were coming out to the wilderness from all over the region of Judea to repent. They came to confess their sin and to be washed with John’s baptism of repentance and forgiveness.
Apparently, John didn’t care much about being perceived as rude, because when both the Pharisees and the Sadducees came out to him, he pointed that finger of his right in their faces and called them a brood of vipers! He called them the offspring of snakes! In using this language, he was calling them pawns of the devil. Talk about rude!
What is interesting about the Pharisees and Sadducees is that they were theological opposites. These two groups did not get along. They were not carpooling out to the wilderness together, that’s for sure! The Sadducees were the theological liberals. They were squishy on doctrine. They were loose with their interpretation of the scriptures, not holding it as all that authoritative. They made all kinds of cultural accommodations in an attempt to curry favor with the powers that be and maintain their popularity among the elites. The Pharisees, on the other hand, were theological legalists. They were strict enforcers of religious law, adding their own extreme layers of interpretation to God’s law and then showing no mercy towards those who didn’t keep it. They were self-righteous and sanctimonious, always looking down on others who supposedly weren’t as holy as they were.
To John the Baptist the Pharisees and the Sadducees were two sides of the same coin, and so he gives them all the finger. The pointing finger, that is. They were all full of deceit and hypocrisy and wickedness, each in their own way. Though each group thought of themselves as godly, the truth was that their hearts were far from God. And as they inflicted their different versions of faithlessness on others, they had become sons of the evil one, pawns of the devil himself.
John went on to point out how both groups were relying on their relationship to Abraham as the basis for their relationship with God. He points out how they thought that their status as descendants of Abraham automatically gave them a special status with God. But that’s not how it works, John tells them. “God is able from these stones to raise up children of Abraham,” John says. “Even now the ax is lying at the root of the tree.” Your family tree is irrelevant here, John is saying. This isn’t a matter of genealogy, it is a matter of faith and its fruits, so bear fruits worthy of repentance!
I don’t mean to be rude, and I’m not going to point, but I have to ask: What is John the Baptist’s finger pointing at in your life? What does repentance look like for you? What sins need to be confessed and turned away from? What obstacles need to be cleared away in your life in preparation for the Lord’s coming? Are you a libertine? Or a legalist? Are you placing your trust in God or in something else? Perhaps in an ideology or in a family association or in a heritage or in the fact that your name is on a membership list in the church office?
John the Baptist and his finger always show up this time of year. Sometimes I get irritated at the lectionary for this. Do we really need two doses of John the Baptist every single Advent? (We get him again next week.) But I think there is wisdom in it. I think there is wisdom in being pushed to listen to John during this season because this is a time of year when the obstacles getting in the way of our Lord’s coming to us are bigger than ever. There are more distractions than ever. We are more overscheduled than ever. There are more temptations than ever to look for joy in stuff and in self-indulgence. There are temptations to eat too much and drink too much and spend too much. And all this overindulgence is given a vaguely religious gloss as just being part of the seasonal festivities. What of faith and its fruits? Where are they? How are they being cultivated?
We need John’s finger pointing at our need for repentance, especially this time of year, when there are so many distractions and so many temptations. We need John’s finger to help us avoid the hypocrisy and the faithlessness and the casual assumptions of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.
But John’s finger doesn’t just point at our sin. It also points to our savior. John calls us to repent because the kingdom of heaven has come near. John is preparing the way for the coming of Christ, who will bring heaven itself to all who put their faith in him. You see, the kingdom of heaven is not just the assurance of a comfy spot inside the pearly gates after we die. It is that, but the kingdom of heaven is also a relationship we enjoy with God now as he comes to rule our hearts through the grace and mercy of his Son.
John’s finger points us to Jesus and the new baptism he brings. John tells the crowds that one who is more powerful than him is coming. “He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire,” John says. John is using symbolic language to describe how the baptism Jesus brings will be different from his. John’s baptism was a touch-up job, while Jesus’ baptism will bring a whole new life. Christian baptism is a baptism into the very presence of God, who purifies us from sin once and for all by joining us to Jesus and his eternal forgiveness.
John goes on to use the imagery of a farmer separating wheat from chaff. If you’ve ever been to a threshing bee you’ve seen how that beautiful, valuable, precious grain is liberated from the chaff, from the obstacles which had been separating it from the farmer. That precious grain is gathered in, while the obstacles are burned in an unquenchable fire, never to return again. This is what Jesus is coming to do, John is saying. There is a threshing bee coming, and he’s coming to gather what is precious to him. He is coming to gather you.
Notice the lamb at John’s feet in Grunewald’s painting on the screen. This lamb is clinging to a cross and shedding its blood into a chalice. That lamb is Jesus. John called Jesus the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. This is who is coming. This is who will usher in the kingdom of heaven. This is who John is ultimately pointing us towards.
Jesus said that John the Baptist was the greatest of all the prophets. Martin Luther once explained that John was the greatest of prophets, “not because of his austere life, not because of his phenomenal birth, but because of his blessed finger, because of his message and his office…” “No other man,” Luther writes, “had such fingers as John’s, with which he points to the Lamb of God and declares that He is the true Savior who would redeem the world from sin…For he is the ultimate of all prophets and preachers; no more comforting word and finger will ever appear than John’s word and pointer.”
Today John the Baptist certainly points us to our sin. But even more than that, he points us to our savior. Repentance includes both a turning away from sin and a turning towards our savior in faith. And so John points us to the Lamb of God, who even now is pouring himself out for us. He poured himself out for you in your baptism, and so you are not the offspring of the serpent. You are children of God! Jesus, the Lamb of God, pours himself out for you in his Holy Supper, where you take in his grace and mercy anew from that very chalice. Jesus pours himself out for us through his Word, renewing us in faith so that we would bear its fruits.
Don’t fear John’s finger. It only does it’s rude pointing so that it can then point you to the kingdom of heaven, which has come near to us even now as God clears the way, removes every obstacle, forgives every sin, and sends Jesus into our hearts by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
[1] https://www.wikiart.org/en/matthias-grunewald/st-john-the-baptist-detail-from-the-annunciation-from-the-isenheim-altarpiece-1516
by Jeffrey Spencer | Dec 2, 2025 | Sermons
CLICK HERE for a worship video for November 30
Sermon for the First Sunday of Advent – November 30, 2025
Romans 13:11-14, Matthew 24:36-44
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
Advent begins with an alarm clock. Alarm clocks are meant to startle. They emit loud noises that are meant to wake you up. In many cases, the sound of an alarm clock is unwelcome – especially when we are comfortable, especially when we open our eyes and it is still dark out, especially when we want to go back to sleep.
Advent begins with an alarm clock. Our readings are meant to startle. They are meant to wake us up. They are meant to rouse us out of our comfortable slumber and to draw us out of the darkness and into the light of day.
St. Paul sounds the first alarm. He says to us, “Now is the moment for you to wake from sleep!” Paul barks at our bedside like this because, he says, “Salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the night is far gone, the day is near.” Paul then tells us to get dressed! He tells us to “lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.” He calls us to strip off the things people wear in the dark – revelry and drunkenness and debauchery and licentiousness and quarreling and jealousy – and instead to put on the Lord Jesus Christ. “Let us live honorably, as in the day,” Paul says. The new day is dawning, so act like it! Wake up! Get dressed!
I wonder how many of you, upon hearing these words of St. Paul in our epistle reading, do what I do many mornings, which is to reach over and hit the snooze button. I wonder how many of you heard it, were mildly roused, and then mentally went back to sleep.
Well, not so fast, because the alarm when off again just moments later when we got to our gospel reading, and this time it comes from Jesus himself.
Jesus is talking about the final coming of his kingdom. He clearly says that about that day and hour no one knows. Then he goes on to emphasize the importance of being awake. He says that before the final coming of his kingdom it will be like the days of Noah. People were eating and drinking and marrying and giving in marriage. In other words, they were carrying on with their daily lives. They were carrying on with their comfortable routines. There’s nothing inherently wrong with eating or drinking or marrying, of course. The problem, if you remember the story, was that the people in Noah’s day were doing all of this while being completely asleep to the reality of God. There was no one who had faith in God except one man, Noah. Everyone else was sleepwalking through life. They were in the dark, completely oblivious to God.
This is what it will be like at the coming of the Son of Man, Jesus says. People will be busy with the day-to-day activities of their lives, but they will fall asleep to the presence of God. Jesus warns that some will be caught sleeping and miss the coming kingdom altogether. “Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming!”
Advent begins with an alarm clock, because this is a perennial problem. It begins with an alarm clock because human beings have spiritual narcolepsy – we are always nodding off. It begins with an alarm clock because we get so comfortable in our slumber, especially when it is still dark out.
Paul’s concerns are perennial. We can’t dismiss them. We shouldn’t hit the snooze button on them. They are not just Paul’s words, but, by the power of the Holy Spirit, they are God’s Word to us. And God sees how we prefer to stay in the dark. God sees how many people dedicate their lives to revelry, living solely for the pursuit of selfish pleasures, and only end up in the shadows of despair. God sees how many people cope with the dark by numbing themselves with alcohol and other substances. God sees how many people cast aside God’s good law, given for the sake of human flourishing, and instead make up their own rules and chase whatever feels good in the moment. God sees how many people are caught up in the quarrels and jealousies of the day, living as though the entire point of life is to dunk on your opponents. Wake up! God says. There are more important things for you to focus on. Now is the time for you to rise from this darkness. Now is the time for you to rise from sleep. The day of salvation is nearer than it has ever been, so act like it. Wake up and get dressed!
Jesus’ concerns are perennial too. Does it not seem like we are living in the days of Noah? Do we not see wickedness and violence and people doing what is right in their own eyes, ignoring God? Do we not see people sleepwalking through their lives, going about their routines while utterly in the dark about what God is up to? And we aren’t just talking about people outside the church. We aren’t just talking about those who don’t believe. Many Christians are sleepwalking through life too, living as functional atheists, going about their days without regard for what God is up to, getting so caught up in their daily activities that they fall asleep to the reality of God.
A good example of this is seen in the way worship attendance has dropped off in the last several years – a phenomenon which has been seen across the church, in nearly all denominations. It was thought that after the pandemic, everyone would flock back to church. But instead, it seems, a lot of people fell asleep, and a lot of them haven’t woken back up yet. Studies have shown that even those who were eager to come back are far less frequent worshippers than they once were. This doesn’t make me mad so much as it makes me sad. And it makes me sad not only for us, who miss their voices and their presence in the pews here in-person, it makes me even more sad for them, for what they are missing.
It makes me think of the time a few years ago when the Washington Post conducted a little experiment. They had the world-renowned violinist Joshua Bell play his violin in a subway station in New York. He was playing one of the finest instruments in the world, a Stradivarius violin worth 3.5 million dollars. He played some of the most exquisite music ever written for 45 minutes. Hundreds and hundreds of people were coming and going, and almost no one stopped. He had a hat out for tips and received 30 dollars over those 45 minutes. Just days before he sold out two shows in Boston with tickets averaging 100 dollars a seat, but there in that New York subway, people were just too busy to notice. Most just walked right past him.
The experiment was conducted to study the role of perception and context in the appreciation of art, but I think it is a powerful illustration of this spiritual slumber we are being warned about today. It is so easy for people to get so busy with their daily lives that they miss the beautiful things God is doing right under their noses in the church. The church is our ark. In fact, many sanctuaries are built to look like the ribs of a large boat for just this reason. The church is the ark where God saves his people. The ark is where the beautiful music of the gospel is played. Too many people, though, can’t be bothered to stop and come in and hear it.
In his preface to the Small Catechism Martin Luther wrote that if people really believed that Jesus Christ was truly present in the Lord’s Supper, they would come running to receive him every Sunday. If they really believed he was there in, with, and under the bread and wine forgiving their sins and giving them a foretaste of the heavenly banquet, you wouldn’t be able to keep them away! The problem is, they don’t. Or they do, but they forget. They start sleepwalking through their lives, asleep to the reality of what God is up to.
Do you see why Advent begins with an alarm clock? Our faith needs to be roused, lest we fall asleep. For those who are awake, who are here to hear the beautiful music of the gospel, we need to be encouraged to keep awake. Don’t you fall asleep too! And not only that, but perhaps we need to take a cue from St. Paul and think about rousing our brothers and sisters in Christ who might be sleepwalking a bit. We don’t need to be a buzzer in their ears, but we can perhaps rouse them awake with a phone call and an invitation: “Hey, we miss you. Come and hear the beautiful music of the gospel. It’s worth waking up for. It’s worth stopping to listen to.”
Not all alarm clocks have a grating, alarming sound. Sometimes we need that, but that isn’t the only way to wake up. My wife works in the high school library and needs to be over there bright and early every school day. A few years ago, she got an alarm clock that is actually a light. It wakes her up by slowly getting brighter and brighter, mimicking the sunrise. It is just as effective as one that rings or buzzes, but it rouses her by light, by telling her that a new day is dawning.
This is what Advent is about too. The color for Advent used to be purple – it still is in some churches. The purple comes from the understanding that Advent is a sort of a mini-Lent. It is still technically a penitential season in preparation for the celebration of the festival of Christmas, but in recent decades the color has more and more been changed to deep blue. This blue is intended to lift up themes of hope, themes of anticipation. It has been said that this deep blue is meant to represent the color of the sky just before dawn.
Sometimes we need a buzz in our ears to wake us up. But God sends his light to do it too.
The light of his promise shines through Paul’s words as he tells us that salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers. This is what we’re waking up to, to salvation! We’re waking up to the healing and wholeness Jesus has won for us, which we begin to receive even now. We are waking up to hope, to peace, to faith in God’s promises. We wake up to put on the Lord Jesus Christ, leaving behind the darkness and living a new life through faith in him.
The light of his promise shines through Jesus’ words as he speaks of his coming again. This is why we want to keep awake, because it is our gracious Lord and savior who is coming.
Even now we can hear the beautiful music of his saving grace. This beautiful music of his redeeming love has called us into the ark, which will deliver us into the new day he has in store for us.
So keep awake.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
by Jeffrey Spencer | Dec 2, 2025 | Sermons
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Sermon for Christ the King Sunday – November 23, 2025
Luke 23:33-43
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
A sign hung over Jesus as he was being crucified. It said, “This is the King of the Jews.” It was put there ironically, as a joke. Some king he was, pinned there between two criminals, naked and bleeding, soon to be dead! Most of the people below him were in on the joke. They joined in, scoffing at him, mocking him, deriding him. The word “if” came up a lot. “He saved others, let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one.” Or as the soldiers said, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself.”
One of the criminals being crucified beside Jesus joined in on the mocking from the people below. He derided Jesus, ridiculing him with sarcasm: “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself! And get us down from here while you’re at it!”
That sign identifying Jesus as the King of the Jews may have been intended as a joke, but there was one there who understood that it was true. The other criminal somehow saw in Jesus’ innocent suffering that something divine was happening. He somehow saw that Jesus’ crucifixion was his coronation. He somehow saw in Jesus’ crown of thorns a real king about to enter his kingdom.
And so he rebuked the other criminal who was talking trash to Jesus. “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.” This criminal recognized that he was getting what the law demanded. He accepted his own condemnation. He acknowledged his own guilt while pointing to Jesus’ innocence.
And then he said something truly remarkable. He turned his head towards Jesus, and he said to him, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Notice he didn’t use the word “if,” like so many others did. He said “when.” He firmly believed Jesus had a kingdom! As far as he was concerned, there was no “if” here, it was only a matter of when! That’s faith!
He then asked Jesus to remember him when he comes into his kingdom. This is more than just asking to be called to mind. He wasn’t asking Jesus to put a picture of him on his fridge and think about him once in a while. In asking Jesus to remember him when he comes into his kingdom, this criminal was asking him for mercy when Jesus takes his place in his royal court. He was asking his King Jesus for pardon, for clemency in the coming kingdom. He was asking the King he knew would soon be on his heavenly throne to remember him with grace.
And Jesus said to him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”
“Today,” Jesus said. On that very day Christ’s kingdom would come to him. There would be no waiting, no delay. He wouldn’t be taken down from the cross for a second chance in which he could prove himself first. He didn’t have to come back for a hearing at a later date. “Today,” Jesus said. His grace was imminent. It was available on the very day of his asking! “Today.”
“Today you will be with me,” Jesus said. This criminal would not be alone. He would not be cast out into the outer darkness. He would not be stuck with his mouthy fellow criminal. He would not be dumped with all the other bodies piled up at the bottom of the hill. He would be with Jesus. He was going where Jesus was going. “You will be with me,” Jesus told him.
“Today you will be with me in Paradise.” Jesus doesn’t tell him he will be in Purgatory, with a sentence still to serve. Jesus tells him he will be with him in Paradise. This word can also be translated as “garden.” What Jesus is promising is a return to the Garden, a return to the paradise of Eden before the fall. He is promising a complete restoration, where he will be free from sin and its consequences, free from the condemnation of the law, free from guilt and shame and pain and weeping and death.
Jesus won’t just remember him, he will re-member him. That is, he will put him back together the way he was supposed to be. He will heal everything in his life which has been dis-membered. He will restore him to the wholeness and perfection God intended for him at the beginning of creation. This is the picture of heaven Jesus gives him with this beautiful word, “Paradise.” And if anyone questions this criminal as to why he is there, he can just point to the King and say, “He invited me! He let me in!”
My pastor during my high school and college years died from cancer while I was in seminary. We kept in touch in the years before his death, even after he took his last call to a congregation in Arizona. Once when I was down in Arizona on a trip, we met for lunch. He talked about how he endured all the ups and downs – mostly downs – of dealing with a terminal illness. He said that in his worst moments of suffering he would sing a chant he had learned, a musical setting of the words of the criminal from the cross: Jesus, remember me, when you come into your kingdom.
This didn’t entirely make sense to me at the time. He was one of the most godly, honest, upright, gentle, and kind people I have ever known, and I thought it was a little odd for him to be meditating on the words of a criminal, making them his own.
But years after he died, I came across something Martin Luther wrote about this criminal and his words. Luther wrote: “The criminal, perceiving his guilt and Christ’s innocence, trusts that Christ’s innocence will help him. He sees right into the heart of Christ, as though through a solid wall. The criminal is one of us, and we are like him; therefore, let us cry out to Christ trusting that He will say to us: `Yes, Amen!’
“The criminal is one of us, and we are like him,” Luther insists.
You don’t need to be a felon to need forgiveness. The scriptures tell us we all have fallen short of God’s law. The scriptures tell us that if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. The truth is we all need mercy in the court of our King. The truth is that we all suffer from sin and death. The truth is we all need to be re-membered and restored.
But this is just the first part of what Luther gets at here. Luther also says that we are also like the criminal in that we perceive that Christ can help us! We are like him in that we too see the heart of Christ in his innocent suffering for us! We see his great mercy. We see his great love. We are like this criminal in that we trust that our Lord Jesus will help us. We cry out to Jesus trusting that he will say to us, “Yes, Amen!”
Reading this snippet from Luther helped me make sense of my pastor singing the words of this criminal. He didn’t just meditate on them because he knew he was a sinner – although he certainly did and would be the first to admit it. He meditated on these words, making them his own, because he had faith that Jesus could help him.
He sang those words over and over again because he believed that the words on the sign hanging over Jesus’ head are true. Christ is indeed our King, and he is a King who can help. He is the King of mercy. He is our highest authority and our deepest hope. He is a King who suffers alongside us while promising us Paradise.
When the world looks to Jesus, it still sees that sign over his head and laughs, thinking it is all a big joke. It still scorns and derides him. King of the Jews? What kind of King dies on a cross?
But with eyes of faith, we too see that that sign is true. We see in Christ a King who helps us. We see a King who wore a crown of thorns, bearing our sin, in order to set us free. We see a King who suffers with us, so that we would know that he is with us even in our pain. We see a King who shared our death so that we might share his eternal life. We see a King who remembers us with mercy and promises us Paradise.
And so we pray, “Jesus, remember me, when you come into your kingdom.”
And already now, our gracious King says, ‘Yes! Amen!”
Thanks be to God.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
