by Jeffrey Spencer | Apr 27, 2026 | Sermons
CLICK HERE for a worship video for April 26
Sermon for the Fourth Sunday of Easter – April 26, 2026
John 10:1-10
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our risen Lord Jesus Christ.
This is a favorite Sunday for many Christians who follow the Revised Common Lectionary. On the fourth Sunday of the Easter season we always hear Psalm 23, and we always hear a portion of John 10. This Sunday is informally known as “Good Shepherd Sunday.”
The imagery of Jesus as a shepherd was a favorite image of the early church. Some of the earliest depictions of Jesus in Christian art use this imagery. It remains popular to this day. It is popular among all Christians, but it is especially popular among Lutheran Christians – perhaps because historically we have been concentrated in rural areas, in regions of agriculture. When I lived in North Dakota, the largest employer in our county was an assisted living facility called Good Shepherd Lutheran Home. As I started working on this sermon, I wondered how many Lutheran congregations have “Good Shepherd” in their name. A regular Google search didn’t help me – I mean, I wasn’t going to count the results! – so I did an AI-assisted deep dive, which estimated that there are between 300 and 700 Lutheran congregations in the US with some variant of “Good Shepherd” in their name. That’s a lot! That’s a high rate of occurrence!
Our gospel reading for today only includes the first ten verses from John 10. It actually stops just short of Jesus referring to himself as the Good Shepherd, which he does in verse 11. So, we’ll get that next year. This year we hear Jesus instead refer to himself as a gate. “Very truly I tell you,” Jesus says, “I am the gate for the sheep.” And then a verse later he says it again: “I am the gate.”
“Gate Sunday” doesn’t have quite the same ring to it, does it? Do you know how many Lutheran congregations are named after the gate? I could only find one. There’s a Shepherd’s Gate Lutheran Church in rural Shelby township, Michigan. But even there they had to include “shepherd” in the name too! There is also Golden Gate Lutheran Church in San Francisco, but that doesn’t count. That’s referring to a bridge, not a Bible verse.
Even though we don’t actually hear Jesus call himself the Good Shepherd in our gospel reading for today, even though he instead calls himself a gate twice, we can still celebrate this Sunday as Good Shepherd Sunday. Because, you see, the gate and the shepherd are the same thing! They are literally the same thing.
Sheepfolds in the ancient world, and even in the not-so-ancient world, were square or circular enclosures, often constructed with stone. There was one small opening in the enclosure. The shepherd would lead his sheep into the enclosure for the night to keep them safe from predators and then lead them out of the enclosure the next morning so they could eat, so they could graze. During the night, when the sheep were safely in the enclosure, the shepherd would lie down in the small opening. His body was literally the gate! He would lie in the opening so that nothing could enter without getting past him. The shepherd was literally the gate! Jesus wasn’t mixing metaphors; the shepherd and the gate are the same thing!
Jesus is the gate. And as the gate, he protects his sheep against thieves and bandits who only come to steal and kill and destroy. Jesus protects us from anything that would steal our joy, or kill our hope, or destroy our faith. Jesus protects us from false teachers and false gods and false ideas. Jesus protects us from these thieves and bandits by speaking to us, by giving us his Word. His sheep recognize his voice and follow it. Jesus is the gate by which we are saved, and he blocks the door so that those thieves and bandits can’t come in and steal us away.
Jesus is the gate who has come so that we may have life, and have it abundantly, Jesus says. In our Bible study on John’s gospel earlier this program year I kept reminding people that there are three words in Greek which can be translated as “life” in English. The first is bios, which is where we get the word “biology.” This refers to biological life. If your heart is still beating, you have bios. The second word is psyche, which is where we get the word “psychology.” This refers to one’s inner life, your emotions, your selfhood. Then there is the word zoe, which refers to the spiritual life, to life with God, to eternal life. When you see the word “life” in the gospel of John, it almost always zoe-life.
It is important that we get this right, because otherwise we might misunderstand what Jesus is promising here. When Jesus promises us abundant life, he is not promising abundant bios. He is not promising that Christians will have above-average life spans, that we will live longer than other people. Being Christians doesn’t make us immune to illness or accidents or age. That’s not the kind of life Jesus is talking about.
When Jesus promises us abundant life, he is also not promising us a perfectly calibrated psyche, free from all interior troubles. He is not promising us a care-free life, a life free from all negative emotions or inner struggles. He is not promising that we will never suffer. The reading from 1 Peter for today should make that clear.
What Jesus is promising us is abundant zoe-life. He is promising us a rich and rewarding relationship with God. He is promising us an abundant life overflowing with God’s love and grace. He is promising us peace and joy and hope, even in the midst of hardships and troubles. He is promising us that we will ultimately share his zoe, his eternal life. He is promising to keep us safe in his sheepfold forever.
This goes beyond bios. It is deeper than mere psyche. Jesus is the gate that ensures that we are safe. Jesus is the gate which creates the safe space for zoe-life to flourish, for the abundance of God’s gracious presence to give us the peace and security that nothing else in life can.
I don’t know how many of you saw the movie Project Hail Mary, but you really should. It is teeming with religious imagery. There’s the title, of course, but also the main character’s name is Grace. Come on! It isn’t even subtle! Many have noted that unlike many movies over the last several years, which have been grittier and more cynical, this one is altruistic, earnest, sincere, and full of hope. I agree.
One of the scenes I’ve been thinking about this week – and this isn’t really spoiling anything, so don’t worry – is where the alien, named “Rocky,” explains to the human astronaut that in his culture they take turns sleeping so that there’s always someone to watch over them. Rocky insists on keeping watch so that the astronaut, Dr. Ryland Grace, can sleep. “I watch, you sleep,” Rocky says. The phrase has become a tag line for the movie, showing up on merch and on Instagram and Tik Tok. “I watch, you sleep.” It is a touching, cross-species, intergalactic gesture of care. It is a promise of protection. It creates space for a beleaguered soul to find rest and renewal and, ultimately, hope.
This is part of what it means for Jesus to say he is the gate. He watches so we can lie down in green pastures. He watches so that our souls can be restored. He lies down in the entrance to the sheepfold so that nothing can get past, so that nothing can steal our joy or kill our hope or destroy our faith. He lies there and says to all thieves and bandits, “Over my dead body,” which, as our Risen Lord, was already tried once and didn’t work!
Here’s another illustration for this: I’ve been honored to participate in a few Naval retirement ceremonies over the years, and my favorite part is when the newly retired sailor and his or her family are “piped ashore.” They walk across a red carpet while a bell rings and a pipe whistle is blown, signifying that they are leaving active duty behind for a new life. They are at ease as those who remain assure them that they’ve got the watch.
When Jesus says, “I am the gate,” he is describing his work of leading us into a new life where he keeps the watch, where he protects us from every enemy, where he ensures our safety, where he stands guard so that we can stand down, so that we can be at ease.
“Gate Sunday” will never have the ring to it that “Good Shepherd Sunday” does, but it doesn’t have to, because the two are the same thing. The Good Shepherd is literally the gate! His presence protects us from the thieves and bandits who would come after our souls. His Word leads us away from all the deadly lies that would destroy us. His voice leads us to green pastures and beside still waters, so that our souls can be restored. He watches so that our souls can rest. He stands guard over his church, his people, his sheepfold, in order to create the safe space in which he can give us life with God in abundance, both today and forever.
That’s a Good Shepherd, alright. So whatever wolf is staring you down today, do not be afraid. Jesus, your Good Shepherd, has got you.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
by Jeffrey Spencer | Apr 21, 2026 | Sermons
CLICK HERE for a worship video for April 19
Sermon for the Third Sunday of Easter – April 19, 2026
Luke 24:13-35
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father, and our risen Lord Jesus Christ.
I have a question for you all today: How is your walk with Jesus?
Don’t worry, I didn’t turn into a Southern Baptist while I was in Texas last week. This is a good question for all Christians. It is an especially good question for each of us to ask ourselves today.
In our gospel reading we hear of two disciples and their walk with Jesus. Frankly, it wasn’t going great. Not at first. These two disciples were walking from Jerusalem to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles away. They wanted to get out of the city, where so many terrible things had happened. They had left everything to follow Jesus, and now he was dead. They had put all their chips on Jesus, only to watch him get arrested, beaten, and crucified. They had put all their hopes on Jesus, only to see those hopes dashed in a humiliating defeat. Some of the women said he wasn’t in the tomb anymore, that he had been raised, but it seemed to them to be nothing more than an idle tale. And so, they walked. They walked in sadness. They walked in confusion, trying to process all they had experienced. They walked in disappointment, a disappointment verging on despair.
They didn’t realize it yet, but they were walking with Jesus. Jesus came alongside them, but they were unable to see him. They didn’t recognize him. Some have pointed out that they were walking west late in the day, and so the afternoon sun was probably in their eyes, but that is a little too pat an explanation if you ask me. This story is full of playful mystery. Luke tells us, “Their eyes were kept from recognizing him.” This sounds purposeful. I think Jesus was playing a spiritual form of peek-a-boo with them as he walked with them.
As Jesus came near to them, he asked them, “Hey, what are you guys talking about?” Do you see what I mean about Jesus being playful? Of course he already knew! What else would they be talking about? The weather? Kids today would say Jesus was trolling them. And they took the bait. They said to Jesus: “Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who doesn’t know the things that have taken place there?” Again, with more playfulness, Jesus played dumb: “Uh, what things?” Jesus acted like he didn’t know so that they would talk to him, so that they would tell him what they think just happened.
And their response is revealing. They got the basic facts right: Jesus was a prophet of God, mighty in deed and word. The chief priests and leaders handed Jesus over to be condemned to death. Jesus was crucified. They got the basic facts right, but they got the meaning wrong. They thought Jesus had failed. They thought Jesus has been defeated. They thought they had pinned their hopes on the wrong guy. “But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel,” they said.
These two disciples didn’t think the cross accomplished anything. They certainly didn’t think any kind of redemption had come – for Israel, for any of them. Their lives were the same as they were a few days before. The world seemed unchanged too. It was as messy and bloody and fallen as before, which is one reason they were high-tailing it out of Jerusalem.
They walked with Jesus in this sadness, this confusion, this disappointment verging on despair. But then Jesus began to playfully poke at their assumptions. Jesus gently teased these dour disciples. “Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe!” Jesus said. You silly geese! You two aren’t the sharpest tools in the shed, spiritually speaking, are you? Jesus called them foolish and slow! This is how their walk with Jesus was going!
But then things started to get better. Jesus – still hidden from them, still being his playfully mysterious self – pointed them to the scriptures. Jesus explained that it was necessary for the Messiah to suffer and then enter into his glory. The cross wasn’t an accident. It wasn’t a failure. It wasn’t a defeat. It wasn’t God’s plan B. It was right there in the scriptures all along! This is how God would redeem the world from sin and death! Though Jesus was still hidden from them, he walked them through the scriptures, beginning with Moses, helping them see how it all ultimately pointed to him, how he was indeed the savior God had promised.
And then comes the best part. This is all leading to a big reveal! First Jesus “walked ahead as if he were going on.” He is still playing with them! Jesus walked ahead AS IF he were going on. But of course, he wasn’t going on ahead without them! He would continue to walk with them. He knew the invitation that was coming next! And sure enough, these two disciples asked Jesus to stay with them. It was almost evening. The day was almost over. They strongly urged Jesus to have dinner with them.
He did. And when he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. And in that moment, they recognized him. Luke tells us that in this moment “their eyes were opened,” again suggesting that this was purposeful. Jesus wanted to be recognized in the blessing and the breaking and the giving of the bread. The moment was over in a second. Poof! Jesus then vanished entirely. Peek-a-boo! Now you see me, now you don’t!
Jesus was gone, but now everything was different. Now they were walking with him in a different way. That same hour they got up and went back to Jerusalem, and now they walked realizing that Jesus had been with them the whole time. Now they walked in the hope and joy of the resurrection. Now they went to be with the other disciples, who had their own resurrection hope and joy to share. Now they understood that Jesus had been walking with them even when they didn’t realize it, even when they were sad, even when they were confused, even when they were disappointed to the verge of despair. The risen Jesus was with them, pointing them to the promises of the scriptures. He was with them, making himself known to them in the breaking of the bread.
Now that you’ve had some time to think about it, let me ask you again: How is your walk with Jesus?
It can seem like not much has changed in our lives since Good Friday. It can seem like not much has changed in our world since we celebrated Easter Sunday two Sundays ago. In many ways it is still the same messy, bloody, fallen place it was before. I wouldn’t be surprised if many of us aren’t walking with some measure of sadness today. I wouldn’t be surprised if there aren’t some who are confused about what God us up to – in your life, in our world. I know for a fact that there are some hearts among us that are heavy with disappointment, disappointment verging on despair.
Our Lord Jesus would never make light of your suffering. He entered into it fully on the cross. He was betrayed and beaten, he bled and he died. He knows all there is to know about human suffering, and so he has great compassion for us in ours.
But at the same time, Jesus seems to enjoy being playfully mysterious with us. He walks with us, but he hides himself from us at times. He acts like he doesn’t know what is on our minds, inviting us to tell him about it, so that we will open up to him. Sometimes he’ll even tease us gently with a provocative poke: You silly goose! Do you really think I don’t know what I’m doing? Do you still not trust me? Are you really that spiritually slow?
The answer is yes; we are all that spiritually slow. We are all slow to believe. When God isn’t acting in the ways we expect or prefer, we are slow to trust. But Jesus comes alongside us in our sadness and our confusion. He walks with us through our disappointment verging on despair. Jesus comes to point us to the scriptures. He teaches us to look for him there. He opens our minds to understand and believe that he is indeed the One whom God has sent to redeem us from sin and death. He helps us to understand that everything is different now because of the cross and the empty tomb. Jesus takes bread, blesses and breaks it, and gives it to us, so that we might catch a glimpse of his true presence with us, and our hearts would begin to burn within us with hope and peace and joy.
Your walk with Jesus is not a matter of your feelings, which will come and go. Your walk with Jesus is not a matter of your circumstances, which can change in the blink of an eye. Your walk with Jesus is not something that depends on you. The risen Lord Jesus is walking with you whether you feel it or see it or realize it right now or not.
Today your walk with Jesus has led you here. And it is here, through scripture and sacrament, that your risen Lord, in his playfully mysterious way, plays a bit of peek-a-boo with you. He reveals himself to you in glimpses, so that you would see that he has been with you the whole time, even during those times when you didn’t recognize him.
He will continue to walk with you, too, so that you would more and more come to know the hope and peace and joy that his resurrection has won for all of us.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
by Jeffrey Spencer | Apr 5, 2026 | Sermons
CLICK HERE for a worship video for April 5
Sermon for the Resurrection of our Lord – April 5, 2026
Matthew 28:1-10
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
What if I told you that you really, truly do not need to be afraid – and you believed me? How would that change your life? How much more would you let yourself relax? How much better would you sleep at night?
What if I told you that the thing that scares you the most has no ultimate or permanent power over you? How much more room would there be in your heart for peace, for joy?
On this day when we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord, we hear the first two Easter sermons ever given – and both of them tell us to not be afraid.
Mary Magdalene and another woman named Mary – not Jesus’ mother, but likely his aunt, the wife of Joseph’s brother Clopas – these two Marys went to the tomb. Both of these women loved Jesus, and the Friday before they had seen the worst thing they could imagine happening to him, happen. Jesus had been put through a sham trial. He had been mocked, spit on, and beaten to a bloody pulp. He was then nailed to a cross and left to hang on it until he died. After he died, he was taken down from the cross by some of his friends and laid in a tomb. It sure seemed that his life was over, that his ministry was done, that his promises were null and void. Their hopes were dashed. This Lord whom they loved had been publicly humiliated and brutally executed and now he was in a sealed tomb. Talk about a worst-case scenario!
They spent their sabbath day grieving, and then, just as the sun was coming up on Sunday morning, these two Marys went to the tomb. Suddenly there was a great earthquake! An angel of the Lord, whose appearance was like lightning, descended from heaven. This angel rolled the stone away from the entrance to the tomb and sat on it. The Roman guards were so terrified that they were catatonic, paralyzed by fear. The angel spoke to the women, and the first words out of the angel’s mouth were: “Do not be afraid.”
The angel, this messenger from God, then gave the women a reason as to why they didn’t need to be afraid: “I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised.” The worst thing they could have imagined happening had happened – but the worst thing wasn’t the last thing. Jesus, who was crucified, had been raised!
The angel then told the two Marys to go quickly to tell the disciples. Off they went! And now, fear had loosened its grip! This very first Easter sermon had landed where it needed to land. They still had fear in their hearts, but now there was something else there too. St. Matthew tells us that they left the empty tomb with fear and great joy!
And it was with this mix of fear and great joy that they ran smack dab into the risen Jesus himself! “Greetings!” he said. They knelt before the risen Lord and worshipped him.
Then came the second Easter sermon ever given. Now Jesus himself said to them, “Do not be afraid.” They didn’t need to be afraid because he was with them! He had conquered sin and overcome death and was now with them again! His ministry would continue! His promises were vindicated and valid! He would continue to be with them too. He would continue to make himself known to them. They were to go and tell the disciples, and then he would meet them in Galilee.
They’d heard it twice now: “Do not be afraid.” In neither of these Easter sermons were they being told to summon up courage by their own strength or power. They were given reasons – explicit and implicit – for why they didn’t need to be afraid. They didn’t need to be afraid because the worst thing was no longer the last thing. Jesus had been raised, and now he was with them.
I don’t think any of you came here today not realizing what we would be celebrating this morning. I really doubt anyone here was like, “What? Jesus rose? You’ve got to be kidding! I’ve never heard that before!” This is the whole thing about today, right? Even those of you who were dragged here this morning by somebody else weren’t like, “Wait, what? Christ is risen?” I’d be really surprised if there was anyone here this morning who didn’t know what Christians celebrate on Easter Sunday.
But I wouldn’t be surprised at all if there aren’t lots of people – even longtime practicing Christians – who might not fully realize the significance of what we are celebrating. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were many people here today who don’t quite understand what this all means for us. I wouldn’t be surprised if the good news of the resurrection hasn’t yet landed where it needs to land in certain parts of our lives, in certain corners of our hearts.
The resurrection of Jesus means many things, of course. It means the curse of death has been broken. It means our sin – the sin that put Jesus on the cross – has been overcome by Christ’s victory, bringing us forgiveness and the promise of eternal life. It means God’s love and grace has broken out of the tomb we put it in and is now available to all through faith.
It also means that we really, truly do not need to be afraid.
I’m probably the worst person to be giving this particular message today, because I still have a lot of fears. Like many of you, I have many things that I worry about. The world gives us no shortage of things to worry about, that’s for sure! We still live in a fallen world, where much can go wrong. Those worst-case scenarios sometimes do happen.
So I’m preaching to myself as much as I am preaching to you today. And what I want to say, to myself and to you, is that we really, truly do not need to be afraid.
Christ’s resurrection changes everything, because it tells us that those things that scare us the most have no ultimate or permanent power over us. Death itself has been undone, changing the trajectory of our lives. The resurrection of Jesus means that your worst thing will not be your last thing. And so we have nothing to be afraid of.
Don’t take it from me, take it from the angel of the Lord. Take it from Jesus himself. Take it from these first two Easter sermons ever given, both of which begin with the words: “Do not be afraid.”
Christ is risen. (He is risen indeed! Alleluia!) His ministry of forgiveness and healing continues. His promises are ever true. He continues to make himself known to us through his Word and Sacraments. Jesus has been raised, and he lives forever to bring us God’s love and grace, and to raise us up to new life with him.
May this good news land where it needs to in your life today, that your heart would more and more be filled with the peace of Christ, and your fears would more and more give way to the great joy of Christ’s victory over sin and death, a victory he has promised to share with you.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
by Jeffrey Spencer | Mar 31, 2026 | Sermons
CLICK HERE for a worship video for March 29
Sermon for Palm Sunday – March 29, 2026
Matthew 27:11-54
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
The centurion had seen many crucifixions before. It was a common Roman practice, so he had probably witnessed hundreds of them before this one. His Grandpa may have told him stories of the slave revolt a generation before that led to 6,000 men being crucified along the Appian Way. It was part of Roman lore.
Crucifixions weren’t at all uncommon among the Romans. As a centurion, he’d seen plenty of them. He would have carried them out himself.
But this one was different. It was different from the very beginning.
Usually when someone is charged with a capital offense, they have a lot to say in their own defense. They will say anything to beat the charges, and if that doesn’t get them anywhere, they will plead for their lives. But this Jesus remained silent before his accusers.
Usually when someone is mocked and spit upon and beaten, they react in one way or another. They might return the insults. They might try to fight back. They might squirm and try to escape. No matter how hopeless the situation might be, it’s just human nature. That fight or flight reaction is so strong. If nothing else, they will plead for mercy. But this Jesus bore it all without any hint of protest. He seemed to be doing it all willingly.
Yes, this was no ordinary crucifixion. This one was different from the very beginning.
And then, as Jesus was dying, weird things started happening – calamities that were cosmic in scale. The sky grew dark. It started at Noon, and by the time it was 3 o’clock it was as dark as night. That’s when Jesus cried out with a loud voice. That’s when he breathed his last. That’s when he died. It was as though the sky itself was grieving what was happening. It was like the sun was setting on an entire era of human history.
Then there was an earthquake! You take it for granted that the ground is reliably stable, and so it is terrifying to feel it shaking beneath your feet, rolling and heaving, throwing you off balance. The earthquake was strong enough that enormous rocks were split, cracked open like eggs when they’re dropped on the floor. It was as though the very foundations of existence were being shaken. This was no ordinary crucifixion.
The centurion had heard Jesus referred to as the Son of God. The chief priests and the scribes and the elders used the term to mock Jesus, saying “If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross!” They used that title “Son of God” to taunt Jesus. But could it be true? After all that this centurion had seen with this crucifixion, he came to believe that it was true. And so with a trembling voice, he looked up at Jesus on the cross and said, “Truly this man was God’s Son.”
Note well here that the first person to confess Jesus as the Son of God after his death was not a disciple. Neither was it a priest or a theologian. It wasn’t one of God’s chosen people, the people of the covenant. It wasn’t any of the people who prayed at the temple. It wasn’t anyone particularly holy or good. It wasn’t someone known for their clean living, for their clean record, their clean hands.
No, the first person to confess Jesus as the Son of God after his death was a Gentile. It was a Roman soldier. It was someone who had carried out hundreds of brutal crucifixions as part of their job. It was someone with blood on their hands – Jesus’ blood.
What was it that made this centurion go from seeing Jesus as just another inconvenient human being to euthanize to seeing him as God’s Son? What changed his mind? What changed his heart? It wasn’t a miracle. It wasn’t a dramatic healing or a multiplication of fish and loaves. It wasn’t any of Jesus’ sermons. It wasn’t his teaching. It wasn’t a clever parable.
What changed him was the cross. What changed his mind about Jesus, what changed his heart, was the cross. This was no ordinary crucifixion. It meant something. It still does.
Jesus took his sentence without argument. Jesus took all that abuse without protest. As Isaiah prophesied in our first reading, “I gave my back to those who struck me, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard; I did not hide my face from insults and spitting.” Jesus was the fulfillment of what the scriptures said God would do to save his people. Though the idea of a suffering Messiah had been long forgotten, Jesus was the fulfillment of the promise of a Savior who would suffer in order to save his people.
As Saint Paul says in our epistle reading, Jesus, although he was God, emptied himself. He submitted himself to death, even death on a cross. He emptied himself on purpose, with intentionality, willingly taking our sin upon himself in obedience to the Father, so that every tongue would confess that he is Lord.
When the sky drew dark, the sun was indeed setting on an entire era in human history. Sin was being defeated, conquered, destroyed, atoned for. When the earth heaved and rolled, the foundations of our existence were indeed being shaken. Death itself was dying. Through this crucified Messiah, humanity was being redeemed, resc those who stand in harm’s way on our behalf. Establish through their labors places of safety and calm ued, saved. Sin and death no longer separate a fallen humanity from a holy God! Now, all who look upon Jesus and his cross and confess that he is the Son of God have forgiveness, life, and salvation. And if God can put this saving confession on the lips of the very soldier who oversaw his crucifixion, then there is hope for everyone.
This was no ordinary crucifixion. Jesus did it for you. He suffered for you. He died for you. He did it to save you. He did it to redeem you. He did it in order to defeat sin, death, and the devil. He did is so that there would be nothing left that could ever separate you from God.
This was no ordinary crucifixion. Truly this man was God’s Son.
And as we will learn next Sunday, he still is.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
by Jeffrey Spencer | Mar 23, 2026 | Sermons
CLICK HERE for a worship video for March 22
Sermon for the Fifth Sunday in Lent – March 22, 2026
John 11:1-45
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
Death stinks. It literally stinks, of course, but it stinks in every other way as well. It stinks because it brings grief, which can be overwhelming, even debilitating at times. It stinks because it means loss. Death brings an aching absence in your life that used to be filled by the person who died. If it was someone especially close to you, this absence can be as profound as losing a limb. Death also stinks because it can also make us confused about what God is up to in our lives. It can make us wonder whether God hears our prayers, whether God cares about us.Yes, death stinks in more ways than one.
You can almost picture Martha and Mary giving Jesus the stink eye when he showed up a day late and a dollar short after their beloved brother died. “If you had been here, Lord, our brother would not have died,” they each said to him. When these sisters sent word to Jesus that their brother Lazarus was gravely ill, Jesus didn’t rush to their side. He didn’t immediately respond to their request.
John tells us, “Though Jesus loved Martha and Mary and Lazarus, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.” It is almost as though John feels a need to reassure us that Jesus loved them, because his dallying, his delayed response, sure didn’t look like love. By the time Jesus headed out to Bethany, Lazarus was already dead. And so came the stink eye directed towards him from Martha and Mary. Then came the thinly veiled disappointment in him as they said, “Lord, if you had been here, our brother would not have died.”
I sometimes hear echoes of Mary and Martha’s words in the grief and the disappointment and the confusion and the anger of those who have lost loved ones. When grief is raw, it can feel like God has failed us. When grief lingers, years or even decades later, we struggle to feel God’s comforting love. When things don’t happen the way we would like, Jesus can feel cruelly absent.
When Jesus was confronted by these two grieving sisters, he didn’t scold them for how they felt. He didn’t scold them for their passive aggressive comments. Instead, he gave them a promise. “I am the resurrection and the life,” Jesus said. “Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.”
Jesus didn’t give these two disappointed sisters an explanation for why he allowed things to unfold as they did. But he did weep with them. Even though he knew what would ultimately happen, Jesus had empathy for them. He understood what death did to people. He was moved by their grief and shared in it. His emotions flowed so freely that some in the crowd noticed it, saying, “See how he loved him!” Others were cynical about it, saying, “If he loved him, why didn’t he come a little earlier and save him?”
But Jesus did love Lazarus. He loved Lazarus so much that he asked to be taken to the tomb. They brought him to the tomb, which was a cave with a stone lying against it to seal it tight. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.”
Martha said no. She said no because death literally stinks. “Lord,” she said, “already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.” I like how the King James Version translates this passage, which has Martha objecting because, “he stinketh.” Tombs weren’t something you just opened up again. They stinketh! They were filthy places. They made you unclean, both physically and, in Jewish tradition, spiritually as well. But Jesus loved Lazarus enough to enter the stink. Jesus loved Lazarus so much that he was willing to get dirty.
I did a graveside service for a woman once. Her husband, who absolutely adored her, had been taking care of her for a long time, during a long illness, and now he found himself in his best suit, standing over her open grave. He insisted on staying until she had been lowered into the ground. When that was done, he still didn’t want to leave. People milled around for a while, but he lingered, and lingered, and lingered, until it got awkward and people started to head to the reception.
But not him. He wouldn’t budge. Eventually it was just me and him and the funeral director left there. Before he finally left, he got down on the ground, laying on his belly next to her grave. He reached his arms down to his wife and called out her name. It didn’t matter to him that he was getting mud all over his nice suit. He loved her and he didn’t want to let her go. It was gut-wrenching and beautiful at the same time.
Jesus loved Lazarus enough to get dirty too. This is the kind of love Jesus had for him. It’s the kind of love he has for you too.
“Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” Jesus said. So they opened up the tomb. Jesus came right up next to it. Jesus spoke into that dark cave as the stink wafted out. Jesus called out his name: “Lazarus, come out!” And Lazarus came out. Jesus said to the people, “Unbind him, and let him go.”
If there was any question about whether Jesus loved him before, there wasn’t now. If there was confusion about what Jesus was up to, it had now given way to the joy and wonder of Jesus’ power over death. If there were any doubts about Jesus before, they now gave way to faith in him. As John tells us, “Many of the Jews, therefore, who had come with Mary and seen what Jesus did, believed in him.
Although Jesus didn’t respond to the sisters in the way they wanted him to, he did transform Lazarus’ death into an opportunity to show the glory of God. He did use it as an opportunity to show that his voice, his word, is more powerful than death.
Many heard this word and came to believe in him as a result. They heard this word and trusted in him, even in the face of death.
The stink of death has been wafting through our congregation over these past few months. I have some mementos from David Lura’s ministry in my office, which are an honor to have, but which also remind me how much I miss him. We had a memorial service this past week for Gene and Dottie Gilbert, and I was talking with a couple of our members about how we now have one remaining charter member who is active in our congregation. Sande Mulkey is being remembered today. I’ll be meeting with Nancy Tipton’s family after Easter to bury her, and in the meantime, I still look out expecting to see her in her usual spot. I’ve talked to others recently who have had to travel for funerals, or who have lost loved ones and have marked milestones and birthdays and anniversaries which have stirred up a fresh round of grief. In the past 10 days or so two of our council members have lost loved ones. There’s been a lot of death lately, and a lot of grief, and it stinketh.
Jesus can take your stink eye, if that’s what you are feeling towards him. He can take your questions, your disappointment. Mary and Martha had similar reactions, and Jesus never once scolded them for it.
What he did do is give them a promise. What he did do is weep with them. He came alongside them in their grief, sharing in it. What he did do is bring glory to God by showing his ultimate power over death
Jesus does the same for you. He gives you a promise. He says, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.” Jesus acknowledges the reality of death, saying, “even though they die,” but he promises that death not have the last word. He will.
Jesus weeps with you. He knows the toll death takes on our hearts and our lives. He knows the aching absence. He weeps for us and with us, and so we are never alone in our grief. Christ is with us.
Best of all, Jesus has shown us his power over death. What happened here with Lazarus was a sneak preview. God was just getting warmed up! The raising of Lazarus is a foreshadowing of what we will be celebrating just two weeks from now when we gather to bask in the resurrection of Jesus, which breaks the curse of death for all of us.
Because of his resurrection, even now our Lord begins to move us from confusion to hope and peace, perhaps with time even joy and wonder.
Because of his resurrection, even now our Lord Jesus begins to move us from disappointment and doubt, to believing in him as our savior and trusting in his power over death.
Because of his resurrection, we can go to our own graves trusting that Jesus will do for us what gives God the greatest glory. He will come to our tomb. He will open it up. He will get down into the dirt and stink of it all to be close to us, refusing to let us go. In his great love for us he will reach his arms down into our graves and call out our names. And his voice has a power that ours do not. His word is more powerful than death.
And so when we die, the first thing we will hear is the voice of our Lord Jesus calling our name. It is then that we will be unbound from death, and that stink will be gone forever.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
by Jeffrey Spencer | Mar 15, 2026 | Sermons
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Sermon for the Fourth Sunday in Lent – March 15, 2026
John 9:1-41
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
As every driver knows, there are areas behind your vehicle that you can’t see with your mirrors. Your rear-view mirror shows you a large swath of what is behind you. Your side mirrors show you another swath on either side. But there are areas that none of those mirrors cover. We call it those areas blind spots. Those blind spots are one of the most dangerous aspects of driving. People not checking their blind spots when they’re merging or changing lanes is one of the most common causes of serious accidents. Many newer cars now have sensors which light up when there’s someone in your blind spot, which is great – but they aren’t perfect. If someone is coming up fast behind you, it might not light up in time. And so, those blind spots can still be dangerous.
The phrase “blind spot” has also become an idiom referring to situations that have nothing to do with driving. We use it to describe someone’s inability or unwillingness to perceive something, perhaps because of a bias, or a deeply ingrained assumption, or a simply a lack of knowledge.
We have another long gospel reading this morning, and this one is particularly rich with themes. There are a number of different directions we could go with it. What I would like to focus on this time around is the problem of spiritual blind spots. There are people with some serious spiritual blind spots in this story, and these spiritual blind spots are dangerous – for them, and for us.
On the surface, this gospel reading is about a man who was born blind. He encounters Jesus, who has compassion on him, and restores his sight. But the great length of the rest of the reading tells us that there is much more to the story. This is much more than a healing story. This is about the spiritual blind spots which prevent the Pharisees from seeing who Jesus is.
When the Pharisees learned that this man’s sight had been restored, they launched an investigation. How can this be? Who could have done this? It certainly couldn’t be a godly man, for he mixed together spit and dirt and used it as a salve, and he did it on the sabbath. Technically, that’s work. That involved kneading. That involved practicing the healing arts. Both of these are no-no’s on the sabbath. So, there’s that. On the other hand, some argued, who could possibly restore eyesight to a blind man without the power of God? For many of these Pharisees, their self-righteousness as meticulous keepers of the sabbath gave them a huge blind spot, preventing them from seeing God at work in Jesus Christ.
Well, the Pharisees thought, maybe this guy wasn’t really blind in the first place. Maybe this was all a big hoax. So off they went like the keystone cops to interview the parents. The parents insisted that he was indeed blind from birth, and so the Pharisees were at another dead end. Now their cynicism, their skepticism, their doubts, gave them a huge blind spot, preventing them from seeing who Jesus truly was and what he was capable of.
These blind spots really come into focus when they went to the formerly blind man for a follow up interview. “What did he do?” they asked him. “How did he do it?” Where does this Jesus come from, anyway? And the formerly blind man replied, “Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes.” What he’s saying is: Isn’t this ironic – you guys are supposed to be the religious experts, and you can’t see what is going on here. And yet, here I am, a guy who spent most of his life literally blind, and, to me, it is pretty plain to see!
This all came to a head when the investigation led them to Jesus himself. Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.” The Pharisees sensed that Jesus was talking about them, and so they shot back, “Surely we are not blind, are we?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.”
This almost sounds like a riddle, doesn’t it? Jesus said he came so that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind. Those who insist that they can see are really blind, while those who can see that they can’t see, can really see!
This riddle-like language is all about spiritual blind spots. The Pharisees have some big ones. Their self-righteousness created a blind spot. Their cynicism, skepticism, and doubt created a blind spot. Their stubbornness in insisting that they are the ones who have everything figured out created a blind spot. All these factors in their lives make it so that they cannot see Jesus for who he is. They cannot see what he is up to. They cannot see their need for him. They have these huge blind spots, and the most dangerous thing about them is that they don’t even know that they’re there.
There’s a scene from a movie which keeps coming to mind for me. I know we’re much closer to Easter than Christmas, but it is from a Christmas movie. There’s a scene in the movie “Elf” where Buddy the Elf hears his coworker singing in the locker room shower. Her voice is lovely and he is entranced, so he goes into the locker room, sitting on the counter just outside her shower. It sounds a little creepy, but his intentions are completely innocent. The charm of his character is his utter naiveté. He listens to her sing for a bit before he starts singing along with her. At this point she realizes there is a man in the locker room. She screams at him to get out, and Buddy covers his eyes and starts running blindly, away from the shower, and WHAM, at full speed he slams into a locker and falls to the floor.
I watch this movie pretty much every year, and this scene cracks me up every time. Yes, it might be true that I have the sense of humor of an eight-year-old boy, but here’s the thing: It is said that even the most absurd humor is funny to people because it has an element of truth to it. In fact, comedians and comedy writers will tell you it must have an element of truth in order to be funny. Oscar Wilde famously said that if you want to tell people the truth, you have to make them laugh, otherwise they’ll kill you. And I think this scene, as silly and juvenile as it is, points to a deeper, if uncomfortable truth about us, which is that we all have a tendency to run blindly, with the full force of someone who insists that they know what they’re doing, until we hit a hard, blunt surface. We have a tendency to run with blind confidence in ourselves until we inevitably hit a wall.
You see, we have some of the same blind spots as the Pharisees. There are times when we have the same sense of self-righteousness. There are times when we have the same cynicism, skepticism, and doubt. There are times when we have the same stubbornness, insisting that we have everything figured out. And these create for us these spiritual blind spots which prevent us from seeing the truth. They prevent us from seeing who Jesus truly is for us. They prevent us from seeing what he came to do for us. They prevent us from seeing our need for him. And these blind spots are dangerous! We run confidently, but blindly, through life until we hit a wall, until we crash out.
This story is told in order to open our eyes. This story is given to us so that we can get past these blind spots and see the truth more clearly.
To see clearly is to begin by acknowledging our own blindness. This isn’t a riddle, this is repentance. It is to admit the ways in which our self-righteousness and our skepticism and our stubbornness have gotten in the way of seeing and trusting and worshipping Jesus. To see clearly is, first of all, to confess our sin.
To see clearly is also to see Jesus as the formerly blind man saw him. It is to see not only our sin, but also our savior. It is to trust that Jesus has come from God to bring us forgiveness, life, and salvation. It is to have our eyes opened by Jesus to the truth – the truth about us, and the truth about him. It is to receive the gift of restoration from him, the gift of new eyes and a new life. It is to look upon Jesus with faith, and worship him as our Lord and God.
C. S. Lewis once wrote: “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”
This is a beautiful description of the Christian life. It is a beautiful description of what it means to live with the restored sight that faith in Jesus brings. Jesus opens our eyes in such a way that our blind spots are overcome and we can perceive him rightly, and with him, everything else.
Jesus opens our eyes to see that we really do need him. We really do need his forgiveness, and so we move from self-righteousness to humility.
Jesus opens our eyes to see that he really can help us. He overcomes our cynicism, moving us to hope. He overcomes our skepticism, moving us to trust. He overcomes our doubts, moving us to faithfully worship him.
Jesus opens our eyes to see that we don’t have it all figured out after all, but that it is okay. He has come to help us see him as the way, the truth, and the life. He has come to lead us into a new life of joyful discipleship, moving us from stubbornly following our own way to following him into what, as the Apostle Paul says, is good and right and true.
By his loving grace, Jesus touches your eyes today, so that every blind spot might be removed, and you would see clearly that he is the Lord of your life and the savior of your soul.
He comes to you once again to restore and sharpen your vision, so that with eyes of faith, you would see him rightly, and with him everything else.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
