by Jeffrey Spencer | Jul 6, 2025 | Sermons
CLICK HERE for a worship video for July 6
Sermon for the Fourth Sunday after Pentecost – July 6, 2025
Isaiah 66:10-14, Luke 10:1-11, 16-20
In our gospel reading for today we hear Jesus sending seventy of his followers out into the world with a mission. He sends them out in pairs to every town and every place he intended to go. Jesus sends these followers out to proclaim peace, to proclaim that in him the kingdom of God has come near. “Whatever house you enter, Jesus tells them, “say, ‘Peace be to this house.’” This might sound like he’s merely encouraging them to be polite, to mind their manners, but it is so much more than that. These are words of blessing. This is a proclamation. It is a word that does something. It is a blessing of peace: peace with God, the peace beyond all understanding, the peace that the world cannot provide, the peace only Christ can give, the peace that comes from being restored to right relationship with God.
This blessing of peace foreshadows the peace the risen Lord Jesus will bestow upon the disciples as he appeared to them saying, “Peace be with you, peace be with you.” This peace is not the absence of trouble. It is the presence of Christ, which brings comfort and hope.
Jesus also tells his disciples to proclaim to people that the kingdom of God has come near to them. In Jesus Christ, God is bringing people close. God is holding them near. Jesus sends the seventy out to those who need to receive this blessing the most: the sick, the vulnerable, those who are isolated and alone and suffering.
Jesus sends them out to tell them that the kingdom of God has come near, bringing healing and wholeness and restoration to body and soul.
At the risk of using imagery which may be awkward for some, I see a connection between this word Jesus has given his followers to proclaim and the picture of God’s comfort we have in our first reading for today, from Isaiah. I was warned by a lectionary podcast I listened to this week to avoid having that passage read by an immature lector, who might have a hard time not snickering about “drinking deeply with delight from God’s glorious bosom.” It is startling language, to be sure, funny only because it is so unexpectedly earthy. But the image is a beautiful one. It shouldn’t be awkward, because this God’s own design for how babies are fed. Nursing mothers are image-bearers, reflecting God’s nature. God uses this imagery to describe how he will comfort his people.
God promises to comfort his people as a mother nurses her infant. God promises to restore Jerusalem in such a way that those who currently mourn may come to her consoling breast, drinking deeply with delight from the glorious bosom God provides. They shall nurse and be carried on her arm and dandled on her knee. This is a picture of the kingdom of God drawing near. This is God at work to bring his people close. As God says, “As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you; you shall be comforted in Jerusalem.”
This imagery is especially vivid for me because last week we went up to Bellingham for a Bellingham Bells baseball game, and seated below us was a mom with twin infants. They couldn’t have been more than a few weeks old. Those babies were being passed around, held by dad, held by what looked to be grandparents, held by friends. (I was hoping to get a turn, but they didn’t offer.)
There was all the chaos of a baseball game in progress: the cheering, the taunting of batters, the criticism of the umpires, the obnoxious yelling of college students who were in a few beers deep. Over the course of nine long innings, there were times when those babies started to get ornery and out-of-sorts. Maybe they were startled by the noise. Maybe they were tired. Maybe they were hungry.
When they started to cry or fuss, they would inevitably get handed back to mom. And this mom welcomed it. She pulled them close and, one at a time, discretely began to nurse them right there in the stands. Their little bodies melted into her. When they eventually unlatched from her consoling breast, all was right with their world. You could see it on their little faces. Their eyes were glassy with contentment, rolling back in their heads in utter bliss. They were now at peace.
This got my wife and I to reminiscing about when she was nursing. There were times when she would go to the grocery store with all three of our boys when our youngest was an infant and his brothers were four and two and a half. When the newborn would start to get fussy, she would scoop him up out of his carrier, hold him close, and discretely nurse him while walking down the aisle. She would hold him with one arm while pushing the cart with one free hand while two toddlers bounced around at her knees! Within moments, he would be consoled, at peace.
I mention this in part to gratuitously brag on my wife a little, who was and is an incredible mom, but I mention it even more to draw out this imagery from Isaiah, where God is described as being able to juggle a whole people, nursing them, keeping them all close, drawing them near in order to console them, giving them comfort, giving them peace.
Jesus sent these seventy followers out to announce that God had come to draw people in close. Jesus sent them out to proclaim peace, especially to those who were vulnerable or suffering. He sent them out to proclaim that in him, the kingdom of God had come near. Jesus sent them out to bring people into God’s comforting embrace, there to drink deeply with delight of God’s glorious love and grace.
This is still the mission of the Christian church. The mission we hear about in our gospel reading for today foreshadows the mission Christ gave to the church after his death and resurrection, when he called his disciples to proclaim repentance and the forgiveness of sin to all people. All of this foreshadows the Great Commission Jesus gave to the church, to go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey all that he has commanded us. All of this foreshadows our task and calling as Christ’s people here today. We too are sent out to proclaim the peace of God. We too are sent out to proclaim that in Jesus, the kingdom of God has come near.
I wish this were as easy as handing hungry babies to their mother, but of course it isn’t. Jesus is honest about this. He tells us he is sending us out as sheep in the midst of wolves. There will be dangers. There will be those who snarl and bite at us. This remains true. There are places in the world at this very moment where it is dangerous to be a Christian, places where proclaiming the gospel will get you killed. Jesus tells us that we can expect rejection. He is honest about the fact that not everyone will receive us or our message. Jesus tells us that when this happens, to just shake it off and move on. He tells us not to take it personally. “When they reject you,” he tells us, “they are really rejecting me.”
But there will be successes too. There will be those who receive this peace. There will be those who will joyfully receive the good news that in Christ the kingdom of God has come near to them. There will be those who drink deeply with delight of the gospel. After all, the seventy returned with joy, didn’t they? They shared with Jesus how demons submitted to them. Jesus rejoiced that so many had been freed from Satan’s grip. Jesus affirmed that they had an authority from his word which was more powerful than snakes and scorpions, which are symbols for sin and death. Jesus affirmed that his word gave them authority over the power of the enemy.
This was something to celebrate, to be sure, but even better, Jesus reminds them, is that their names were written in heaven. Even better is that the seventy themselves had been brought close to God – not by their works, not by their efforts, but through Christ, who had not only called them but claimed them. He himself had written their names in heaven.
Our mission today, collectively as the church and individually as Christians, is to share the blessing of Christ’s peace with others. We are sent out to announce that in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the kingdom of God has drawn near. We are not sent out to build the kingdom, but to proclaim that through faith in Jesus Christ, it is already here! It is not our works which establish the kingdom, but Christ’s work of dying and rising for us for the forgiveness of our sin. We are sent out to proclaim this. We are sent out with a message, with an authoritative and powerful word, a word that can overcome sin and death and the power of the enemy. This word is powerful and authoritative because it comes from Jesus. “Whoever listens to you,” Jesus says, “listens to me.”
Whoever listens to the word Jesus has given to the church listens to Christ himself.
So listen to this and hear Jesus speaking directly to you: Peace be with you. Whatever is going on in your life to trouble you or make you afraid, it is no match for Jesus. He has stomped out every snake and scorpion, so that you might have peace. Hear this too: The kingdom of God has come near to you. In Jesus Christ, God has come near to all of us. In word and in bread and in wine, God pulls you in close, giving you forgiveness, giving you consolation, giving you comfort.
Drink deeply with delight from God’s glorious grace today, brothers and sisters. Know that your names are written in heaven. And then let us go out like the seventy to all those anxious, ornery, hungry, vulnerable, and suffering souls to share with them the good news that there is a place at God’s glorious bosom for them too; for in Jesus Christ, the kingdom of God has come near.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
by Jeffrey Spencer | Jul 1, 2025 | Sermons
CLICK HERE for a worship video for June 29
Sermon for the Third Sunday after Pentecost – June 29, 2025
1 Kings 19:15-16, 19-21, Galatians 5:1, 13-29, Luke 9:51-62
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
Benjamin Franklin once said, “He that is good at making excuses is seldom good for anything else.” Harsh? Perhaps. But it seems to be a sentiment shared by our Lord Jesus.
Today we hear two people respond to Jesus’ call to follow him with excuses. They don’t say no, but they say, “not yet.” They give Jesus excuses for why they cannot start following him right away.
To be fair, they are really good excuses! The first one said, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” This is an awfully good excuse! You could make a case from scripture itself that it is a righteous request. We don’t know if the man’s father was already deceased and his funeral was pending, or if he was elderly and in need of care, but either way, this becomes his excuse for not following Jesus. And it’s a good one!
But to Jesus, even a good excuse is no excuse. And so Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”
The next person responded to Jesus’ call to follow by saying, “I will follow you, Lord!” But he too had an excuse for why he couldn’t do it just then. He had some business to take care of first. “First let me say farewell to my home,” he said. This too is a good excuse! It seems like an entirely reasonable request. The lectionary reminds us this morning that there is even Biblical precedent for it. As we heard in the reading from 1 Kings, when the prophet Elijah called Elisha to follow him, Elisha asked if he could go home and kiss his mother and father first, and Elijah allowed it!
Is Jesus more demanding than Elijah? It sure sounds like it! In response, Jesus said, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” This sounds an awful lot like Franklin’s quote: “Those who are good at making excuses are seldom good at anything else.” His excuse, reasonable as it might sound, made him unfit. Jesus couldn’t use him.
There will be no looking back, Jesus is saying. There will be no “not yet.” Jesus will not be penciled in on our calendars. He won’t be patronized like that. Following him will not be a hobby to be fit in when it is convenient, when it fits into our schedules. It will demand one’s whole life. There will be no excuses, not even good ones, when it comes to following him.
Does this mean we should neglect or abandon our families for the sake of the gospel? Absolutely not. The Lord God established the family and cares about it deeply. Two of the Ten Commandments concern the family: The Fourth seeks to protect and preserve the family by honoring mothers and fathers, while the Sixth seeks to protect and preserve the estate of marriage.
The issue here is the First Commandment: “You shall have no other gods.” The issue here is not letting anything else, even good things, become more important than God. Jesus is making a First Commandment claim about himself here, demanding that we have no other gods before him. This is actually for our benefit. It is actually for the good of our families! We serve our families best when we put Christ first.
If you have ever been on a plane with kids, you know that the flight attendant tells everyone that if the plane loses cabin pressure, the adults should secure their oxygen masks first before putting one on their child. This is not a selfish act. It is simply the case that you are no help to your child if you are slumped over in your seat from lack of oxygen! In the same way, we need to put Christ first. We need to first breath Christ in so that we can be filled with his life and love, and in so doing have something to share with our families and friends.
In our gospel reading last week we heard how Jesus cast demons out of the man in Gerasa. When he was at last clothed and in his right might, the man said he wanted to follow Jesus. I find it very interesting that in this case Jesus instead sent him home! “Return to your home,” Jesus said, “and declare how much God has done for you.” His ministry was in his home. He would follow Jesus by serving him there. This is the case for many of us. Perhaps most of us.
Jesus’ concern in our gospel reading for today is how even good and godly things can come to take first place in our lives, the place the First Commandment reserves for God alone. There are no excuses, Jesus says, not even good ones, for not putting him first. There are no excuses for not responding to his call with immediate trust and obedience.
Sometimes we are like those Christians in Galatia Paul is writing to who have somehow gotten the idea that Christian freedom means freedom to answer Jesus’ call on our own terms, to shape and mold his call to fit our own thoughts and desires, to fit it in according to our own priorities and schedules. Not only does Paul say otherwise – Jesus does too. Jesus tells these would-be disciples that following him will involve a radical reordering of their lives. He tells them, and us, that he sets the terms, not us. If we are going to follow him, we need to put him above everything else – even those things we cherish the most.
The truth is, we all have our excuses. Even those of us who have said yes to following Jesus have our excuses as to why we might not be able to follow him in this area of our life, or on that day of the week. You are here today because you have been called to follow him, and probably all of you are eager to do so. But we all have our excuses, right? I know I do. And I’m in good company, because you know who else did? Every single one of the disciples! Peter ended up denying Jesus because he was afraid. Thomas doubted Jesus had risen because he had not seen him with his own eyes. All the disciples failed Jesus at some point, and they all had their excuses.
The Good News for us would-be followers of Jesus is found by reading between the lines of our gospel reading for today. The context here matters very much. The demands Jesus makes of his followers are not the only thing we hear today.
St. Luke tells us in this gospel reading that “Jesus set his face towards Jerusalem.” Luke tells us this twice in three verses! The language and the repetition here is drawing our attention to it. This is more than just stage direction. This is significant! Luke is telling us that Jesus was now resolutely headed to the cross. That’s what it means when he tells us “Jesus set his face towards Jerusalem.”
In the end no one was willing to follow Jesus to the cross. Everyone had an excuse. But “Jesus set his face towards Jerusalem.” He set his face towards the cross. Jesus went there for the sake of the Samaritans who said no to him. Jesus went there for the would-be followers who said “not yet” to him. Jesus went there for the disciples, who all had their excuses. Jesus went there for you and he went there for me. And in dying on the cross for us and rising again, Jesus has established a new covenant with us. He has made us fit for the Kingdom of God. He has established a new relationship with him based on grace, which we enter into through faith in him – by simply trusting in him and what he has done for us. In spite of our excuses, in spite of our failures, through his sacrifice for us in Jerusalem, we now belong to him.
And because we belong to him, we no longer live “by the flesh,” as the Apostle Paul puts it. “The flesh” is New Testament shorthand for our human nature, our standard operating system as fallen human begins. We no longer live according to the flesh. Instead we live by the Spirit.
Left to ourselves we will never follow Jesus. There will always be excuses. But when Christ’s Spirit goes to work on us, we begin to set aside those excuses and joyfully give ourselves over to a life of discipleship. When Christ’s Spirit goes to work on us, we find ourselves breathing him in and then pouring ourselves out in loving service to others, including our families, our neighbors, and those who are in need, near and far.
Another quote, not from Ben Franklin. You’ve probably heard it before. The quote is: “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.”
This quote often hits our ears as a warning. It warns us to not get so caught up in the future that we put off or ignore what is important or precious today.
It sometimes hits our ears as a judgement. It convicts us of all the times we have let life pass us by because we were focusing on what is coming next rather than what is right in front of us.
It can also be heard, however, as an invitation. It can be heard as an invitation to lean into the present, to live the life we have been given with intentionality and gratitude.
We can hear these words of Jesus in all these ways too. These words of Jesus warn us that there are no excuses for not responding to his call with immediate trust and obedience. These words judge us. They convict us for all the excuses we have already made to avoid following him at certain times or in certain ways.
But in light of the forgiveness and new life he has won for us by setting his face towards Jerusalem, they can also be heard as an invitation. In light of his death and resurrection and the forgiveness he has won for us, we can hear these words as a renewed call to follow him. Christ alone makes us fit for the kingdom of God, and by his grace he is inviting us once again into this new life guided and empowered by his Spirit, a life where he comes first – not at the expense of others, but for their benefit.
The Christian life is not something we can pencil in for later. It is not something we can put off until it is more convenient for us. There are no excuses. The Christian life is lived now. Following Jesus starts now.
What could possibly be more important than this? Why would we want to wait?
Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
by Jeffrey Spencer | Jun 24, 2025 | Sermons
CLICK HERE for a worship video for June 22
Sermon for the Second Sunday of Pentecost – June 22, 2025
Luke 8:26-39
When I saw the slide provided for this Sunday by our denominational publisher, I was sure I wasn’t going to use it. (Sometimes I do, and sometimes I don’t.) At first glance, I thought to myself: Yikes. That fiery coloring and those eerie graphics have a creepy vibe. It kind of looks like a poster for a horror movie. But then I read our gospel reading for today and said: Actually, that’s perfect! There are elements here which do indeed seem like they are from a horror film.
Jesus and his disciples crossed the Sea of Galilee and entered into the country of the Gerasenes. St. Luke describes this land as being opposite of Galilee, and I don’t think he’s just talking about geography. While Galilee was populated by pious, God-worshipping Jews, Gerasa was populated by unclean, pagan Gentiles, with their strange customs and forbidden foods.
As soon as Jesus stepped out of the boat, he was immediately met by a naked, demon-possessed man. This man, Luke tells us, lived among the tombs. Cue the creepy music! The townspeople tried to keep this man under control with chains and shackles, but, with incredible, inhuman strength, he would break them every time and go running off into the wilds.
This is who met Jesus as he stepped out of the boat. And when this naked, demon-possessed tomb-dweller saw Jesus, he shouted at the top of his voice, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me!”
“What is your name?” Jesus asked him. “Legion,” was the reply. This is not a name, of course. A legion was a cohort of 6,000 Roman soldiers. What the demon was saying is that they were many, and that they were powerful.
Because this scene has the feel of a horror movie, we might be tempted to classify it as fiction. Or we might be tempted to explain it away as simply a product of its time, a struggle by premodern people to explain something that we modern, enlightened people can explain in more scientific terms. But to keep this story at arm’s length in this way, by relegating it solely to the premodern world, we might be deceived into thinking that demons only exist in horror movies. We might be deluded into thinking there isn’t a spiritual battle raging every day in our lives and in our world. We might deny that there are dark spiritual forces at work, and that they are many, and powerful.
Many of the troubling things we see today can indeed be explained at least in part by psychology, by brain chemistry, by sociology. These can all be helpful tools. But they cannot account entirely for the powers that overtake people and drive them into the tombs, into the wilds. They cannot explain the dark grip that sometimes takes hold of people. We should use all the tools God has given us in understanding and addressing the horrors we see in the world and in our lives, but as Christians we must also be keenly aware that the father of lies is always lurking in the background, and that his demons are many, and powerful.
Fentanyl is perhaps the most deadly drug human beings have concocted yet. A dose the size of a grain of sand can kill. Police officers have almost died just by accidentally touching it. And yet, there are some who are so deeply into the throes of addiction, so used to living near the tombs, at the edge of death, that they seek it out. Demons are many, and they are powerful!
Pornography is more widely available and more widely viewed today than at any point in human history, and many men (and even a few women) find that they are unable to look away. They can’t break the hold it has on them, even when it starts to destroy their marriages and break apart their families. I have had people confide in me that they have become so enthralled with looking at the wickedness of people being debased on a screen that they are no longer interested in the holiness of making love to their spouse. They know it is a bad situation, they know it is wrong, they know they are hurting their marriages – but they can’t break free. Demons are many, and they are powerful.
It is becoming increasingly apparent that social media is a powerful, and often powerfully dark force in the lives of young people. There are predatory rabbit holes kids go down online which are leading to unprecedented rates of anxiety and depression and suicide. Some of those rabbit holes are leading kids to hate the bodies God gave them. Demons are many, and they are powerful.
These might be extreme examples, but they are all widespread in our society today. When you scratch the surface of polite society, you can see the horror show underneath.
In his book, “The Screwtape Letters,” C. S. Lewis does a masterful job of describing the more subtle work of demons at work in the lives of everyday Christians. He writes about how dark spiritual forces work to distract us from prayer, how they work to frustrate people’s relationship with the church, how they set up unrealistic expectations and sow disappointment and discouragement which lead to doubts about God. He describes how they fan minor disagreements and hurt feelings between people so they boil over into major fights and people end up isolated from one another. He depicts them exploiting human fear, stoking anxiety to undermine faith and lead people into despair. I see this kind of stuff at work just about every day. Demons are many, and they are powerful.
No matter how well we might manage our outward behavior, living outwardly righteous lives – which is good! – none of us are free from this attack. None of us get a pass on this spiritual warfare. As we confessed this morning, like we do most every Sunday morning, we are in bondage to sin and unable to free ourselves. However this takes shape in our lives, we are all admitting that we are caught in the grip of something more powerful than us. We are all naked before God. In Christ’s presence, we are all as exposed as the man from Gerasa was.
Acknowledging this reality makes the Good News in our gospel reading for today all the more wonderful. Jesus Christ entered into that horror show in Gerasa and showed himself to be more powerful than every demon. He cast them out of the man with a word. By the end of the story this once-captive man was sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. What was too powerful for humans, what could not be restrained even with shackles and chains, was subdued with nothing more than a word from the mouth of Jesus Christ. Jesus simply spoke, and the man was free!
The reaction of the townspeople is interesting and instructive. They were more afraid of Jesus than they were of the demons! They asked Jesus to leave! Perhaps they didn’t like what he did to the hogs. Perhaps they were worried about their livelihoods or the price of bacon.
Or maybe they knew that having Jesus around would change their lives, and they weren’t ready to change yet. That’s a challenge still today!
But that isn’t you.
You are here today because you have caught glimpses of the horror show. You’ve seen it in the world around you. You’ve seen it in your own life. You are here today because you know there are forces out there that you are contending with that are more powerful than you, and you need help. You are here today because you know that you are in bondage to sin and cannot free yourself. You are here today because you know you need Jesus Christ to step onto the shore of your life and set you free by his word.
And that’s just what he does for us. He comes to us today, stepping into our unclean world and our unclean lives, speaking a word that sets us free. He announces to us the entire forgiveness of all our sin, setting us free to live a new life with him. He assures that through his death and resurrection, we are saved, we are redeemed, we are loved, we are safe. He comes to dispel the lies we’ve been laboring under, displacing them by his gracious presence as the way, the truth, and the life. He assures us that though demons still claw at us from time to time, he is more powerful than all of them. And so we find ourselves sitting at his feet, clothed in his grace and in our right minds.
The man in our gospel reading who had his demons cast out wanted to go with Jesus. But Jesus sent him away, saying, “Return to your home and declare how much God has done for you.”
That’s your job now too.
With a word, Jesus has forgiven you. With a word, he has set you free. With a word, he has restored you. With a word, he has sent those demons running for cover.
So go. Go in peace. Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.
Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
by Jeffrey Spencer | Jun 16, 2025 | Sermons
CLICK HERE for a worship video for June 15
Sermon for Holy Trinity Sunday – June 15, 2025
Romans 5:1-5, John 16:12-15
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
Of the fifty-two Sundays in the church year, not to mention all the various Christian festivals and commemorations that fall during the week, we have one day on the liturgical calendar which is devoted to a doctrine, a teaching of the church. That day is today as we celebrate Holy Trinity Sunday.
The Holy Trinity is important for several reasons. It is a complex theological formula confessed in the creeds which both proclaims and safeguards the divinity of Christ. It is a doctrine gleaned from scripture (particularly John’s gospel) which describes the mystery of God being three distinct persons while remaining one God. The Trinity – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – is also the proper name for God, given to us by Jesus himself as the name in which we are to baptize.
All of this is important. Every Christian adult should have some basic knowledge of the doctrine of the Trinity, if for no other reason than to know when that language is being used by other religious groups in different and non-Christian ways – which it often is!
But as important as it is to know what the Trinity is, it is also important to know what the Trinity does. In fact, in scripture, more often than not, the Trinity is revealed through what this one God in three persons does.
For instance, all the way back in the first chapter of Genesis, there are hints of the Trinity which are revealed through what the Trinity does. As God created the first humans, God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness.” Do you hear the plural language? Christians have long interpreted this plural language as a reference to the Trinity. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were all there from the very beginning – as the New Testament claims over and over again. Here the Holy Trinity is revealed by what the Trinity did: creating a man and a woman in the image and likeness of God to live in a life-giving and life-bearing relationship.
Another fun place to look for the Trinity in the Old Testament is in Genesis 18, when Abraham and Sarah were visited by three mysterious strangers. God had promised this elderly couple that they would bear a son, and that their descendants would be as many as the stars, and that he would make of them a great nation. This promise was hard to believe. It seemed too good to be true. Later, three strangers visited them in their camp. One of them told them that in one year’s time, Sarah would bear this child. Some Bibles capitalize the word “He” for this visitor, even midsentence, using a grammatical tradition reserved for references to God, as a little clue that this was not some random visitor. Christian interpretation going back at least as far as St. Augustine has understood this visit from these three mysterious strangers as a visit from the Holy Trinity, who again is made known through what the Trinity did – namely, assuring God’s people of God’s promises.
This pattern continues in our gospel reading for today, only here the persons of the Trinity are specifically named as Jesus describes how Father, Son, and Holy Spirit work together to do certain things.
The context for what Jesus says about the Trinity’s work is important. Jesus is in the Upper Room with his disciples. He is preparing them for what is coming next. He is preparing them for his crucifixion, which is imminent. He is preparing them for the suffering they will experience as his disciples as they carry on his ministry in the future. Throughout this section of John’s gospel Jesus has been dropping hints about the challenges they would face, the difficulties they would encounter. He tells them that the future will test them in ways that can’t even begin to imagine. “I still have many things to say to you,” Jesus tells them, “But you cannot bear them now.” The burdens they would face as his followers would be heavy indeed – too heavy for them to bear all at once, too heavy for them to know about ahead of time.
But while Jesus doesn’t disclose all that his disciples would face in the months and years and decades and centuries to come, he does make them a promise. He promises that the Holy Trinity will be doing certain things.
Jesus promises them that the Spirit, sent by the Father and the Son, will guide them in their mission. He promises them that the Spirit of truth will lead them into all the truth.
Jesus promises them that this Spirit, sent by the Father and the Son, will declare to his disciples all that is to come. That is to say, the Spirit will continually point them to the future he has in store for them, a future beyond their struggles and difficulties, a future of resurrection and new life.
Jesus promises that the Spirit, sent by the Father and the Son, will take what belongs to him and declare it to them. The Spirit will impute to them Jesus’ righteousness, his holiness, his status before God. The Spirit will impart to them his power and his peace. The Spirit will hand over to them his undying love, his victory over sin and death, his intimate and eternal relationship with the Father.
This gospel reading is in the lectionary for today because it gives us a portrait of the Holy Trinity. It is perhaps a faint sketch in broad strokes, but all three of them are there! And this blessed Trinity is made known, Jesus says here, by what this Trinity does. This Trinity, Jesus says, will come to us with truth, with promises, with gifts – all of which will make the unbearable bearable for us.
In our reading from Romans for today, St Paul makes the bold claim that we boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
Boasting in our suffering is not the same thing as our modern habit of idolizing victimhood. Instead, it is the acknowledgement that when we face the unbearable, when we are in over our heads, when our strength gives out, it is then that conditions are ripe for the Holy Spirit to enter in and go to work. It is when we despair of ourselves that we find true hope in Christ. It is when we are empty and powerless that God the Father pours his love into our hearts. Here too, the Holy Trinity is revealed by what the Trinity does, namely transforming suffering into hope, a hope that does not disappoint.
These Biblical vignettes show us that the Holy Trinity is not some dry theological formula. The Holy Trinity describes the one God in three persons who is at work doing things. The Holy Trinity describes the one God in three persons who is doing things even now. The Holy Trinity describes the one God in three persons who is doing things for you.
The Holy Trinity didn’t just create Adam and Eve. The Trinity created you. As Luther invites us to confess in the Small Catechism, “I believe that God has made me and all creatures; that God has given me my body and soul, eyes, ears, and all my members, my reason and all my senses, and still takes care of them.”
The Holy Trinity didn’t just visit Abraham and Sarah. The Trinity visits you, sometimes in ways you don’t recognize or understand, but more frequently and recognizably through Word and Sacrament. The Trinity visits you through these mysterious means of grace to assure you of the promises God made to you when you were baptized in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
And Jesus didn’t just promise that the Holy Trinity would help the Twelve Apostles. The Trinity continues to be at work to help us too. The Trinity leads us into truth in an age of untruth. The Trinity speaks to us through God’s Word of the things that are to come, the future God has in store for us, a future beyond our struggles and difficulties, a future of resurrection and healing and new life. The Trinity takes what belongs to Jesus and declares it to us, giving us his victory over sin and death, announcing that we have been forgiven, giving us peace with God. The Trinity is among us to help us bear what is unbearable in our lives, transforming suffering into hope, a hope that does not disappoint us because God’s love is being poured into our hearts.
The Holy Trinity is a vitally important doctrine of the Christian church. There is much that is important to know about what the Trinity is. But we get there primarily through what scripture tells us the Trinity does. And as we gather in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, this blessed Trinity is still doing things, so that by faith we would be drawn into this relationship which is eternal and undivided, loving and life-giving, today and forever.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
by Jeffrey Spencer | Jun 9, 2025 | Sermons
CLICK HERE for a worship video for June 8
Sermon for Pentecost Sunday – June 8, 2025
Acts 2:1-21, Romans 8:14-17, John 14:8-17, 25-27
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
The Holy Spirit was sent by God the Father through the promise of Jesus the Son so that you would hear the Word of God. Just listen to what Jesus says about the Spirit in our gospel reading for today. Jesus describes the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of truth who will teach us everything by reminding us of all Jesus has said to us. In other words, the Holy Spirit’s job is to keep what Jesus said in front of us. It is to keep the Word of God in our ears, so that we would hear it and receive it and trust it and live by it.
The Apostle Paul says much the same thing in our reading from Romans for today. Paul writes that the Holy Spirit was sent to bear witness – that is, to communicate, to speak to us. The Holy Spirit is sent to bear witness to us that we are children of God! The Holy Spirit is sent to us to communicate God’s Word to us, assuring us that because we are children of God, we are heirs of God and joint heirs of Christ, poised to inherit all that belongs to him – his righteousness, his glory, his eternal life.
The Holy Spirit was sent by God the Father through the promise of Jesus the Son so that you would hear the Word of God, and nowhere is this made clearer than in the Pentecost story we heard from the book of Acts.
Pentecost was already a holy day long before the event we heard about in this reading. It was a Jewish celebration long before it was a Christian one. It was originally something of a first fruits festival to celebrate the wheat harvest – not unlike our celebration of Thanksgiving. By Jesus time it had also become a commemoration of the giving of the Law to Moses on Mount Sinai, but it retained the character of a day of thanksgiving. And like our Thanksgiving, it was a major holiday for travel. This festival drew Jews from all over the world back to their homeland to celebrate. And when then came home, they brought with them the different languages they now spoke, the different languages of the places they now lived.
As the disciples were celebrating the Jewish festival of Pentecost, suddenly there was a sound like the rush of a violent wind. They were filled with the Holy Spirit. And what happened when they were filled with the Holy Spirit? They began to speak! They began to speak in the wide variety of languages of those present. It is important to note that this was not some esoteric spiritual language. It was a miracle to be sure, but these were real, well-established human languages. Empowered by the Spirit, the disciples began to speak in the various languages of those gathered. Amazed and astonished, the crowd said, “How can this be? Aren’t these guys all locals? Aren’t they all from Galilee? But we hear them speaking to us in our own language about God’s deeds of power!
Some sneered, of course. Some thought they were drunk on new wine and speaking gibberish. But Peter stood up and said “No, no. That’s not it. We are not drunk,” offering up as compelling evidence that it was only nine o’clock in the morning. No, Peter explained, this is what the prophet Joel said would happen. The Spirit was being poured out upon all flesh so that God’s sons and daughters would prophecy, so that they would speak God’s Word, so that they would proclaim God’s deeds of power, so that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord would be saved.
This is just what Jesus said would happen. This is exactly what Jesus promised to his disciples in the Upper Room. Jesus promised he would send the Spirit of truth. Jesus promised that this Spirit would teach. Jesus promised that this Spirit would remind them of all he had said. That’s what was happening now as the Spirit empowered the disciples to speak, proclaiming God’s deeds of power.
There is a quote that floats around the church that is a pet peeve of mine. The quote is attributed to St. Francis, although no one can document that he actually said or wrote it. The quote is, “Preach the gospel at all times. If necessary, use words.” I’ve seen this in so many places over the years. I know it is well meaning, but it is just wrong. It fails to see that words are the Holy Spirit’s primary tool! To be fair, there is a kernel of truth in it in that sometimes we need to earn people’s trust with our actions before we can speak the gospel to them. True enough. Sometimes we need people to know we care before they will care about what we know. Fine. Point taken. But ultimately the gospel demands to be spoken! Scripture tells us that faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. Ultimately, using words is necessary! Words are what the Spirit uses to create faith!
This is what we celebrate on Pentecost Sunday. We celebrate that the Spirit has come to empower the church to speak of God’s deeds of power, so that faith would come through hearing, so that everyone can hear what God has done for us through the death and resurrection of Jesus, so that everyone can call on the name of the Lord and be saved. God sends the Spirit to speak that Word to us, to stoke fire of our faith so that we would continue to believe. God also sends the Spirit to speak that Word through us, so that others would hear and come to believe too.
God continues to work across language barriers to make his deeds of power known. A couple Sundays ago we celebrated the First Communion of one of our young people who is bilingual. She is fluent in both English and the Peruvian dialect of Spanish. I had her in my office with her parents as we reviewed the Bible stories I’d instructed them to learn together. And while this young student understood me, there were times when her mother spoke to her in Spanish to help clarify things, and when her mother spoke to her of God’s deeds of power, it landed differently. This was the voice and language this young girl had been hearing from the womb. This was the voice and the language she heard singing her lullabies as a baby. This was the voice and the language which blessed her at bedtime and prayed over her. When her mother spoke to her of God’s deeds of power, teaching her, reminding her of the stories they had learned from God’s Word, she seemed to hear it more deeply.
This reminded me of two things. First, it reminded me of Luther’s insight that parents are the primary pastors in their children’s lives, and how important it is for parents to be sharing God’s Word with their children. But second, as this mother tenderly put her hand on her daughter’s shoulder and spoke to her in this voice and language of the heart, it occurred to me that this was a beautiful image of the Holy Spirit and the Spirit’s work. The Holy Spirit was sent by God the Father through the promise of the Son to help us hear God’s Word more deeply, more intimately, so that it lands in our hearts in a way that creates faith.
The wind and fire of Pentecost seem to be the stars of the show, but they are merely there to get our attention. They are there to point us to what is called a theophany, a dramatic inbreaking of God’s presence. The real event of Pentecost is simply people talking about God’s deeds of power. The real event of Pentecost is the preaching of the gospel, using words.
And so Pentecost has never really ended. Pentecost is more than a once-a-year festival. Pentecost marks the birth of the holy Christian church, in which the Holy Spirit continues to speak of God’s deeds of power, proclaiming what God has done for us through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Just as a mother tenderly spoke the Word to her daughter in the language of her heart, so too does the Spirit gather you in close in order to speak to you, in order to teach you, sharing God’s Word with you. The Spirit of truth draws you in close in order to remind you of all Jesus has said, to remind you of all he has done for you.
So hear it once again: because of God’s deeds of power in Jesus Christ you are forgiven. Because of his death and resurrection, you have been redeemed. By his grace you have been made a beloved child of God. You have been given a new life guided by the Spirit, and you have a future inheritance in store for you in his eternal kingdom.
Pentecost continues this very day, this very moment, as the Holy Spirit is sent by God the Father through the promise of the Son to put this Good News in your ears once again.
May this Good News be in our mouths too, so that others would hear and believe.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
by Jeffrey Spencer | Jun 5, 2025 | Sermons
CLICK HERE for a worship video for June 1
Sermon for the Ascension of our Lord – June 1, 2025
Acts 1:1-11, Ephesians 1:15-23, Luke 24:44-53
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our risen and ascended Lord Jesus Christ.
On this last day of the Easter season, we hear how the risen Jesus was carried up into heaven to take his place at the right hand of the Father. We also hear that before Jesus was taken up into the clouds, he gave his disciples a mission. And to help them carry out this mission he also gave them a blessing.
The mission Jesus gave the disciples was to proclaim repentance and the forgiveness of sin in his name. They were to be witnesses to all that he had accomplished by his death and resurrection. They were charged with carrying the Good News of Christ’s saving work into the world, beginning from Jerusalem, on to Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.
This continues to be the mission of the church. The church Jesus founded has been called to proclaim repentance and announce forgiveness, to proclaim both law and gospel, God’s commands and God’s promises. The church’s mission is to bear witness to the Good News that by his death and resurrection Jesus Christ has reconciled a sinful humanity to a holy God, so that we can live a new life with him that begins now and continues forever. This is all a gift of grace, received through faith. Proclaiming this, bearing witness to it, is the mission of the church – then and now.
The devil fights against this mission tooth and nail. The world doesn’t necessarily want us to be engaged in it either. Heck, sometimes the church itself seems to be more interested in other things, forgetting the primary mission given to us by our Lord! We always seem to be getting side-tracked and distracted.
Don’t get me wrong – the church may well get involved in any number of worthy projects as we live out our faith by serving our neighbors, but the primary and most urgent mission we have as the church, according to Jesus’ own last words before he ascended, is to proclaim repentance and the forgiveness of sin. It is to bear witness to the Good News of what Christ has done for us.
After giving the disciples this mission, Jesus gave them his blessing. Jesus lifted up his hands and blessed them. He blessed the disciples, and he blessed the mission he gave them. By lifting up his hands to give this blessing Jesus was using the same physical gesture the priests in the temple used to put God’s blessing on the people at the end of worship. This was the posture used to put God’s love, God’s grace, God’s power, God’s blessing on them. Jesus used this very same gesture. He lifted up his hands to put his blessing on them, showing them that his support was covering them, that his love was over them.
As many of you know, our oldest son got married last month. Back in the fall, he had some time alone with the father of his now-wife. As the two sat together in a deer stand, our son conjured up the courage to ask him if he could marry his daughter. He wasn’t simply asking for his permission. He was asking whether he would support it, whether he would get behind it, whether he would be pleased with it. He was asking for his blessing, which he gave.
And then last month when they exchanged their vows, all four of us parents lifted up our hands and laid them on the couple’s shoulders, praying for God’s blessing and giving them ours. We assured them that we would support them, that we were behind them, that we were pleased with what they were doing. We blessed them. That’s what a blessing is!
In the same way, our Lord Jesus puts his blessing on his disciples. In the same way, he puts his blessing on his church today. He puts his blessing on us and on the mission he has given us. This blessing is not only an authorization. It is not only permission. It is a promise to support us in this mission. It is a promise to be behind us, to be there for us through the various challenges and difficulties we encounter. It is an assurance that he is pleased with us as we carry out the mission he has given us.
This blessing is vitally important, because there are times when this mission is hard. There are times when it leads to hostility and to heartache. There are times when it feels like we are losing ground. There are times when it feels like everything is aligned against us, from the culture to demographics to struggles within the church. There are times when we get discouraged or frustrated or just tired.
The church has always faced this threefold attack from the world, the devil, and our sinful selves. But the church has also always had the hands of Jesus lifted up over it. The church has also always had Jesus’ blessing over us. That is to say, we have his support, his backing, his love and grace carrying us on.
You have been so kind to make such a big deal today about the 25th anniversary of my ordination. When I look back on a quarter of a century as a pastor, I know there is no way I would still be doing this if it weren’t for those hands of Jesus lifted over me, over us, over the mission we share. It has been said that to be a pastor you need the mind of a scholar, the heart of a child, and the skin of a rhinoceros. There are parts of this job that are very difficult. There are parts of it that do not get easier with time. I know there is no way I would still be doing this if it weren’t for this blessing from Jesus, the blessing of his support, his strength, his steadfast love.
This blessing came through the laying on of hands at my ordination. This blessing continues to come through Word and Sacrament, which I need each week as much as you do. This blessing comes embodied through people. It comes through colleagues. It comes through my family, and especially my wife – who knows what kind of day I’ve had just by looking at my face when I walk through the door. This blessing comes through you. It comes through the members of the congregations I’ve served, particularly here at Oak Harbor Lutheran Church. There’s a reason I’ve spent nearly 15 of those 25 years here! (And counting!) Thank you for so beautifully embodying this blessing of Jesus through your support, your encouragement, your love.
There is great joy in ministry too. So much joy. Such deep joy. Our gospel reading tells us the disciples were filled with joy as they returned to the temple after Jesus’ ascension. I get it! And I hope you do too! This joy comes through the ever-present hands of our Lord Jesus lifted over us. This joy comes through his blessing. This joy comes to us as our Lord continues to support us and strengthen us through his Word and his Supper and through each other, through the fellowship we share.
This blessing is over you too. As you participate in the life of the church, enduring its challenges and its frustrations and its disappointments, the blessing of Jesus is upon you. As you carry out your own holy callings in life, your vocations – your role in the family, your work in the world, your ministry here at church – as you carry out these callings, Christ’s blessing is upon you. As you experience hardship and heartache, his hands are over you, supporting you and strengthening you. He is behind you with his steadfast love every step of the way. As we carry out these callings together, he takes great pleasure in our faithfulness.
Our Lord Jesus conquered sin and death for us by enduring the cross, dying, and rising again. After forty days of resurrection appearances, Jesus was carried up into heaven. He was taken up into the clouds. As St. Paul tells us in our reading from Ephesians for today, his ascension was his enthronement as he took his place at the right hand of God, where he is head over all things for the church.
He has given us a mission to proclaim repentance and the forgiveness of sins. He has given us the mission of being witnesses to the Good News of what he has done for us through his death and resurrection, so that others might hear and believe and follow him into a new and renewed life, a life steeped in the grace and love of God, a life lived in joyful obedience to his Word and his will, a life which begins now and continues forever.
As we carry out the mission he has given us, the mighty hands of our ascended Lord remain over us. He gives us the blessing we need so that we can continue to carry it out with great joy.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
