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Atlantis ‹the domain of the Stingray›
It is in the religion of ignorance that tyranny begins.
‹Benjamin Franklin›
Atlantis: the domain of the Stingray
25Sep
2016
Sun
15:33
author: Stingray
category: Sermons
read/add comments: 0
trackbacks: 0

Michaelmas

Luke 10:17-20; Revelation 12:7-12

Michaelmas 2016 Wordle
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

“For He shall give His angels charge over you, To keep you in all your ways.” Such is the first verse of today’s Gradual. Satan used this verse to tempt Jesus to throw Himself down off the temple mount (cf. Luke 4:9-10), telling Jesus that He could do so without fear of injuring or killing Himself. While that is true, it is no reason to put God to the test, as Jesus informs the crafty serpent. This verse, and the entire 91st Psalm, is written for your benefit; it is written about you with the Christ in mind. You are the one, like Christ, who God has given His angels charge over, to keep you in all your ways.

So, look at Christ and this Psalm. Building up to verse 11, the Psalm lists danger after danger that could befall you after acknowledging that YHWH is your refuge and fortress: a fowler’s snare, perilous pestilence, night terror, arrows by day, thousands upon thousands of perils that may fall at your sides. “But [none] shall come near you.” (Psalm 91:7c) Jesus certainly had perils to contend with from the moment He was conceived and born, and not once did they lay a hand on Him until it was His time to die for you.

But, these dangers also come your way. You know it, and you can feel it. An enemy sets a trap for you, besmirching your reputation. Illnesses overcome you. There are those who seek your life and property who prowl around at night, and it seems no more safe during the day at times. You walk in danger all the way as you sang to start the service today. Yet, God gives His angels charge over you, to keep you in all of your ways. They will not let you dash your foot against a stone.

18Sep
2016
Sun
15:33
author: Stingray
category: Sermons
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Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity

Luke 14:1-11

Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity 2016 Wordle
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Fellow redeemed of Christ, here is a topic of much importance to the Church. Jesus speaks of taking places of honor at a wedding feast. In his own way, He relates this to the Great Wedding Feast—the Feast of Victory of the Lamb. So, when Jesus speaks of a wedding feast, you really have no option but to look at the Foretaste of the Feast to Come that He has given the Church to do in remembrance of Him. It is a matter of much importance to the Church because it is in this feast that Her members find their Life in Christ.

11Sep
2016
Sun
15:23
author: Stingray
category: Sermons
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Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity

Luke 7:11-17

Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity 2016 Wordle
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Jesus said, “I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. And I have the keys of Hades and of Death.” (Revelation 1:18) The exercise of this office of the keys is on display for you in today’s Gospel lesson. There, as Jesus enters a village called Nain, He and His party encounter another party of people.

Jesus’ party is one of life. He has come into the world that you would have life and have it to the fullest. (cf. John 10:10) Along the way, He gathered disciples as He taught. He healed and performed many wondrous miracles. And He gathered a following. His party, that day, was generally joyful and hopeful and expectant. The people had seen this Jesus do some pretty amazing stuff—some of them probably had some of that amazing stuff happen to them—and they knew Him to be the promised Messiah of the Scriptures, today’s Old Testament; greater things were going to happen. This party was entering the village.

From Nain proceeded an opposite party, and it was heading in the opposite direction. A widow followed a bier. In the box was not her husband, however, but her only son. This woman had lost everything, having previously lost her husband, and her party, gloomy as it is, was heading out of the city to the necropolis—the city of the dead, the graveyard—to bury all that is left of her livelihood.