People with narrow minds usually have broad tongues.
‹anonymous›
Atlantis: the domain of the Stingray
9May
2013
Thu
23:48
author: Stingray
category: Sermons
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Ascension of Our Lord

Mark 16:14-20

Ascension of Our Lord 2013 Wordle
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues; they will take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.

What a strange text for this evening; today, we celebrate the Ascension of Our Lord, and today’s Gospel lesson mentions the Ascension only in passing: “So then, after the Lord had spoken to them, He was received up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God.” We get almost nothing with regard to what it meant for Jesus to ascend into heaven and sit down at the right hand of God.

5May
2013
Sun
23:10
author: Stingray
category: Sermons
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Rogate

John 16:23-33

Rogate 2013 Wordle
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

These last three weeks we have been jumping around through the 16th chapter of St. John’s Gospel. It’s the day of Jesus’ betrayal into the hands of the elders, chief priests, and scribes; the day He will celebrate His last supper with His disciples. Jesus is preparing His disciples for the time that He will no longer be with them and His church as He had in the three or so years since His baptism. While He will soon be taken from them to be crucified and die for their sins and the sins of the world and on the third day rise again—events which on a few occasions He had told them would happen—Jesus’ tenor would indicate that what He is referring to this time is something different.

28Apr
2013
Sun
22:38
author: Stingray
category: Sermons
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Cantate

John 16:5-15

Cantate 2013 Wordle
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

It’s been four weeks since we celebrated the resurrection of our Lord, Jesus Christ. In three weeks, we will celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit, the Comforter as it will have been 50 days since the Resurrection—Pentecost! We hear of Jesus speaking about precisely this moment in the history of the church:

Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you. And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: of sin, because they do not believe in Me; of righteousness, because I go to My Father and you see Me no more; of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.

However, He said this before He was crucified and died.

19Apr
2013
Fri
09:53
author: Stingray
category: My Ramblings
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The Story of LEGO

14Apr
2013
Sun
21:41
author: Stingray
category: Sermons
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Misericordias Domini

John 10:11-16

Misericordias Domini 2013 Wordle
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep. But a hireling, he who is not the shepherd, one who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees; and the wolf catches the sheep and scatters them. The hireling flees because he is a hireling and does not care about the sheep. I am the good shepherd; and I know My sheep, and am known by My own. As the Father knows Me, even so I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep. And other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they will hear My voice; and there will be one flock and one shepherd.

What do you hear when you hear those words? You likely hear about a gentle and self-sacrificing Savior giving to you in the picture of a shepherd—the Good Shepherd. You likely hear of the tender-hearted mercies of God—the Merciful Heart of the Lord, Misericordias Domini. I hear that, too, and it is quite a comfort. But there is something else that I hear, that I’m sure many other pastors also hear. If we are completely honest with ourselves and our God, we pastors hear a little of ourselves in the hireling. Now, before I continue, I will say that I do care about God’s sheep, though certainly not as I ought, and definitely not to the best of my ability. We pastors also hear what it is we ought to be doing. We all hear comfort with Jesus as our Good Shepherd while clergy also hear a job description.

9Apr
2013
Tue
20:18
author: Stingray
category: My Ramblings
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A Wishlist

in case anyone who shops for me is looking for gift ideas

If you remember from a previous post wherein I showed a custom slide end plate on my Glock 17, I am a handgun owner. Well, there are things that can be purchased for it. If you feel so inclined to buy something for me and have it shipped to me, here is my Glockstore Wishlist.

Thank you!

7Apr
2013
Sun
18:32
author: Stingray
category: Sermons
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Quasimodo Geniti

John 20:19-31

Quasimodo Geniti 2013 Wordle
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Dr. Normal Nagel, in bridging the gap between systematic theology, that is, doctrine, what we believe, teach, and confess, and practical theology, how it is that we express what we believe, teach, and confess, asks two questions of Biblical texts:

  • How does this text give us Jesus?
  • What prevents us from receiving Jesus in this text?

These are practical Gospel and Law questions which force us to delve into a text and explain how it is that we get from it to what we believe, teach, and confess.

4Apr
2013
Thu
20:30
author: Stingray
category: My Ramblings
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New Sermons Posted

more than just noted in the menu

I had fallen behind in getting my backlog of sermons posted. I had some time today to post them, so I did. You won't see all of them listed in the menu, so here's the list of newly posted sermons:

30Mar
2013
Sat
20:23
author: Stingray
category: Sermons
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Easter Vigil

Baptism and Eighth Day

Easter Vigil 2013 Wordle
In the name of Jesus. Amen.

The nails are gone. The crown of thorns removed. The body of God is wrapped in linens and spiced, and laid in a rock-hewn tomb.

29Mar
2013
Fri
19:59
author: Stingray
category: Sermons
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Good Friday

John 19:30

Name Year Wordle
In the name of Jesus. Amen.

The lifeless body of God hangs on the cross. It was a short life of 33 years for the eternal Word. “The Word of God became flesh and dwelt among us.” (John 1:14) Humbly, the Son of God began His fleshy existence in a house when Gabriel visited Mary; gloriously, it reaches its conclusion on a hill outside of Jerusalem called Golgotha. At the third hour on a Friday morning, Jesus the Christ, the Son of God, saw to His appointed duty to die for the sin of the world, and was nailed to a cross. In the matter of a few hours, it was done—it was finished. Satan was humiliated, brought low, his head crushed by the bruised heal of the the Seed, declared in one last word from the cross: τέτελεσται. One little word has felled the devil, and we translate it as “It is finished,” or, “It is completed,” or, “It is ended” (perhaps this is the word Luther had in mind).