Essays on Preaching (83)
  1. The Magnificat invites us to enter into, consider, and embrace the worldview of a teenaged Jewish girl and her geriatric aunt: The one bearing the prophet Elijah which was to come and the other carrying within her womb the God whom she and her nation worshipped and feared.
  2. Other non-Jews received healings, and these miracle-events illustratively preached the Gospel each time. Certainly, Jesus will jump on this opportunity, right? Wrong…at least for the moment.
  3. Preaching justification by faith should not exclude the truth of regeneration, as if justification were an altogether separate phenomenon that took place sometime before and regeneration taking place later.
  4. In order to respect both liturgical consistency and the role of the homilist in the drama of the Divine Service: Let the pulpit be for proclamation, not personal prayer.
  5. If Easter is about Jesus as the prototype of the new creation, then the Ascension is about His enthronement as the One who rules forevermore on Earth as it is in Heaven.
  6. Dependence on Him, confidence in His mission, begets joy in God and joy in God begets mission, and mission perpetuates joy inasmuch as it arises from gospel impulses over and above the mandate.
  7. Preaching the intensities of Lent and Holy Week’s gospel pericopes means dispensing with romanticized interpretations and allowing the texts to self-present, be they ever so uncomfortable or forceful.
  8. Christ saves the world even now from judgment and preserves it moment-by-moment for the potential salvation of many and, ultimately, the created order itself.
  9. During the last days, among the faithful, the resurrected Jesus is present in self-donation to assure the baptized that we ourselves are already participating in the new creation through Holy Baptism.
  10. Whatever conclusions one may have regarding the earth and redemption, they must be understood as a consequence of the ongoing work and reality of the incarnate Son of God.
  11. There is a better way to preach the End Times that has nothing to do with Left Behind series scenarios. The key is no secret at all. Follow where Christology leads.
  12. Authentic proclamation, then, is the love of Christ for our souls, which we have seen and experienced through the under-shepherd’s pastoral care put into the words of Christ Himself.
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