O Come, Emmanuel


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Luther on the Rich Man and Lazarus

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The First Sunday after Trinity, Luke 16:19-31 A Sermon by Martin Luther; taken from his Church Postil, 1522-1523. [The following sermon is taken from volume II:155-165 of The Sermons of Martin Luther, published by Baker Book House (Grand Rapids, MI). It was originally published in 1906 in English by Lutherans in All Lands Press (Minneapolis, MN), as The Precious and Sacred Writings of Martin Luther, vol. 11. The original title of this sermon appears below. This e-text was scanned and edited by Richard Bucher, it is in the public domain and it may be copied and distributed without restriction.] 1. We have hitherto heard in our Gospel lessons of various examples of faith and of love; for as they all teach faith and love, I hope you are abundantly and sufficiently informed that no human being can be pleasing to God unless he believes and loves. Now in this Gospel text the Lord presents to us at the same time an example of faith and of unbelief or of the state of the godless, in ord...
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Luther on dealing with demon possession

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The Gospel lesson for this Sunday presents how Jesus expelled a demon from a man in the Capernaum synagogue. I have been studying demon possession for this Sunday’s sermon. Here are some of the things that I found about Luther dealing with demon possession: "Once, during the life of Dr. Martin Luther, a young woman was brought to Wittenberg who was born in the land of Meissen , who was often vexed and tormented by the devil. And a letter was written to blessed Dr. Martin that he should save and rescue this young woman, who was 18 years old, from the evil spirit. When this virgin was brought to Dr. Martin, he asked her at that time whether she could say her faith [the creed]. She answered, 'Yes.' Then the blessed Dr. Martin commanded her to say it. As she now began and came to the article [of the creed] and these words, 'And I believe in Jesus Christ, His only-begotten Son, our Lord,' she could no longer speak, but the evil spirit began to convulse and to...
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Why would a Lutheran Church want to celebrate Holy Communion at every Sunday worship service?

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In my Maundy Thursday sermon I preached about Communion: “Why do we need this meal? Why do we need it tonight? And tomorrow night? And the next? And again on Easter morning? Why do we desire to have the Lord’s Supper so often that this fall we are planning on offering communion every Sunday?” There are a growing number of our members who are asking to have Communion every worship service. Here are some of the things I have heard recently. From people taking our Bible Inquirer’s Class to join Epiphany: “If we say we have the real thing in the Lord’s Supper, then why don’t we take it as often as possible?” From a homebound member: “When I worked three weekends a month, it may have been months before I was at church on a Communion Sunday.” From a member leaving church just last week: “Do we have Communion next Sunday?” I said: “No, it’s the fifth Sunday of the month. But soon we’ll have it every Sunday.” “That’ll be good,” he ...
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