This sermon was preached at Grace Lutheran Church (River Forest, IL) at the memorial service for Rhea Sprecher on May 2, 2026. You can view the livestream recording and the bulletin.
Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!
Friends in Christ, grace be unto you and peace in the name God the Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
- Rhea, as we all know, was one of a kind. She was larger than life. Her life was too big for just one home. Not that she owned multiple properties, but that she insisted on maintaining her membership and very active involvement at Grace, in spite of living in an entirely different state. Why not move closer? Well, there are any number of reasons, but I believe that she just couldn’t bear to move away from her beloved Green Bay Packers. When she was prevented from making the drive to Grace on Sunday mornings, first by the pandemic and later by her health, she would sometimes send me brief emails after worship: “Good sermon, Pastor; let’s go Packers.” And yes, Rhea, I am wearing the Packer socks you gave me. Of course, Rhea’s home was about more than location. She was always at home in the world of art, and, more amazingly, had the knack for making students of all ages at home there, too. What a treasure she has been for the people of Grace, opening our eyes to see what might have remained hidden from us. But even more, wherever she was, in Wisconsin or Illinois, in Iowa or Michigan, or the museums and vineyards of Europe, Rhea was always at home with the God who makes God’s home with us.
- We gather this morning in our grief that our friend, Rhea, is no longer here. Our tears are holy, our memories treasured. In the midst of our sorrow, Jesus speaks: “Do not let your hearts be troubled.” In the way she lived her life, Rhea helped us to her these words, helped us to see the beauty of God’s presence. Not because she lived a life without trouble or difficulty, but because she knew from where her hope and help would always come. Jesus goes on to say, “Believe in God, believe also in me.” Rhea’s life was a life of unwavering faith, painted in baptismal waters, lived in the rich palette of her Creator and Redeemer. Rhea was steadfast, holding fast to the God who was holding on to her. In all places and through all things.
- We gather in this Eastertide, two worlds visible to us. Yes, we still see the old, sad colors of sin and evil and death. But with eyes of faith, we see a new work coming to fruition and fulfillment. A new vision of grace and hope, mercy and love. A world of joy and peace in which all people are invited into the joy of the Master. For Jesus himself has come among us. In our doubts and questions, we wonder: Where are you going Jesus, and what will happen to us? Jesus speaks to us as he spoke to Thomas: I am the way, and the truth, and the life. I am the presence of God the Father. I am your home and I make a home for you forever. I am the One who sets out the feast of the world to come, with rich foods and champagnes even better than the best of Europe. I am the One who is present for you here, now, in this feast of my own body and blood. As Jesus speaks these words to us today, we rejoice that in the resurrection Rhea hears now these words no longer mediated through the gift of the church, but directly from the voice of her Savior and Shepherd, in whose presence she now dwells forever in the glory of God.
- Rhea helped us to see, but she also helped us to show. Each Christmas, our worship bulletins feature the artwork of the children of Grace. Scenes of angels and shepherds gather around the Virgin and her newborn baby boy. Rhea helped the students understand and love this art, and made the children believe that they could be artists, too. She helped them share the good news of Jesus with others. In the same way, her steadfastness and perseverance show us a way forward even in our grief in this work-in-progress world.
- Today, we gather with grief and sorrow, but we also catch a glimpse of the life of resurrection that is unfolding for us. Here, in this place she loved so much, with people who loved her so much, we are reminded that we are met by the crucified and risen Lord Jesus. He has come into this world to make a home with us, and to be for us the way home forever. In the truth of that life, abundant and eternal, we give thanks for Rhea and unleash our Alleluias to God. Death is dead and Christ is alive. Death is dead and, in Christ, Rhea is alive. Death is dead and we, too, shall live. In the hope and artistry of our God, we go forward from this moment with hope alive in our hearts. Amen.
Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed. Alleluia!
And now may the peace that passes all understanding keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus, this day and forever. Amen.
This sermon was preached at Grace Lutheran Church (River Forest, IL) on May 3, the Fifth Sunday of Easter. You can watch the livestream recording and follow along in the bulletin. The photo of Grace’s cornerstone was taken by me, just now.
Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!
Friends in Christ, grace be unto you and peace in the name God the Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
- I’ve never been to Ireland, which is a shame considering I lived right across the sea in Scotland for a year. But I do hope to go one day, if only to live out the old joke in real life. Perhaps you know the one. I’d like to get lost and ask a farmer, “How do I get to Dublin?” Hopefully, the farmer would know the punchline: “Well, if it’s Dublin you’re wanting, I sure wouldn’t start from here!” Sometimes the problem isn’t where we’re trying to go, it’s where we are right now. That’s certainly the issue for Thomas in that upper room in Jerusalem on the night before Jesus’ death. Jesus, having shared a meal and washed their feet, now tries to get his friends ready for what’s coming next. Do not let your hearts be troubled; yes, I’m going away, Jesus says, but I go with a purpose. To prepare for you a dwelling place. You’ll know how to follow. Thomas, trapped like the rest of us in the dead end of sin and death simply cannot see a way forward. Dwelling places, Jesus? Sounds nice, but I don’t think we can get there from here.
- While I don’t keep statistics, I’d guess that I’ve preached on this passage, or the first half of it, anyway, more than any other from the gospels. Perhaps you wondered why it sounds familiar, or perhaps you made the connection right away. John 14 is often chosen to be read at funerals and memorial services, and with good reason. In the midst of deep sorrow and grief, Jesus’ words cut through with great comfort. In the face of death itself, Jesus proclaims that our hearts need not be troubled. He has come to make a way for us. Just yesterday, these words gave comfort as we gathered in this room to give thanks for Rhea’s life, and to proclaim that in the face of death, life wins out. But sometimes, I think, we make the promise too small. Yes, Jesus makes a way for us to get from here to there, but we are left wondering if there has anything to do with here. The promise of eternal life is at the very heart of the gospel, but it is not the gospel in its entirety. When the Good Shepherd describes the life he has come to give to his sheep, Jesus does not say that he has come to bring life eternal. Instead, as we heard last week, he brings life abundant.
- Thomas, uncertain of how anything good can come out of the suffering and death in which they live, gives voice to our wonderings and doubts. Even on this side of Easter, we have our questions. It seems, after all, as if so much remains the same. Violence and war rage on. Sickness and suffering endure while health care becomes more elusive for many. Material abundance is all around us, but life feels somehow harder than before. For some, our calendars are so full that life is an endless logistical puzzle, leaving little time for real connection. Others have been forgotten, neglected, leading lives of isolation and loneliness. J.R.R. Tolkien, through one of his characters, speaks for us: We feel thin, stretched, “like butter spread over too much bread.” And the truth of the matter is that we have brought ourselves to this point. We like to imagine that we have the power to chart our own course, create our own destiny. But we have lost the way. How to get there from here?
- The how, it turns out, is a who. Jesus enters our suffering, assumes our sin, endures the consequences to our actions, to show us that our ways can never lead to life, let alone to the abundant life God desires for us in both this world and the next. Our old lives go with him to the cross and are left behind in the tomb. We cannot, Jesus makes clear, find our own way to God, to life. We are simply too far gone. But Jesus makes it equally clear that we no longer have to find our own way. Jesus is the way. The destination has come to us. The earliest Christians were known as the people of “the Way.” Frederick Buechner, musing upon what a Christian is, writes of this way: Jesus “said that it was only by him—by living, participating in, being caught up by, the way of life that he embodied,” that we would come to know the life and presence of God. The gift of eternal life is promised to you. It cannot be taken away. In this promise is an invitation to reflection. How is your life a life on the way today? This, to be clear, is not a question of demand, a turning of gospel into law, as if you need to do anything. It is, rather, the joyful question that arises when the stone has been rolled away. It is the question that takes seriously Jesus’ promise that we will do great works in God’s name. Christ, who was dead, is alive. You are alive and on the way with him. What now will you do?
- This morning, we recognize and celebrate Dean and Beverly Lueking, who welcomed into their home and family more than thirty children who were part of the foster care system. What a faithful embodiment of the abundant life of Easter. In welcoming these children into their lives, their home became a sign of God’s home, in which there is room enough for all and a dwelling place for each. It is work that is still needed today. Last year, Lutheran Child and Family Services helped foster families care for nearly 2,000 children, a fraction of the total children in need of loving, caring homes in Illinois. Perhaps this is work to which you are called. Perhaps there are other means of embodied care and ministry to which you are called. What is God speaking to you? How does God intend the life of Easter to be manifest in your abundant life? What will you build upon the stone that was rejected but has become the cornerstone of a whole new world?
- Today, Jesus speaks promise to us. We no longer need to worry about the destination. One day, we will in great joy discover the life of the new creation. Can you imagine? And we, on earth, give thanks that our beloved ones are already safe on that bright far shore with Jesus. But Jesus is with us, too. Jesus makes God’s home with us here. The truth of the matter is that he is the only way to the life God intends. And the gift is that this life has already begun for you. If it’s God you’re wanting, starting right here will do fine. Amen.
Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed. Alleluia!
And now may the peace that passes all understanding keep
This sermon was preached at Grace Lutheran Church (River Forest, IL) on April 19, the Third Sunday of Easter. You can watch the livestream recording and follow along in the bulletin. The image is Supper at Emmaus by Caravaggio, the second of his two paintings depicting this scene (1606, public domain).
Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!
Friends in Christ, grace be unto you and peace in the name God the Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
- The beginning of youth baseball season is a time for hope. The inevitable disappointments that come with a game in which failing seventy percent of the time looks like success have not yet begun to pile up. The weeks-long and ultimately fruitless attempt to get dirt and grass stains out of white baseball pants has not yet proved impossible. Why are baseball pants white? So it was with hopeful hearts that we were on the road to Midlothian just after 6:00 a.m. yesterday morning. The hope lasted for most of the thirty-two miles, only to be pulled out from under us when we were almost there. My phone dinged. Word had just come down that the fields were officially too wet from the overnight rains. All games were postponed until further notice. With disappointment, I turned the car around and we retraced our route. The scenery was the same but everything else had changed. Upon returning home, I posted about this on Facebook. As one does. On the plus side, I got to go back to bed. Not long after waking, I read an email from one of you suggesting I work this into my Emmaus sermon for today. So, here you go. I take requests! We’re in this together! The way we see the road depends upon the hope that is, or isn’t, in our hearts.
- My “road to Midlothian” experience is, of course, the inverse of the road to Emmaus experience of Cleopas and his companion. They wake on the morning of that third day without a shred of hope in their hearts. Jesus, the One in whom they’d invested their hopes for the redemption of Israel, was handed over and put to death on a cross. But the drudgeries of life must go on, so they begin their seven-mile walk to Emmaus. Along the road they are joined by a stranger, and their words to him drive home the point: “We had hoped.” Their hope is a past-tense affair. It died and was laid in the tomb with Jesus. But even in hopelessness they offer hospitality. They invite Jesus in, share a meal, and, in the breaking of the bread find their eyes opened anew. The One they saw as a stranger is revealed to be the dearest One of all. Christ, impossibly, is alive. No sooner have they arrived and settled in do they get back on the road, retracing their steps with joy as they return to Jerusalem to tell of what they have seen.
- As it always does in these resurrection stories, the opening of eyes takes a bit of time. Far from presenting themselves as those who instantly got it, the earliest witnesses of the resurrection, and those who wrote down their stories, seem all too happy to tell you that it took them a few moments. In a world where sin reigns, around us and inside us, and in which death always seems to have the last word, what could be more difficult to grasp than the resurrection? I’m reminded of the little story told of the two young fish, minding their own business, just swimming along when they are met by an older fish. Passing them, the older fish says, “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” The two younger fish swim on. Eventually one turns to the other and asks, “What the heck is water?” The point is simple enough. The most obvious things are often the hardest to recognize and understand. To repurpose his fish tale, we are so used to the deep waters of sin and evil and death that we don’t always recognize that we’re drowning in them. To imagine something different is beyond us. But it is not beyond Jesus, who not only opens our eyes but pulls us through the waters of baptism, out of death and into life. A life in which hope is restored. A life in which peace is the hallmark of God’s reign, political chatter and tomfoolery to the contrary notwithstanding.
- If it was difficult for the first witnesses of the resurrection to see and believe, even when Jesus walked alongside them, how much harder is it for us? Perhaps this is why only one of our two disciples today gets a name. Who is the companion of Cleopas? Maybe Luke wants you to see yourself in this story, to see through the eyes and hear through the ears of the disciple as Jesus shows himself to you. Or maybe it’s very much not. Luke tells us so little about this disciple that it could be anyone. And isn’t that just it? That the life of the resurrection is for any and all people? By long habit, most of us probably imagine that Cleopas’s companion is another man. But Luke doesn’t write this. She could be a woman. Perhaps this story depicts the journey of a married couple, and if Cleopas is the same person John names as Clopas, then we even know her name: Mary. Or it could be someone else entirely! Who knows? We, with new eyes, are invited to wonder, for this follower of Jesus could be any person of any gender or orientation or race age or or identity or background. In this unnamed disciple, we are invited to see ourselves, and we are invited to see each other, all welcomed and walked with by our risen Savior.
- Today, we come together again. This world’s roads are still broken, pocked and potholed by sin and suffering, violence and death. The promise of resurrection can be hard to hold. So, first, we keep doing the right thing, the loving thing, anyway. Even without hope, Cleopas and the other welcomed this person they imagined as a stranger, a migrant. Took him in. Made room at their table. We always have room for others, even for those we once imagined didn’t belong, and there’s bread enough to go around. And second, when we do so, Christ shows up. Makes himself present. Gives himself for us. It happens again today. Bread broken, shared. Given for you. And in the breaking of the bread, the opening of our eyes. I recently heard it pointed out that this phrase of Luke’s, “then their eyes were opened,” echoes the words of the fall into sin in Genesis 3. They ate of the fruit of the tree, and then their eyes were opened. Just so, the new vision of life displaces and undoes our old vision of sin. Thanks be to God. Christ was crucified, yes, but he has been raised. Hope is forever restored, and the road need not be long or cheerless ever again. The scenery might be the same, but everything is changed. You walk together, and Jesus walks alongside. And along the way? There’s always a meal to share, and there’s always room for you here. The bread will soon be broken; Jesus, given for you, forever. Amen.
Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed. Alleluia!
And now may the peace that passes all understanding keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus, this day and forever. Amen.
This sermon was preached on Easter Sunday, April 5, at Grace Lutheran Church (River Forest, IL). You can view the livestream recording and follow along in the bulletin. The photo of the Grace chancel was taken by me. Thank you to all who made Holy Week and Easter at Grace such a powerful, beautiful, meaningful experience!
Friends in Christ, grace be unto you and peace in the name God the Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!
- This past Wednesday evening, just before 5:30, the boys and I opened up my laptop in our kitchen. While I don’t follow everything that NASA does, this felt different. The Artemis II mission, after all, is the first crewed mission to the moon in my lifetime. And I’m old! It’s been a while since we’ve done this. Tomorrow, their spaceship Integrity will make its lunar flyby, after which the four astronauts will begin their journey home. You know, I heard they were originally going to land on the moon but decided not to when they couldn’t get a dinner reservation. Turns out the restaurant on the moon was full. Probably not a big loss. I mean the food is fine, but the place has no atmosphere. I’m sorry. I did want to have a better joke this morning, but I didn’t have time to planet. But I really did find myself gripped by the launch. Maybe because it’s a powerful reminder of what humanity can achieve. Or perhaps because it underscores just have vast God’s good creation is, and that we occupy a very small spot within it. Maybe it was just nice that humans were launching something without aiming it at someone else. We watched with bated breath as the countdown neared zero, with excitement, yes, but also with fear. These things can go horribly wrong. In that moment, both outcomes – the good and the bad – were possible. What would happen next?
- We come this Easter morning once again to the tomb. We’ve been here before, but this year feels different. We are not, of course, the same people we were a year ago. And Matthew gives us different details. In Matthew’s telling alone, the women do not find the stone already rolled away. In Matthew’s telling alone, imperial guards were present at the tomb. The point, of course, is not to quibble about which gospel gets the facts precisely right. They all point to the truth that matters most. But stepping into Matthew’s narrative makes it all seem so impossible. The stone, seen through the loving, grieving eyes of Mary and Mary, is still very much there, as solid as ever. And so are their Roman occupiers. As if crucifying their friend and Lord wasn’t enough, Rome will police even their mourning in the morning. What will happen next? The women know this story. Jesus is dead and life, bleak and grey, will go on. Until it doesn’t. So has it ever been.
- And then, with a quaking of the earth and an angel come from heaven, everything changes. The once-invincible guards are paralyzed in fear. The so-solid stone is not just rolled away; it becomes a chair for the angel. And Jesus, whom they saw die through tear-filled eyes just days ago? Jesus is not here; he got out before the stone was even moved. The women, with fear and great joy, are met by Jesus on the way. Not an idea or a memory or a theology, but Jesus. Flesh and bone. He who was dead is alive. Nothing will ever be the same. After all, as theologian and friend of Grace Jaroslav Pelikan once said, “If Christ is risen, nothing else matters. And if Christ is not risen – nothing else matters.” Christ risen and everything is changed.
- Thank God. Matthew’s gospel feel like the right one for this year. Because the stone of death and the presence of Empire feel so very real this year. Since last Easter, our congregation has suffered unfathomable loss. Our nation and world seem out of control. We are mired in a war that lacks purpose and direction. Our very faith is being coopted by those who deal in death, not life. For any number of reasons, in the midst of our joyful alleluias, maybe you arrive at the tomb today with a broken heart, a deep fear, a sense that there is no way forward. The stone is so heavy. Death and sin are so real. But Easter is not putting on a brave face or pretending to joy you do not feel. Your grief and sorrow are welcome within God’s grief and sorrow. And precisely because our suffering is taken up into the suffering of our God, the suffering does not get the last word. Stand with Mary and Mary a moment. Take a deep breath. And know the angel’s words are for you: “Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised.” What happens next is that nothing will ever be the same again. Your sins are forever left behind in the tomb. Dawn stretches out forever in the new creation. Death itself is dead, powerless to hold our loved ones, and all the saints, and one day us, too, who will live with the risen Christ.
- Our eyes have been drawn to the heavens this week. As we explore the distant stars, we also remember that we worship the down-to-earth God. Paul encourages us to set our minds on the things that are above. But we need not look far, for the crucified and risen Christ is present here, now, today. Heaven has broken into this world, and its doors forever stand open. As Mary and Mary embraced him on that first morning, so, too, does Jesus put himself into our hands today. The body and blood of the crucified and risen Lord given for you. For each of you. For all of you. Gifts of the God who shows no partiality but makes space for all in the unending reign of the Lamb once slain. What will happen next? Who can say? But I know what will happen last. The risen Christ will be all in all. Death defeated. Sin forgiven. Evil and empire put forever to flight. And this last shall last forever as we, raised with Christ, dwell together in the presence of the God who journeyed from heaven to earth for you. Amen.
Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed. Alleluia!
And now may the peace that passes all understanding keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus, this day and forever. Amen.
This sermon was preached at Grace Lutheran Church (River Forest, IL) on March 29, Palm Sunday/Sunday of the Passion. You can view the livestream recording and follow along in the bulletin. The image is Ecce Homo by Antonio Ciseri (nineteenth century, public domain).
Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace be unto you and peace in the name God the Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
- That escalated quickly. From Sunday’s cheers of “Hosanna” to Friday’s demands to “Let him be crucified!” From a triumphal entry proclaiming Jesus as king to the mocking, twisted crown of thorns. From the adoring crowds to the abandonment by all except two bandits who couldn’t get away. Even God has left him, as far as Jesus can tell in the moment. What went wrong, for palm branches to yield to a cross?
- Perhaps, like me, you remember a time when Palm Sunday was Palm Sunday and that was that. The events of the Passion were left for Good Friday. We children would parade with palms and go home in a buoyant mood. Why the change? There are practicalities to be considered. Not everyone will attend worship on Good Friday, after all, so it’s good to get the message in now. More importantly, as is often the case, what seems new is actually not. Including the Passion on Palm Sunday recaptures a practice from centuries past. But more than the practical and the historical is the truth that the triumphal entry is too easy to misunderstand apart from what unfolds on the Friday following. Because maybe nothing went wrong at all.
- The crowds get it right on Sunday, but as is so often the case, they don’t understand what it all means. Yes, Jesus is the king, the Son of David come among them. But for what does he come into Jerusalem? For conquest? For war? To meet the power of the Roman occupier with power of his own, raising up his own legions to cast them out and set himself in their place? This, no doubt, is what the people are hoping for, and who can blame them, suffer as they have? When faced with one kind of king, it’s hard to imagine something different. Jesus was born under the rule of Augustus, who styled himself a “son of god” and established the Pax Romana. By the time Jesus enters Jerusalem, Tiberius is emperor, with his name and picture on the money to prove it. Tiberius was a deeply paranoid person. Ever more reclusive, he let mid-level functionaries like Pilate and Herod enact cruelty and terror on his behalf. His rule was the sort in which killing innocent people like Jesus was just part of the cost of doing business, as was letting actual criminals like Barabbas go free. He expanded the peace of Rome, but it was hardly peaceful. The Pax Romana was what we might call “peace through strength,” in which Rome was often at war elsewhere and the so-called peace at home was maintained by the unrelenting crushing of dissent by soldiers and centurions who were, you know, just doing their job. This was the peace on earth given by the emperors who claimed to be gods. As the scholar Luis Menéndez-Antuña points out, the Roman emperors were seen as godlike precisely because they ruled with violence and showed no mercy, endlessly taking it out on anyone seen as their enemy. It is, of course, a story that has outlived the Roman Empire in too many places, too many ways.
- And Jesus? Jesus comes to show the whole thing for the lie that it is. The actual Son of God empties himself. Pours himself out. Lets this world have its way with him. Meets hate with love. Goes to the cross willingly to reveal that God is the God of open arms. Dies to undo the power of empire and to forgive us for our participation in it. Dies to unbind us from the power of evil, without and within, and frees us for new ways of life and peace. Dies to undo death and silence the drumbeats of war forever. Dies for us to show that grace and mercy, not terror and vengeance, are the ways of our God. Jesus enters Jerusalem on Palm Sunday so that Good Friday can happen. And we, with the centurion, look upon Christ and his cross and see what the true King looks like. What went wrong? No. By the grace of God, Christ comes to finally make things right. There’s more, of course. Much more. But that’s for another Sunday. Come back next week. For now, let us marvel at the cross and worship Christ, the King who comes to us in the way we need him most. Amen.
