Pastor Sullivan's Blog

Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed! Alleluia! Jesus gives us a great and precious promise in today’s gospel lesson. “ Most assuredly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in my name He will give you. Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will received, that your joy may be full. ” Christ promises you that the Father will hear your prayers prayed in His name. And note that Jesus doesn’t call Him, “my Father’ but “the Father.” He is Jesus’ Father according to Jesus’ divine nature. Jesus is the only-begotten Son of God of the same substance as the Father. But by faith in Christ He is your Father as well. Paul says, “ You did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, ‘Abba, Father’ ” ( Romans 8:15). Through Holy Baptism you have been regenerated, rebirthed, and born again so that you are sons and daughters of God the Father and co-heirs with Christ of every heavenly blessing. You have the Spi...

Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed. Alleluia! In today’s gospel lesson Jesus promises to send the Holy Spirit, the Helper and Comforter, to His disciples. Forty days after His resurrection He will ascend into heaven and go to His Father. Ten days after that He will fulfill today’s promise by sending the Holy Spirit. Jesus tells them this to console them and teach them what the Helper, the Comforter, will do. Jesus says, “ W hen 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. ” But before the Comforter can comfort, He must convict and rebuke. First He will convict the world of sin. This is necessary because the world cannot recognize its own sinful state. Everyone is born having original sin. All men have this defect in their nature so that they don’t truly fear, love, and tr...

Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed! Alleluia! When the Lord tells His disciples, “ A little while, and you will not see me; and again a little while and you will see me, because I go to the Father ,” He means to comfort them ahead of His suffering and death. He speaks these words to them on Maundy Thursday, the night in which He was betrayed. He gives them this word as consolation though they don’t understand it as that at the time. “ A little while and you will not see me. ” Christ will be removed from them by death. He’ll be arrested in Gethsemane. Tried in the house of Caiaphas. Taken to Pilate’s Praetorium for questioning, beating, scourging, and the finally crucifixion. Jesus had told them this before on multiple occasions. But on the night in which His suffering would begin, He speaks to them as a father speaks to his children. This is how we talk to children when we know they won’t understand something. “How much longer do we have to drive?” “How much longer until you get ...

Grace and Peace be unto you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Is God good? The world certainly doesn't think so. Thousands die in an earthquake. Countless homes are destroyed in wildfires. Hurricanes ravage cities and the world asks, “Why did God allow this or that to happen?” A terrorist destroys innocent lives in the name of his false God. Nihilists murder unsuspecting people in the name of an ideology. People wring their hands and ask “Where was God as that happened? Is God really good?” It’s tempting even for us who know the true God to look at the injustice in the world and believe that God may not be quite as good as He says He is. Do you ever look at the wicked and wonder why their lives seem so much better than the lives of the righteous? Asaph ponders this in the seventy-third psalm. He confesses, “ I was envious of the boastful, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. For there are no pangs in their death, but their strength is firm ” (Psalm 73:3-...