Christmas and the Heart of Darkness

Colleagues: Some clippings for the Sixth Day of Christmas 2004.Peace & Joy! Ed Schroeder In the Gospel for Christmas Day, John 1: 1-14, suppose the word WORD were translated TALKING.[Introduction: This text is St. John’s Christmas story. Doesn’t have any of the visuals we know. No shepherds, no angels, no Mary and Joseph, not even a baby …

How I Finally Got Advent

Colleagues; Today’s Thursday Theologian, of this very last day of Advent 2004, is Jerome Burce, pastor of Messiah Lutheran Church, Lakewood, Ohio.Peace & Joy! Ed Schroeder How I Finally Got Advent: Notes on a June visit to old stomping grounds On the First Sunday in Advent, 1976, I inflicted the second worst sermon I’ve ever preached on …

The Peace and Justice Mantra. Part II

Colleagues, Herewith some stocking-stuffers I received in response to last week’s posting [ThTh 339] on the “Peace and Justice Mantra.” Several responses were not happy with ThTh 339. Here’s one sample:Now let’s get this straight, Ed, You seem to be saying in Thursday Theology #399 that any appeal to the life, teaching, death and resurrection of Jesus in …

The “Peace & Justice” Mantra

Colleagues, [Crossings office manager, Cathy Lessmann, reminds me to remind you of the gift-giving option for our Crossings operation that always comes at the end of each listserve posting. It’ll be there at the end of this one too. You get the message.] In last Sunday’s worship in our congregation we were encouraged to join Jesus in his …

The Futures Market for Advent

Colleagues, I pulled two things out of the barrel for today’s posting. It’s Advent stuff that we’ve used locally. Marie’s Google search on the Crossings web site says they’ve never been passed on to you via the listserve. So they come to you now.Peace & Joy! Ed Schroeder The Futures Market for Advent Church vocabulary in the …

Repentance in America, What Might it Look Like?

Colleagues, The same U.S. President Lincoln who in 1863 authorized the last Thursday in November as a national Thanksgiving Day also signed the following proclamation earlier in that very same year. How about that? Right in the hellish horror of the Civil War, national repentance and national thanksgiving go together. Maybe even in that very order–Mea culpa first, …

Remembering Werner Elert – Fiftieth Annversary of his Death

Colleagues, Sunday, November 21, 2004, is the 50th anniversary of the death of Werner Elert, Professor of Systematic Theology and History of Dogma at the Unviersity of Erlangen in Germany. In the year before he died three seminarians from Concordia (St. Louis) were in his classes at Erlangen–Bob Schultz, Dick Baepler and I. Not too many years thereafter …

Luther’s Birthday and American Politics

Colleagues, Something else was in the hopper for posting today to commemorate Martin Luther’s 521st birthday yesterday and his baptism a day later on November 11, the day of St. Martin of Tours. That’s why his given name is Martin. Had he been born/baptized one day later, we’d be remembering Lebuin Luther or even Nilus Luther, the saints …

Eulogy Plus Gospel – A Case Study: David Truemper, R.I.P.

Colleagues, Marie and I just got off the plane at noon today, returning from Dave Truemper’s funeral yesterday at Valparaiso University in Indiana. We brought along Fred Niedner’s sermon to pass on to you for today’s ThTh posting. Fred does a stellar Gospel-crossing of David’s life: the Gospel trumping Truemper’s cancer, even though it seemed that the …

Reflections for Reformation Day

Colleagues, The number on this posting is 333. For 333 weeks in a row ThTh has gone into cyberspace–more or less regularly. Are there any of you out there who were there when ThTh #1 was posted? 333 is one-third of the way to 1,000. Also half-way to the number of The Beast in the Book of …