(For the context of future listeners, this sermon was delivered during the government’s warnings and mass shutdowns during the COVID-19 Corona Virus pandemic.  Hopeland was closed for Palm Sunday.) Jesus’ march into Jerusalem is a march of a king coming in to claim the capital city and even declaring victory over war.  And, Palm Sunday […]

Herod is most famously known as the man responsible for an event we now call the “Massacre of the Innocents” or “Slaughter of the Innocents.”  But there is so much more implied in Matthew’s narrative, and Matthew is invoking Herod’s name to make a larger point that is going to be a theme throughout his […]

The names that Matthew lists in Jesus’ genealogy at the beginning of his Gospel aren’t at the top of anyone’s list of excitement.  What Matthew is showing, however, through all of the struggles of Israel, is that there was never a time that God wasn’t in control. Matthew 1:1-17 A record of the genealogy of […]

Matthew 27:11-26 Meanwhile Jesus stood before the governor, and the governor asked him, “Are you the king of the Jews?” “Yes, it is as you say,” Jesus replied. When he was accused by the chief priests and the elders, he gave no answer. Then Pilate asked him, “Don’t you hear the testimony they are bringing […]

Matthew 6:19-34 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart […]

Matthew 25:31-40 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put […]

Matthew 21:1-17 When they had approached Jerusalem and had come to Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, “Go into the village opposite you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied there and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to Me. “If anyone says […]