It’s time for school to start. Today we welcome our Redeemer Lutheran School teachers and staff. We welcome people new to our school and welcome people returning for another year. We pray the students God is entrusting to us will learn from us to be good citizens and parents and spouses and workers. Most importantly, we pray they will learn and believe The Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ. . . .

God is serious about His Word. That’s what we learn from God destroying the Temple. Rome did not destroy it. Titus didn’t want to destroy it. It was an accident. Nebuchadnezzar may have been happy to destroy the first temple, but it just wasn’t Titus’ intent. It went down because God wanted it to go. Its rites were unnecessary. They were just pointing ahead to Christ all that time. So when He came, they could go away. They didn’t need to stick around as a museum piece. Not only that, but the leaders of the Jews rejected their Savior, so God rejected them. The Temple had to go. . . .

Life has always been full of trouble. After Adam sinned, God told him work was going to be hard. Part of that could be that our bodies aren’t perfect anymore. We age. We try to fight it, but we still get older and can’t escape the changes that go along with it. Death comes for us. Our bodies can’t live on and on. It may come late, or it may come early, as I was reminded this week when I attended the funeral of a pastor’s wife in Michigan who died of cancer. . . .

My last two living grandparents have died this past year. With a death comes the reading of the will. You learn what you might get from your deceased relative. Whether you actually get it is sometimes up to the lawyers. Your parent, your grandparent, wanted to give you something as a gift. You didn’t earn it. You didn’t work for it. You just received it, all because you’re related, all because they loved you, as a final gift. . . .

Jesus is the Good Samaritan. He came down from heaven to a world dead in trespasses and sins. He has carried our sins in His Body and suffered our death. He has nursed us back to life with His holy Gospel, with His Word and Sacraments. So what does He desire? Mom always taught you to say “thank you.” He desires us to be Thankful Samaritans. . . .

What do you seek? People have always been searching for things. Adam and Eve searched for knowledge God didn’t intend them to have. Cain searched for acceptance in the face of God’s rejection. Abraham searched for a new home. Solomon searched for wisdom. Explorers searched for new lands and new worlds. You look for something you lost in the couch, the car, the utility room or basement, maybe even in the drain or on the roof. . . .