Contributed by Jay Winters on Jun 5, 2006
March 16th, 1942 General Douglas MacArthur is ordered out of the Philippines after a siege of America’s last stronghold in the country. All that is left is the island of Bataan. A reluctant MacArthur finally leaves Bataan for Australia, but before he leaves says “I shall return.” Eventually the
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Lutheran
Contributed by Jay Winters on Jun 10, 2006
Little babies, whose concepts of reality are still being formed, lack the ability to realize that when their father is out of their sight that they still exist. A father can spend hours with her infant, put it down in the crib, walk away – and it is as if the father didn’t even exist anymore to
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Lutheran
Contributed by Jay Winters on Oct 16, 2006
One of the guys I know in St. Louis told me this story. He told me that one day he answered the phone and on the other end was a voice that he had not heard in 15 years. It was a friend of his from a very very long time ago calling to apologize for an argument that they had some 15 years ago.
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Lutheran
Contributed by Jay Winters on Oct 16, 2006
Arthur Miller, in a play entitled “After the Fall,” describes how we might look at ourselves in this heart attack moment of Lent, when he describes coming home from war. “One day the house smells of fresh bread, the next of smoke and blood. One day you faint because the gardener cuts his finger
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Lutheran
Contributed by Jay Winters on Jun 21, 2007
About one hundred years before the Reformation, an artist named Andrei Rublev painted a depiction of the Trinity. Today we celebrate the feast of the Trinity, this mystery of faith revealed to men. Rublev’s painting is taken from a scene in Genesis 18. The story is of when three angelic beings
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Lutheran
Contributed by Jay Winters on Dec 24, 2007
In the classic Christmas movie from 1947, “A Miracle on 34th St.,” a young and skeptical girl named Susan goes up to Santa in the middle of Macy’s department store, which this year is not being manned by a fake Santa, but the real Kris Kringle.
The little girl goes up to Santa and he says, “Well
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Denomination:
Lutheran
Contributed by Jay Winters on Dec 24, 2007
The last written words of Martin Luther were, “It is true, we are beggars all.” If you spend any time at all with beggars, you realize that one thing they are not plagued with is modesty. They simply cannot afford to be modest.
On a trip to Denver, my family and I witnessed a panhandler across the
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Lutheran
Contributed by Jay Winters on Dec 24, 2007
On December 24th, 1914, during the first year of World War I, British and German troops were entrenched against each other in bitter fighting and cold. The gun play died down that night. Soon, a British sentry reported to his superior officer that the Germans were doing something odd – each soldier
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Lutheran
Contributed by Jay Winters on Dec 24, 2007
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There was once a water carrier in India whose job it was to bring water from the river to his master’s house. Day after day, he would take two pots on a long pole down to the river, fill them up, and bring them back to his master’s house.
One fateful day, the water carrier stumbled and fell. When
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Denomination:
Lutheran
Contributed by Jay Winters on Dec 27, 2007
Hat-tip to SermonCentral illustration bank: On Christmas Eve of 1906, off the coast of Massachusetts, ships carrying sailors that would have liked to be someplace else than a boat on Christmas Eve received a message from the coast in morse code. “CQ….CQ” it said, indicating that an important
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Denomination:
Lutheran
Contributed by Jay Winters on Dec 27, 2007
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A missionary to Japan told a story of when he was riding a train one late night across town. Everyone was being fairly dignified, but then a drunk man came on board. His face was red and he was looking for a fight. He was catcalling women and trying to provoke men to fight him. Nobody responded
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Lutheran
Contributed by Jay Winters on Dec 30, 2007
In the movie, Hotel Rwanda, based on a true story from the Rwandan civil war and genocide, Paul Russebegina played by Don Cheadle goes and makes a deal with the leader of the genocidal Interahamwe militia to get more supplies for his hotel where he is hiding refugees. The deal goes fine, but this
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Lutheran
Contributed by Jay Winters on Dec 30, 2007
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Corrie ten Boom was a Dutch Christian who helped Jews escape from the Nazis during World War II. Throughout her early life she helped hide people from the ugliness that is humanity at its worst. She was arrested and put into one concentration camp after another, one of which being a place named
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Lutheran
Contributed by Jay Winters on Dec 30, 2007
In my readings of some early church writings, I came across a monograph from an unnamed ascetic monk. This monk had a vision of the crucifixion that was very real in his mind, almost as if he was really there. He even said of his vision that it was the most terrifying thing that he had ever seen.
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Lutheran
Contributed by Jay Winters on Dec 30, 2007
In my youth, I was a swimmer. I was a sprinter. I detested the long races and loved the quick spurts of energy that made up the majority of most of my races. My displeasure with long races, however, did not keep one of my coaches from signing me up for the mile race. Like an obedient lamb led to
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Denomination:
Lutheran
Contributed by Jay Winters on Dec 30, 2007
In somewhere between 65 and 70 AD, a legendary story about the Apostle Peter arose. The great fire of Rome was burning and smoldering. Apostle Peter a leader of the church and evangelist at the time was fleeing Rome. Reportedly, Peter saw a vision of Jesus carrying a cross into Rome. Peter stopped
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Denomination:
Lutheran
Contributed by Jay Winters on Jan 10, 2008
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Almost every culture has a New Year’s celebration. The ancient Romans celebrated the new year with the birth of Janus, the two faced god who could look back into the past and forward into the future. They exchanged gifts, not because they were overjoyed with each other, but as a method of bribery
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Lutheran
Contributed by Jay Winters on Jan 13, 2008
In 1865 Walt Whitman, an American poet wrote one of the most familiar lines of poetry in the world, in the opening lines of his poem, “Song of Myself.”
In that poem, Walt Whitman speaks as I can only imagine Jesus will speak on that day that He returns to every one of us here Baptized into His
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Denomination:
Lutheran
Contributed by Jay Winters on Jan 13, 2008
On April 23rd, 1978, in a small seaside chapel in San Juan, La Union, in the Republic of the Philippines, my father, speaking the local dialect of Ilocano, baptized me, his son. He said I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. On that day, the heavens didn’t
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Denomination:
Lutheran
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