A sermon based on John 1:29-42, Rev. Dr. Jon Diefenthaler, Sr Pastor Emeritus, Our Savior Lutheran Church.
For the last five years, I have devoted the winter months of January and February to teaching a course online (zoom) for our Southeastern District’s lay deacon training program. The title of the course, “The Christian Faith: Doctrine,” sounds like a fairly typical study. But the approach I have been asked to use in teaching it is not. Students in my class are in fact required to examine and discuss every feature of what we believe, teach, and confess as Lutheran Christians from the standpoint of outreach to others both outside and within our own congregations.
The interesting thing to me is how looking at our doctrine through the lens of mission affects the class discussions that follow from the comments and questions offered by the students. Instead of talking about what I call “church stuff,” they want to know more fully how to bring what God promises through Jesus to the attention of other people in their daily lives.
The Gospel lesson for today is John 1:29-42, and we shall look at it with “mission eyes” in order to consider what God may be saying to us both personally and as a congregation as we proceed into this new year of 2026.
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