Pastor Chris Brademeyer’s Podcast

Baptized and Beloved

At first glance, Baptism can appear to be a very ordinary thing. A little water. A few words. A pastor’s hand. A crying infant or a wet adult. Nothing flashy. Nothing impressive. Nothing that looks particularly powerful. And yet, Scripture insists that something enormous is happening.
Today’s readings all press the same point from different angles: God does His saving work through humble means, so that faith rests not in us, but in Him alone. And this central truth is clearly seen in Holy Baptism.

Together

Today is a momentous occasion. Travis and Tiffany are vowing themselves to each other and thereby entering into God’s estate of holy matrimony. That is to say, they are getting married. And this is a good and God-pleasing thing. God delights in marriage.
The first social institution God created was marriage; it even predates the fall into sin, as our reading from Genesis chapter 2 reminds us. Our Lord Jesus, who is Himself God in the flesh, worked His first miracle in support of a wedding feast in Cana. And throughout the Scriptures, marriage is spoken of in reverent and joyful tones.
All of this is to say something rather simple: God delights when people receive and enjoy His good gifts. This is, in fact, His preferred way of dealing with us. He does not demand that we climb our way up to Him; rather, He relates to us by giving His good gifts freely. Today, we focus on one of those gifts: marriage.

The Light for All Nations

Epiphany is a festival of revelation. It is the Church’s celebration that the child born in Bethlehem is not only the Savior of Israel, but the Savior of the nations, even the Light for the Gentiles. And this was not some unexpected revealing, no it is exactly what the prophet Isaiah proclaimed over five hundred years before: “Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you.”
That light is Christ Himself. And today, in the visit of the Magi, we see that light drawing the nations to Him.
Find out more in this sermon from St. John's Lutheran Church of Oakes, ND!

3P1S Episode 23: Bondage of the Will

Can we decide to follow Jesus? Is it that easy for the will to flip a switch and choose to follow Christ? Or, is it a bit more complicated than this? Join us in this episode titled, "Your Will Can't Save You."
 
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Out of Egypt I Called My Son

There is nothing more frightening for parents than having the life of your child, your newborn baby, in danger. While there is a difference in how we react to the threat, the fear is largely the same. Diseases and genetic conditions are mostly out of our care; violence from others can be either resisted or fled. But the danger is the same in either case. And if you are fortunate enough to not have been in the situation of a parent who suffers this unique and terrible condition, you are likely to know someone who have experienced this terror.
And it should not surprise us that the holy family, that is, Joseph, the Virgin Mary, and the child Jesus Christ, experienced fear. Yes, much can and should be said of the faithfulness of Mary and Joseph, but it is also easy to see that they were rightly worried. After all, Joseph chose to flee the very night he was warned in a dream about the murderous intent of Herod. A man lacking in fear would have waited at least until the morning.
So this family flees to Egypt, a place foreign to them.
Find out more in this sermon from St. John's Lutheran Church of Oakes, ND!

Born Under the Law, Named to Save

Eight days after His birth, the Child of Bethlehem is brought into the light of the Law. Luke records it simply and without sentiment: “When eight days were completed for His circumcision, He was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before He was conceived in the womb.” With that brief sentence, the Evangelist draws us into the first shedding of Christ’s blood and the public bestowal of the Name by which alone we must be saved.
This feast is easy to overlook. It comes quietly, tucked between Christmas joy and the turning of the calendar year. Yet it presses upon us a profound and necessary truth: the Son of God does not hover above the Law, He places Himself under it. He does not merely visit humanity; He binds Himself to it in flesh, blood, covenant, and Name.
Find out more in this sermon from St. John's Lutheran Church of Oakes, ND!

A Savior for What Ails Us - Christmas Day 2025

St. Luke tells us that on the night of Jesus’s birth, the shepherds were keeping watch over their flock. Nothing about that night appeared extraordinary. The world went on as it always had. The promised land was under Roman rule, subject to census decrees, weighed down by ordinary labor and ordinary fear. And yet into that unremarkable night the glory of the Lord shone around them.
Christmas does not begin with human expectation but with divine intervention. As Micah foretold, the ruler of Israel would come from Bethlehem, a town too small to matter by the world’s standards, yet was chosen by God to be the place where peace would enter the world. What the shepherds saw that night was not merely a child, but the arrival of God’s salvation in the flesh.    
Today we confess not simply that Christ was born, but why He has come, how He has come, and how He continues to deliver that salvation to us here and now.
Find out more in this sermon from St. John's Lutheran Church of Oakes, ND!

God is Love - Christmas Eve 2025

“God is love.”Those words from St. John are among the most familiar in all of Scripture. They are often quoted, printed on banners, stitched into sentimental ideas about Christmas. Yet love is not something that floats in abstraction. It is something concrete, historical, and costly. “This is how God showed His love among us: He sent His one and only Son into the world.”Love is no mere idea, no mere feeling, no vague goodwill toward humanity. Love is done; it is acted out. God’s love is shown when His Son, Jesus Christ, takes on human flesh, that is becomes a man to save sinners in need of redemption. This is what Christmas proclaims to the whole world. This is the cause of our joy and our celebration. And, indeed, there is no greater joy than this simple fact: God Himself became a man to become a member of our race, to save us, and to destroy the power of death and hell for all believers.
Find out more in this sermon from St. John's Lutheran Church of Oakes, ND!

Division and Revelation

Christmas is often imagined as gentle, quiet, and unchallenging. When we think of Christmas we think of things like soft light, familiar hymns, and peaceful scenes. And indeed, there is real comfort and joy in the birth of Christ. Yet the Church, in her wisdom, places before us today a text that refuses to let Christmas remain sentimental.
Simeon takes the Child Jesus into his arms and blesses God, but then he speaks words that cut sharply against a merely cozy Christmas: “Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed … so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.”
A light for revelation and a sword for the heart. The same Child who brings consolation to Israel also brings division. The same Christ who saves also judges. The same Gospel that comforts the broken also exposes the proud. Christmas does not merely soothe; it reveals.
Find out more in this sermon from St. John's Lutheran Church of Oakes, ND!

Reasonable Faith in an Unreasonable World

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice.” These words from St. Paul come to us here on the last Sunday in Advent in an age of history in which the Christian Church is poised between promise and fulfillment, between longing and arrival. The cry of Rorate Coeli, “Shower, O heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain down righteousness,”[2]  is not sentimental or vague. It is a sober prayer spoken by people who know they need saving, who know that righteousness must come from outside themselves.
The world around us often treats Christianity as unreasonable. It is often said that our faith is too dogmatic, too demanding, too tied to ancient texts, too restrictive of personal freedom. Yet Holy Scripture insists otherwise. Christianity is not irrational, arbitrary, or detached from reality. It is reasonable precisely because it is grounded in who God is, what He has promised, and what He has done in Christ. As we wait for Christ’s coming, both His coming in glory and His nearness now, we learn what true Christian reasonableness looks like.
Find out more in this sermon from St. John's Lutheran Church of Oakes, ND!