Stan Mast was the Minister of Preaching at the LaGrave Avenue Christian Reformed Church in downtown Grand Rapids, MI for 22 years. He graduated from Calvin Theological Seminary in 1971 and served four churches in the West and Midwest regions of the United States. He also served a 3 year stint as Coordinator of Field Education at Calvin Seminary. He has earned a BA degree from Calvin College and a Bachelor of Divinity and a Master of Theology from Calvin and a Doctor of Ministry from Denver Seminary. He is happily married to Sharon, and they have two sons and four grandchildren. Stan is a voracious reader and works out regularly. He also calls himself a car nut and an “avid, but average” golfer.
Stan wrote weekly sermon commentaries for the CEP website from 2012 to 2019.
Psalm 66:8-20
Commentary
Easter 6A
On this Sixth Sunday of the Easter season, Easter is frankly fading from our minds. The trumpets are stored away, the lilies have long been consigned to the trash, and we’re moving on to Ascension Day and Pentecost. So it’s a good thing to preach on Psalm 66 today, because it reminds us that every…
Psalm 31:1-5; 15-16
Commentary
Easter 5A
“In this Psalm the panic of the people of God troubled by the persecution of all the heathen, and by the failing of faith throughout the world, is principally seen.” Those words could have been written by any alert observer of the world-wide religious scene in 2017, as we witness, for example, the cruel persecution…
Psalm 23
Commentary
Easter 4A
On this Fourth Sunday after Easter, all three years of the lectionary cycle have us reading Psalm 23. No wonder some parts of the worldwide church call this Good Shepherd Sunday. It is always good to revisit this beloved piece of pastoral poetry, but it does challenge the preacher and this writer, who wrote on…
Psalm 116:1-4, 12-19
Commentary
Easter 3A
Clearly, Psalm 116 was chosen for this Third Sunday of Easter because it is a Psalm of thanksgiving for deliverance from death. It reverses the order of things in ordinary life, where we move from life to death. Here the Psalmist moves from death.to life, like Jesus in his crucifixion and resurrection. Indeed, Jesus could…
Psalm 16
Commentary
Easter 2A
Psalm 16 is the perfect Psalm for this second Sunday of the Easter season. The last 3 verses were the text for Peter’s Pentecost sermon, in which he proved from Scripture that Jesus’ death and resurrection had always been at the heart God’s plan of salvation. Psalm 16 is also the perfect Psalm for our…
Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24
Commentary
Easter Day A
What every preacher needs on Easter Sunday is an angle. Everyone already knows the story, so it is hard to astonish people as the women astonished the disciples with the news of an empty tomb on that first Easter morning. To help people experience that primitive astonishment and the kind of joyful thanksgiving to which…
Psalm 31:9-16
Commentary
Palm Sunday A
There are two ways to commemorate Palm Sunday, according to the Lectionary. We can focus on the Palms and celebrate a day of victory filled with Hosannas. That was my focus last year (see the Sermon Commentary for March 20, 2016). Or we can focus on the Passion going on beneath the Hosannas. That is…
Psalm 130
Commentary
Lent 5A
As we continue our Lenten journey up to Mt. Calvary, the Lectionary puts a perfect Psalm before us on this Fifth Sunday of Lent. We’re getting close to our destination, but here the path takes a severe dip, sort of like a saddle on a mountain just before the summit. This Song of Ascents takes…
Psalm 23
Commentary
Lent 4A
On the Fourth Sunday of Lent, we are given a tough assignment by the RCL: preach on Psalm 23, the best known, best loved text in the entire Bible. Rolf Jacobsen summarizes the difficulty of such an assignment. We can run the risk of trivializing the sublime. Or we can turn the sermon into an…
Psalm 95
Commentary
Lent 3A
The readings from the Psalms for this season of Lent are carefully and well chosen. We began our Lenten journey with Psalm 32, which sets the penitential tone of Lent while still calling us to rejoice in forgiveness. Psalm 121 gives Lenten pilgrims the deep assurance that Yahweh is watching over us as we make…
About Stan Mast