Hear what the Lord says: Rise, plead your case before the mountains, and let the hills hear your voice. Hear, you mountains, the controversy of the Lord, and you enduring foundations of the earth; for the Lord has a controversy with his people, and he will contend with Israel. Micah 6:1-2 Micah opens not in […]
When Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee. He left Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum by the sea. . . (Matthew 4:12) In the present moment in which we find ourselves, I think this easily overlooked opening verse of our Gospel reading for this morning is remarkable for what […]
On this Second Sunday after the Epiphany, the lectionary drops us into the Gospel of John with a phrase that is easy to miss: “the next day.” The next day after what? Well, the next day after John has been questioned by the religious authorities, interrogated, really, about who he is and what he’s doing […]
You received yesterday the sermon I had intended to preach but did not. It was already scheduled to go out and did. What follows is what I actually preached with some editions and edits (after all I wrote it 20 minutes before the 8 am service began and have since had time to refine and […]
This morning, we find ourselves standing once again on the banks of the Jordan River, listening to a familiar story from the opening chapter of the Gospel of Matthew. Jesus comes from Galilee to John, wades into the water, and asks to be baptized. John hesitates. “I need to be baptized by you,” he says, […]
Because very few of us regularly sit down and read entire books of the Bible from start to finish in one or just a few readings, we don’t often think about why the author of a particular book put a story where it is in the narrative. For example, Matthew says that Jesus’ first public […]
Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” Luke 3:21-22 Sin […]
If I were to ask you to tell me the Christmas story from memory, with no peeking at Scripture, you would probably tell me the story we see portrayed in Christmas pageants. A very pregnant Mary travels to Bethlehem with her husband Jospeh because of a Roman census. The inns are full and so she […]
I think the miracle, healing, and exorcism stories in our Gospels are some of the hardest stories for the modern-day Christian. The worldview behind these stories is just so different from the dominant worldview today. And as a result, we ask all sorts of questions that would not have been asked by the writers of […]
This morning I decided not to write and preach my own sermon, but instead to share with you the words of Nathanael, a Jewish man who lived about 2000 years ago and knew Jesus face-to-face. He asked me to read his words, because he hopes that his story will strengthen and inspire you in your […]