Joel 02:12-19 / Ash Wednesday 2011 / 09 March 2011 / Holy Trinity - Hacienda Heights, CA
“Rend your hearts and not your garments.” Joel 2:13
Today is Ash Wednesday. So where are the ashes? Why is our Ash Wednesday ashless?
The reason is NOT that we are not Roman Catholic. That’s never a good reason. The reason…
wcwirla
Matthew 17:1-9 / Transfiguration A / 06 March 2011 / Holy Trinity - Hacienda Heights, CA
“Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.” Jesus told this plainly to His disciples on the heels of Peter’s great confession…
Matthew 5:38-48 / 7 Epiphany A / 20 February 2011 / Holy Trinity - Hacienda Heights, CA
You, therefore, will be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect. Mt 5:48
If you listened carefully, you will have noticed that I pulled a Law/Gospel fast one on you. You heard the Gospel reading say, “You therefore, must…
Matthew 05:21-37 / 6 Epiphany A / 13 February 2011 / Holy Trinity - Hacienda Heights, CA
Very often, when a doctor wants to make a diagnosis, he has to look at your insides. Thankfully, we’ve come a long way since the days when the only way to do that was “exploratory” surgery, where he literally…
Matthew 5:13-20 / 5 Epiphany A / 06 February 2011 / Holy Trinity - Hacienda Heights, CA
Salt, light, and the Law this morning from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. He’s preaching on a mountainside to His disciples with the crowds overhearing. He’s just blessed them with His nine Beatitudes, blessings, which we heard last week.…
Matthew 5:1-12 / 4 Epiphany A / 30 January 2011 / Holy Trinity - Hacienda Heights, CA
“Seeing the crowds, Jesus went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to Him. And He opened His mouth and taught them.” (Mt 5:1-2)
Jesus' teaching begins with a word. Blessed. In Greek, makarios. Not…
Matthew 04:12-25 / 3 Epiphany A / 23 January 2011 / Holy Trinity - Hacienda Heights, CA
Now when he heard that John had been arrested, Jesus withdrew into Galilee. Mt 4:12
John is arrested, sequestered in Herod’s dungeon. The charge: He criticized the morals of the king. Herod had taken up with his brother’s estranged wife,…
John 01:29-42 / 2 Epiphany A / 16 January 2011 / Holy Trinity - Hacienda Heights, CA
“Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” In one, simple sentence, John the Baptizer completely summarizes the whole work of Jesus Christ and the entire Christian faith. Everything else you can say about…
Matthew 03:13-17 / Epiphany 1A / 09 January 2011 / Holy Trinity - Hacienda Heights, CA
Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him. Matthew 3:13
For the past two Sundays following Christmas, we have been rejoicing in Jesus’ obscurity, how the Word made Flesh dwells among us in a…
Luke 02:40-52 / 2 Christmas A / 02 January 2011 / Holy Trinity - Hacienda Heights, CA
“And they did not understand the saying that He spoke to them.” Luke 2:50
We’re fascinated by peoples’ childhoods, for some reason. I’m not sure why this is. Perhaps it’s a reflection of how we idealize childhood as some kind…