It’s been just a couple of days since we celebrated Jesus’ birth and now the Sunday readings ratchet forward forty days to His presentation in the temple. This is the first of many appearances Jesus would make in the temple, culminating with Holy Week. But this one is His first and it is…
Today, on this fourth and last Sunday of the season of Advent, the Gospel takes a kinder and gentler tone than we’ve had over the last two weeks with John the Baptizer. Today we have two very unlikely women meeting in a town of Judah. Two expectant mothers get together, which isn’t all…
“I tell you, among those born of women none is greater than John. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.” (Luke 7:18-28)
The world’s measure of greatness and God’s measure of greatness are two completely different things. The world measures greatness in terms…
You know it’s Advent when John the Baptizer shows up. Just when you were preparing to have a holly, jolly Christmas with chestnuts roasting on an open fire, sleighbells ring ring ring-a-ling, and Santas belting out their friendly ho-ho-hos, along comes John, and suddenly all the fun seems to drain right out of the…
“Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation.” (Zech 9:9, introit)
The One who is coming in glory, might, and power is the One who came by the humility of the Virgin, the manger, the donkey, and the cross. And He is the One who comes to us here…
What I say to you, I say to all: Watch! (Mark 13:24-37)
We have come to the end of the church year. The final chapter of history, the last movement of the symphony, the last Sunday that wraps everything up at the close of the age when Christ will appear as the Son of Man coming…
Every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God., waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his…
She came to the temple to make her offering. She was a widow lady and very poor. She lived pretty much from day to day, trusting in the Lord and His provision. Perhaps she relied on family, but you know how family can be sometimes. Maybe there were friends and neighbors…
To the nine beatitudes of our Lord’s sermon on the mount in this morning’s Gospel, I will add a tenth from the book of the Revelation on the this All Saints’ Day:
And I heard a voice from heaven saying, “Write this: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord henceforth.” “Blessed indeed,” says the…
“For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the Law.” (Romans 3:28)
In the history of Christianity, in the history of the entire world of religious beliefs, there is no more profound, no more radical statement than this verse from the apostle Paul in his monumental letter to the Romans. A…