Today, this 7th and last Sunday of the season of Easter is the in-between Sunday. The Sunday between the Ascension of our Lord and Pentecost. Forty days after the resurrection, Jesus ascended to His majestic glory at the right hand of the Father and disappeared from sight until the Last Day. Fifty…
If you love me, you will keep my commandments.
Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. (John 14:15-21)
Our first item of business this morning will be to wash our mouths of the Law. We need a good Gospel rinse to freshen our breath, brighten our…
Who are you? There’s a deep question to get things rolling. Who are you? In the martial arts they teach you to know your center of gravity. If you know your center of gravity, you aren’t easily knocked over, no matter how hard you are hit. It allows you to…
Jesus the Good Shepherd. Jesus the door for the sheep. The images are comforting and “pastoral” in the literal sense of that word. The word “pastor” is Latin for shepherd. In the Scriptures, “shepherd” and “bishop” (or as we have it “overseer”) run together too, which is why you see bishops…
It was a long, slow seven miles from Jerusalem to Emmaus for two disciples on that first day of the resurrection. Cleopas, whom some believe to be the brother of Joseph, Jesus’ uncle so to speak, and another disciple are walking back to their homes. As they walked, they talked about all…
To fearful disciples behind locked doors Jesus appears risen from the dead. The disciples were afraid. Who wouldn’t be? You would; I would too. They’d crucified their Teacher and Friend. Surely they would be next. They’d heard the news from Mary Magdalene who had seen Jesus, touched Him, heard…
“Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Moral calculus. We all do it, going from effect to cause. We crave the easy explanation. The man is born blind. Something went wrong. Congenital blindness is not the norm. Why did this happen? …
She came for water in the heat of the noonday sun. A woman of Sychar in Samaria. She was well known in the village, the woman who lived on the other side of town, that side you didn’t go at night. She was the one had five husbands, each of whom divorced…
Undoubtedly you have seen those popular yellow and black paperback books on every topic you can imagine from anthropology to Zoroastrianism. Nothing seems to be out of bounds. You name it there’s a yellow and black book for it. I’m referring, of course, to all those “For Dummies” books that introduce you…
Today is a tale of two temptations - of Adam and of Christ, the first Adam and the second. The first fell, and with his fall came sin and death to all. The second stood, and with His stand comes righteousness and justification for all.
Adam was tempted in Eve, his wife. They are “one flesh,”…