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John 20:19-31 / 2 Easter A / 1 May 2011 / Holy Trinity - Hacienda Heights, CA Today’s Gospel for this second Sunday of Easter is about a certain Word and skeptical disciple. The certain Word, of course, comes from Jesus, the Word incarnate, newly risen from the dead. The skeptical disciple is Thomas. And the certain Word of Jesus turns a skeptic into a believer.

Thomas was called Didymus, “the Twin,” presumably because he had a twin brother. He is listed in the second tier of the Twelve, usually between Matthew the tax collector and Simon the Zealot. Tradition says that he went on to bring the Gospel to India, where one of the oldest churches in Christianity still exists today.

John 11:17-27,38-53 / Lent 5A / 10 April 2011 / Holy Trinity - Hacienda Heights, CA “Son of man, can these bones live?” Can the bones of Lazarus four days dead in the grave live? Can your dry dead bones live? The answer with Jesus is “Yes. By His Word and breath they can live, for He is the Resurrection and the Life.”

The prophet Ezekiel was given to see Israel in all her deadness. A valley full of dry, dusty bones, the remnants of a battle perhaps. The bones were very dry because the people were very dead. Bones dried up, life dried up, hope dried up. “Our bones are dried up,” the Israelites said. “Our hope is lost; we are clean cut off.” Dead as dead can be.

John 9 / Lent 4A / 03 April 2011 / Holy Trinity - Hacienda Heights, CA Religion can make you blind. That may sound strange in church coming from the pulpit, but that’s the gist of our Gospel reading this morning. Religion can blind you to who Jesus is and what salvation is all about.

John 04:05-26 / Lent 3A / 27 March 2011 / Holy Trinity - Hacienda Heights, CA She came for well water; she found living water. She came to quench her thirst; she found the cleansing of her sin. She came to Jacob’s well; she found Jesus, the source of living water.

She was a Samaritan, this woman who came to Jacob’s well with a water jug balanced on her head at high noon. I picture her with lipstick just a little too red; hair dyed just a bit too much. Maybe cracking gum. Living in a double-wide trailer on the other side of town. Quick wit, sassy smile, a few too many lines around her eyes. They write country songs about her. By the conventions of her day, she had three strikes against her: she was a woman, she was a Samaritan, she had been married five times and was shacked up with number six. Three reasons why any respectable rabbi would not have given her the time of day. Yet Jesus addresses her: “Give me a drink.” We don’t know if Jesus ever got his drink of water from her. It doesn’t say. But we do know that she got a lot more from Jesus that she could have bargained for, or hoped for.

John 03:01-17 / 2 Lent A / 20 March 2011 / Holy Trinity - Hacienda Heights, CA The word that runs through our three readings this morning and connects them is the word “faith.” Trust in the promise of God. “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.” “God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in Hims should not perish but have eternal life.”

This is bottom-line Christianity. This is the core of what you and I believe and confess as Christians. This is what makes Christianity “Christian.” It’s the chewy nougat center without which Christianity becomes just another religion among religions. This is what sets Christianity apart from the world’s religions and what many people, even those who call themselves Christian, don’t get. God justifies the ungodly. God counts faith in His promise as righteousness. God grants this as an unearned and undeserved gift, completely apart from any work that we do.

Matthew 04:01-11 / 1 Lent A / 13 March 2011 / Holy Trinity - Hacienda Heights, CA Every once in a while, events in the world trump the liturgical calendar and even the assigned readings. Such was the case in September of 2001 and such is the case this morning, the first Sunday in Lent.…