Of all the images of Jesus the Scriptures give us, the most gentle and comforting one is today’s - the Good Shepherd. The old Latin name for Good Shepherd Sunday was Misercordias domini - the merciful heart of the Lord. David, the shepherd who became king, wrote that wonderful psalm by the Holy…
John sure knows how to write a prologue, doesn’t he? He set the standard in his gospel when he wrote “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” Then he holds out for fourteen tantalizing verses before he pops the cork: “The Word…
Jesus’ words and His wounds make every Sunday a little Easter. With His words and His wounds, Jesus brings peace to His fearful disciples. With His words and His wounds He sends them to speak forgiveness with His own breath and Spirit. And with His words and His wounds, He reaches out…
Christ is risen! He’s made it through. His “it is finished” from the cross holds up against death and the grave. Nothing can hold crucified Jesus down. The grave has lost its grip.
Mary Magdalene went to the grave very early in the morning. It was Sunday, the first…
The day a loved one dies is not ordinarily called a “good day,” at least from the world’s perspective. We are taken aback when we discover that all those saints’ days we celebrate are not their birth days but their death days. The death day of a loved one, from a worldly perspective,…
"My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"
Angels sang at His birth. Angels came to serve Him in the wilderness of temptation. Angels came to comfort Him in His Gethsemanic sweat. But now there are no angels. Ten thousand times ten thousand of powerful shining spirits, faces ablaze with…
It is the night of that fateful day on which the Son of God incarnate in our human flesh laid down His life to save the world. In the rhythm of the day as it appears in the Bible, evening marks the beginning of the day. Darkness into light. Evening into morning.…
Palms to Passion. Shouts of Hosanna! to cries of Crucify Him! It’s all there in one Sunday - Palm Sunday / Passion Sunday.
Some might ask why. Why do it this way? Why not break it up into more digestible bits? We will. This is the start of…
The Greeks were eager to see Jesus; Jesus was eager to see His cross. It happened at the start of Passover week in Jerusalem. Some Greeks had come to Jerusalem for the Passover feast. We don’t know anything about them. Perhaps they were simply curious. Seekers. Foreign journalists out…
The Israelites were snake-bitten. Venomous fire-snakes were let loose in camp. The people were in agony, dying. They grumbled. They spoke against God and against His servant Moses. They were ungrateful for the manna that fell from heaven and the water that came out of the rock. And so…