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Rev. Douglas Bratt is a Minister of the Word in the Christian Reformed Church in North America. After serving Christian Reformed churches in Iowa, Michigan and Maryland, he retired in July, 2024. He enjoys spending time with his grandchildren, reading good literature, and watching televised sports in his free time.
Doug began writing sermon commentaries for the CEP website in 2006 and started writing weekly in 2012.
Micah 6:1-8
Commentary
Epiphany 4A
What do you give to the person who already has everything? It’s not just a question for Christmas, birthday or other gift giving. It’s also, in some ways at the heart of the Old Testament lesson the Lectionary appoints for this Sunday: What do you give to the One who already owns everything? Micah 6:4-5…
Isaiah 9:1-4
Commentary
Epiphany 3A
In the northern hemisphere this time of year is characterized, in part, by darkness. While daylight is already beginning to push that darkness farther and farther back, people sometimes think of January as one of the darkest and, as a result, bleakest seasons of the year. That’s part of what makes Isaiah 9 an appropriate…
Isaiah 49:1-7
Commentary
Epiphany 2A
“I have labored to no purpose; I have spent my strength in vain and for nothing” (Isaiah 49:3) might be a motto of more than a few of the pastors and teachers I know. Even on a Sunday so close to the start of a new year, some of us wrestle with the kind of…
Isaiah 42:1-9
Commentary
Epiphany 1A
Christians are sometimes prone to hurdle the Old Testament’s original context in order to sprint to the finish line that is the Jesus to whom it points. We always want, after all, to preach and teach Christ and him crucified. So preachers and teachers sometimes treat texts like Isaiah 42 as little more than an…
Ecclesiastes 3:1-13
Commentary
1st Sunday after Christmas A
Does anyone know what time it is? The rock group Chicago sang a song entitled, “Does Anybody Know What Time It Is?” It’s about people who have watches but don’t really know what time it is: “People running around everywhere, Don’t know what way to go … Don’t know where I am. Have no time…
Isaiah 52:7-10
Commentary
Christmas Day A
I’ve seen the feet of a few preachers and teachers who proclaim the gospel’s “good news.” Some are big, others are fairly small. Some are quite flat. Preachers and teachers’ feet can even be pretty smelly. But I’m not sure even their closest family members and friends would call them “beautiful.” Yet no one who…
Isaiah 7:10-16
Commentary
Advent 4A
Human life is full of signs. A number painted on metal rectangle indicates the legal speed limit on a road or highway. Twin golden arches are a sign of the culinary paradise that awaits you at the next exit. Yet once you leave a highway, you find even more signs: A figure with pants on…
Isaiah 35:1-10
Commentary
Advent 3A
With the words, “This text shouldn’t be here,” my colleague Barbara Lundblad begins a thoughtful presentation on Isaiah 35. After all, as she points out, it’s not just that this text doesn’t address anyone by name. It’s also that it almost immediately follows a poem that’s full of images of creational disaster: “Edom’s streams will…
Isaiah 11:1-10
Commentary
Advent 2A
Some people claim the theologian Karl Barth said that modern Christians should always have an open Bible in one hand and the daily newspaper in the other. It’s advice that remains as good today as when Barth first offered it. So those who preach and teach this Sunday’s Old Testament text the Lectionary appoints might…
Isaiah 2:1-5
Commentary
Advent 1A
How can we experience peace in a world that’s so desperately short on it? It’s a question both as ancient as our first parents’ fall into sin and as modern as ongoing war in places like parts of the Middle East. Some people assumed that we’d finally figure out how to have peace during the…
About Doug Bratt