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Isaiah 25:6-9

Easter Day B

I wonder if there are many preachers who will choose to take the Old Testament Lection as their primary text on Easter Sunday morning? It seems to me that the greater gift and opportunity presented by this text is the way that it sings harmony on the song of resurrection.  So I will offer my…

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Psalm 114

Easter Day B

The Lectionary assigned parts of Psalm 118 for both Palm/Passion Sunday and Easter and since the March 24 sermon commentary here on the CEP website was on Psalm 118, I will direct you to look that up in our Sermon Commentary Library.  But for this commentary we will take the psalm for Year B Easter…

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Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29

Palm Sunday B

By the end of Psalm 118 it is easy to see why the Lectionary would connect these words with Palm Sunday.  The imagery of a festal throng of people going up to the Temple waving tree branches exuberantly in the air makes this fit the traditional ways we picture the events of Jesus’s entrance into…

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Isaiah 50:4-9

Palm Sunday B

A Turn Toward the Passion Interestingly, the Lectionary provides two sets of readings for this last Sunday in Lent: (1) a Psalm and Gospel that celebrate the procession with the Palms and (2) a full set of four readings that look ahead to all that stands between the false and frivolous praise of Palm Sunday…

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Jeremiah 31:31-34

Lent 5B

Comments, Observations and Questions: Hearing “New Covenant” with the Ears of Ancient Israel The Israelites are in exile. The consequences of their disobedience and failure to keep their side of the bargain haunt them everyday — in the foreign language, customs, foods and, most grievously, religions of Babylon.  So Jeremiah, who is often called the…

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Psalm 51:1-12

Lent 5B

For the fifth Sunday in Lent, the Year B Lectionary serves up a quintessential Lenten-type psalm in the well-known words of Psalm 51.  In preaching classes I always say to my students to not make too big of a deal over any superscriptions that accompany some psalms.  In this case it is the superscription that…

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Numbers 21:4-9

Lent 4B

The people of Israel have been wandering around in that desert for quite awhile. You know how this goes: slaves in Egypt, they are freed by God’s mighty hand, some plagues and the parting of the Red Sea. They make it to the border of the Promised Land, send in some spies who — with…

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Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22

Lent 4B

Psalm 107:2 invites people to tell their stories.  Ironically no sooner does that begin to happen in this poem and the Lectionary has us stop reading to jump over a lot of the stories that get told!  Truth is, Psalm 107 is semi-repetitive but it is structured that way to make a point about the…

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Psalm 19

Lent 3B

A friend of mine is a professional physicist and astronomer and I have always enjoyed talking with her about astronomy as I have long been an amateur astronomy aficionado.  If we are blessed enough to experience it, there is nothing quite so breathtaking as being far away from any sources of light pollution so as…

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Exodus 20:1-17

Lent 3B

Must Be Important Here we are, less than 6 months since the last time this text came up in the lectionary reading cycle.  You can find my previous commentary here [Mary, can you add hyperlink?] At the least what we should consider when a text comes up more than once in a calendar year is…

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