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Isaiah 40:1-11
Advent 2B
Today “comfort” conjures up a cloud of images ranging from La-Z-Boy recliners to Royal Caribbean cruises. “Comfort food” is all about the personal satisfaction that can come from mashed potatoes and meatloaf. “Creature comforts” are all about having the nicest stuff even as the words “luxury and comfort” get yoked to describe things like the…
Isaiah 64:1-9
Advent 1B
It’s always tempting for those who preach and teacher God’s Word to talk more about prayer than actually pray. So those who proclaim Isaiah 64 won’t just want to explore, exegete and apply it carefully this week. We’ll also want to actually spend time praying, perhaps using its structure and themes to do so. The…
Isaiah 50:4-9a
Palm Sunday A
Isaiah 50’s juxtaposition of beauty and brutality is jarring and perhaps somewhat disconcerting. Yet that combination is part of what helps make it in so many ways reminiscent of daily life. After all, it sometimes feels as if we’re almost constantly moving from beauty to brutality (and then, so often, right back to beauty –…
Isaiah 58:1-9a (9b-12)
Epiphany 5A
God expects our lifestyle to reflect our worship. That is to say, God’s not pleased when God’s children act one way on Sunday, but quite a different way during the rest of the week. Isaiah 58 oozes frustration. Clearly Israel is frustrated. After all, she assumes that she takes God very seriously. Israel claims to…
Isaiah 9:1-4
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
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
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…
Isaiah 52:7-10
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
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
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…
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