Content related to Luke

Advent 2: The Shrill One

John was on a roll. For quite some time he had been preaching a fiery message to all kinds of people and with splendid results. They came to him in droves and responded to his message with genuine fervor. That is quite amazing given that John was not exactly what anyone would consider “seeker-friendly.” Today…

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Advent 1: At That Time

When I was in high school, I accompanied a friend to a youth group New Year’s Eve party at a local Pentecostal church. Mostly the party was what you would expect: lots of goodies to eat, pop to drink, games to play. But at one point in the evening all of us were gathered in…

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Advent 1: In the Interim

We live in between the first coming of Jesus Christ and his second coming, and most of us feel a lot better about the first one.  Christmas is about a baby, after all, and that makes everything easier.  We know about babies, and so we know how to domesticate Christmas.  We set up a creche,…

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Four Pages: The Incognito Christ: the Walking Partner

When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them.  Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him.  Luke 24:30-31 Many of the risen Jesus’ friends to whom he appeared just didn’t know who he was. So at least initially the risen…

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Luke 24:36-48

Easter 3B

The end of Luke’s Gospel sums it all up pretty well.  In swift strokes of Luke’s quill, we move from Easter Sunday evening directly to the Ascension of Jesus (just beyond the bounds of this lection).  We learn from Luke’s other New Testament contribution, Acts, that Jesus lingered in physical form for a good forty…

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Luke 2:22-40

Christmas 1B

It’s amazing how much detail Luke gives us.  If Luke were a movie, it would have been directed by Cecil B. DeMille with a cast of thousands and long, lingering scenes on most every situation imaginable.  The Gospel of Mark by comparison is like a PowerPoint presentation where the presenter goes way too fast through…

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Luke 1:26-38

Advent 4B

Biblical scholars call passages like Luke 1 “type scenes.”  A modern kind of “type scene” might be something like this: one evening while channel-surfing, you run across a movie already in progress.  It’s obviously a Western with two cowboys standing about thirty yards apart in the middle of a dusty street.  Each man is glaring…

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Luke 24:13-35

Easter 3A

After his wife died, C.S. Lewis once wrote that he thought that his grief might be less if he intentionally avoided the places he and his wife Joy had frequented and so he limited his travels to only those places where they had never been together.  He switched grocery stores, tried different restaurants, walked only…

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Four Pages: Inconceivable! Bright Comfort in Death’s Shadow

Heidelberg Catechism Lord’s Day 22; preached in Bethel Christian Reformed Church, Sioux Center, Iowa PAGE 1: TROUBLE IN THE TEXT The Biblical text for this evening seems like a strange place to look for comfort. Jesus himself said it was “the hour when darkness reigns.”  The hosts of hell were met in gleeful array around…

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Luke 1:46b-55

Advent 3A

The Year A Lectionary presents two options on this week’s Psalm.  One option is what I will reflect on here from Luke 1.  The other is a portion of Psalm 146.  I am not writing on that as this entire psalm was the Lectionary psalm just a couple of months ago.  If you wish to…

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