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1 Peter 2:19-25
Easter 4A
The faithful proclamation of this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson poses some challenges. In terms of the church year, its focus on Jesus’ suffering seems to orient it more to a Lenten or Holy Week than Easter theme. Preachers may need the Spirit to help us be a bit creative to make 1 Peter 2:19-25 “fit” into…
Acts 2:14, 36-41
Easter 3A
Illustration I was, it may surprise some of you to learn, a theatre geek in high school. Of course I loved to be on stage performing for an audience (I know, right? Shocker.) But I also helped with costumes, did some stage managing and student directing. But my favorite part wasn’t the flush of pride,…
Luke 24:13-35
Easter 3A
One of the things that makes this story so lovely is that it subtly reminds us that the circle of disciples is much larger than we make a point to remember when we’re reading the gospels. “Now on that same day two of them were going…” These two on the road are from “the eleven…
1 Peter 1:17-23
Easter 3A
Some biblical phrases are so theologically rich that gospel proclaimers might be tempted to preach entire sermons on them alone. This Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson offers one example of that. In 1 Peter 1:17b the apostle summons his scattered readers to “Live out [anastraphete*] your time [chronon] as foreigners [paroikias] here in reverent fear [phobo].” Preachers…
Acts 2:14a, 22-32
Easter 2A
Commentary: Note: although this Lectionary text takes only a portion of Peter’s sermon, this commentary reaches to both sides a bit to make some general comments on the content of the sermon as well as the kind of people/the nature of the church it intends to birth. Qualities of a Spirit-Filled Sermon What does a…
John 20:19-31
Easter 2A
Those Jesus called “brothers” last week have been told the news about Jesus’s resurrection by Mary Magdalene (v. 18) and they’ve come together, not out of hope or wonder, but John says, out of fear. For all intents and purposes, I think that we are supposed to understand that the disciples are in hiding because…
1 Peter 1:3-9
Easter 2A
Jesus’ resurrection, as we noted last week, changes everything. It even changes the way people God has raised to life with him see things. The Spirit equips God’s adopted children to, among other things, love and believe in the Jesus whom we can’t yet see with our eyes. By God’s amazing grace, we trust in…
Matthew 28:1-10
Easter Day A
The world is about to turn! It is no longer the Sabbath and a new day and a new week is dawning. I just love that the NRSV describes the time with the -ing ending on dawn. Easter is meant for dawnings. We go from the quiet of the dawn to the shock of an…
Colossians 3:1-4
Easter Day A
On the American National Library of Medicine website the cognitive therapist Dr. Dean Schuyler reflects on what we might think of as what people often “set” our “hearts on” (cf. Colossians 3:2). “What,” he asks there, “do we think about? “We anticipate sometimes, thinking about events to come. We think about our children and sometimes…
Matthew 21:1-11
Palm Sunday A
Advent is the season of expectant waiting and hope, but could Palm Sunday be a mini-Advent of sorts? Through the first nine verses, there is clearly a hope and a building sense of anticipation about what is about to happen. Even when the questions come in verses 10-11, they come with a sense that things…
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