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Luke 23:32-33; 39-43: 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…
Matthew 4:12-23
Epiphany 3A
We’ve come to call it “the Holy Land.” From the Mediterranean Sea in the west to the country of Jordan in the east, from Syria in the north to the Sinai in the south, travel companies, tour groups, and tourists treat this piece of Middle Eastern real estate as a unity. It’s where Jesus walked…
1 Corinthians 1:10-18
Epiphany 3A
The Reformed expression of the Christian faith’s many strengths have not always included Christian unity. Reformed Christians’ actions have sometimes tweaked an old saying to sound something like, “Where two or three are gathered in Jesus’ name … there you have three or four Reformed denominations.” Presbyterians sometimes talk about “split p’s”. So this Sunday’s…
Mark 9:30-41: Four Pages: Afraid and Silent
Anyone who has ever been a teacher or a parent or a leader or an instructor of any kind knows the truth of something I read a while back. The author was a teacher and said, “Sometimes a student will come to you and say ‘I didn’t understand that one point in class today.’ And…
John 1:29-42
Epiphany 2A
The lamb of God. Agnus Dei. The lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Agnus Dei tolle peccato mundi. It is so familiar to us. Even if you Google that Latin phrase Agnus Dei, you instantly get over 10 million hits. And that’s in Latin! (Maybe these days quid quo pro…
1 Corinthians 1:1-9
Epiphany 2A
This Sunday’s RCL’s Epistolary Lesson may seem like a strange way for Paul to begin his first letter to the Corinthians. Of course, it would not be a particularly strange way to begin most communications. 1 Corinthians 1 begins, after all, with (for its day) a fairly typical greeting. What’s more, many of us are…
Matthew 3:13-17
Epiphany 1A
Poor John. It didn’t look right. What was going on here? This was not the public appearance of Jesus that John had set everyone up to see (cf. Matthew 3:1-12 for goodness sake!!!). As Matthew 3 ends, you can almost picture John the Baptist carrying on with the rest of that day’s baptisms with a…
Acts 10:34-43
Epiphany 1A
On this Sunday on which the RCL invites us to contemplate Jesus’ baptism, it omits the account of Cornelius’ baptism from its Epistolary Lesson. That may at least imply that the RCL is less interested in the Romans or even Jesus’s baptism than with the baptized Jesus (and his Church’s) mission. A mission that has…
John 1:(1-9), 10-18
Christmas 2A
The Lectionary may get the last laugh here, and savvy preachers can curl up the corners of their mouths to join the mirth. Because here it is the first Sunday of a new year and really the first Sunday in the 2019-2020 holiday season after Christmas is officially finished. For weeks now, starting well before…
Ephesians 1:3-14
Christmas 2A
Christians know that God didn’t create us to “eat, drink and be merry because tomorrow we die.” Yet that popular philosophy raises a number of interesting questions. It makes us wonder how God’s people should evaluate the purpose of our lives. How do we think about why God has put us here? Something in a…
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