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Acts 16:16-34
Easter 7C
Our reading for today serves as the exclamation point on Dr. Luke’s history of the Gospel’s spread to the ends of the earth. No, we haven’t gotten to that far horizon yet, but Luke has introduced all the major themes and players that will get us there. This story contains all those elements that will…
Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21
Easter 7C
How can we understand Christ’s promise to come “soon” that he makes not once but twice in just this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson’s seven verses? After all, few of our definitions of “soon” would include the two thousand years that have elapsed since he made first it. In Revelation 22 John’s dazzling visions of that coming…
John 14:23-29
Easter 6C
Jesus kept saying it, kept repeating it that night: Let not your hearts be troubled. But it’s difficult to imagine a more troubling context in which to try to say such a thing! Jesus kept talking about peace, but all hell was about to break loose on Jesus and on his band of followers. In…
Acts 16:9-15
Easter 6C
This first reading for the Sixth Sunday of Easter continues to trace the progress of the Gospel to the ends of the earth, as it focuses on an abridged section of Paul’s Second Missionary Journey. I say “abridged” because the Lectionary starts our reading in mid-paragraph leaving out some crucial historical and theological details found…
Revelation 21:10, 22-22:5
Easter 6C
If we were to ask our hearers for a list of the books of the Bible that most puzzle them, at least some them would likely list both Ezekiel and Revelation. So it may intimidate those who follow the RCL to know that its Easter Season’s next to last Epistolary Lesson is a passage in…
John 13:31-35
Easter 5C
If your son was in a bad car accident and spent weeks in critical condition in the hospital’s ICU with machines keeping him alive, then upon his full recovery and on the day he comes home from the hospital, wouldn’t it feel a bit odd to not celebrate his homecoming in favor of a long…
Acts 11:1-18
Easter 5C
In this season of Easter, the Lectionary has directed our attention away from the Old Testament readings that are usually the first reading. Instead we have been following the book of Acts, which traces the new thing God did as a result of the Resurrection of Christ. That new thing was the spread of the…
Revelation 21:1-6
Easter 5C
Christ’s revelation to the apostle John includes what sometimes seems like an endless series of chilling images. Nearly all of them portray intense persecution, bloody battles and immense suffering. It’s a revelation that, if we didn’t know its “happy ending,” we might quit reading after about six or seven chapters. Some modern Christians assume that…
John 10:22-30
Easter 4C
For the last 12 or so years, few names in the world have been more famous than that of Barack Obama. Not so long ago, however, that was not the case. Indeed, not so very long ago almost no one had ever heard of Obama. A scant four years before he managed to get nominated…
Acts 9:36-43
Easter 4C
Reading Dr. Luke’s account of the growth of the early church is a bit like watching a frog hop from lily pad to lily pad—from Jerusalem to the Gaza Strip to Samaria to Damascus to Joppa, from Peter and John to Philip to Stephen to Paul and now back to Peter. OK, maybe the image…
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