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John 12:20-33
Lent 5B
“Sir, we would see Jesus.” With all due apologies to the many pastors out there who need to be addressed as “Ma’am” and not “Sir,” those of us who preach in various churches have seen those words—lifted up out of John 12:21—emblazoned on pulpits, often on a small brass plate visible to the preacher alone. …
Hebrews 5:1-10
Lent 5B
It should count as a bit of an irony that just beyond the end of the assigned lection in Hebrews 5 we find the writer giving his readers a bit of a rebuke. “You probably don’t understand what I just wrote,” verse 11 essentially begins, “and that’s too bad because by now you should be…
John 3:14-21
Lent 4B
John 3:16 may be the most famous Bible verse in the world but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to understand. As Frederick Dale Bruner points out in his commentary on The Gospel of John, this entire chapter is fraught with mystery. The story takes place at night, the meeting seems to be done somewhat in…
Ephesians 2:1-10
Lent 4B
Sample Meditation: You were dead. That’s how the Apostle Paul opened this section of his letter to the Ephesians. You were dead. It’s a startling thing to hear, when you think about it. It also doesn’t make a whole lot of sense on the face of it. Oh, sure, now and then you may run…
John 2:13-22
Lent 3B
We are impressed very often by all the wrong things. In John 2 everyone was impressed with the physical Temple. It had been undergoing construction for over four decades already and was not even finished. It reminds me of the Ken Follett novel The Pillars of the Earth that narrates the construction of a European…
1 Corinthians 1:18-25
Lent 3B
Are there any other passages that sum up Lent better than these words from Paul? As I have noted before, this is like drinking from the proverbial fire hose. In verse after verse Paul scales ever higher theological heights and ever grander rhetorical flourishes as he stares, mouth agape, at the mysteries of God that…
Mark 8:31-38
Lent 2B
Life has its ups and downs but rarely are they packed so closely together as in Mark 8. Only a few verses earlier Peter had answered one of history’s most powerful questions and he had answered it correctly. Mark’s spare style means that we don’t hear what the other gospels tell us as to Jesus’…
Romans 4:13-25
Lent 2B
Life comes from death. Perhaps there has never been a more counter-intuitive statement but there it is at the very heart of the Gospel: life comes from death. But since none of us is capable of bringing life out of death, that paradoxical statement is also a huge red arrow pointing straight at grace. It’s…
Mark 1:9-15
Lent 1B
Lent begins in the wilderness. And it’s not a terribly safe place to be all things being equal. Some years ago after a seminar I was attending in Tucson, Arizona, wrapped up around the noon hour, my wife and I decided to check out a nearby National Park. We took a big bottle of water…
1 Peter 3:18-22
Lent 1B
This is a perfectly good passage selection for the Lectionary but it does carve this a bit out of context. If you look closely and glance just above where verse 18 starts, then you will see that the main thrust of this part of 1 Peter—like a good bit of the letter—ties in with our…
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