Home » Old Testament »
Psalm 148
1st Sunday after Christmas C
When I was a pastor, I liked every sixth year when Christmas Day fell on a Sunday. First, it eliminated the need for an extra service and second, it eliminated conversations with leadership as to whether to hold any extra services in case . . . well, in case Christmas Day fell on a Saturday. …
Micah 5:2-5a
Advent 4C
When the Lectionary dishes up just 3.5 verses, skipping the first verse of a chapter and stopping just halfway through the fifth verse, you just know it’s like putting blinders on us readers to keep us from seeing something on either side of the lection. I don’t know why they made this choice but lyric…
Psalm 80:1-7
Advent 4C
If you are going to choose a Psalm of Lament for the Fourth Sunday in Advent, you may as well include the most Adventy and hopeful part of the Psalm! But the RCL did not do that, choosing to break off the reading of Psalm 80 already at verse 7. Had they gone on to…
Zephaniah 3:14-20
Advent 3C
I used to watch a TV show that was quite compelling and enjoyable but it did have one feature to it that I did not much like: in some episodes the show’s characters would find themselves sunk very deep down into dreadfully complex circumstances. The episode would devote something like 92% of the time to…
Isaiah 12:2-6
Advent 3C
More than we realize, the Bible is a trove of images, similes, metaphors, and visual depictions. Throughout Scripture God describes himself through a battery of metaphors that inevitably lead you to form a picture in your mind’s eye. Many of the images are, on the face of them, contradictory, until you realize that even to…
Malachi 3:1-4
Advent 2C
Have you ever read a classic book you’d never before read only to run across a line you knew by heart? “Oh,” you might say, “I didn’t know this is where that saying came from!” For instance, John Donne’s works are peppered with lines that have assumed a life of their own. People who don’t…
Jeremiah 33:14-16
Advent 1C
Acoustics are so key. How does a text sound? Usually you need to pay attention to the context to figure that out. But when you dive into the middle of a text like this lection, you can so easily miss or forget that wider context. But remembering it can change the acoustics pretty significantly. After…
Psalm 25:1-10
Advent 1C
When I read Psalm 25, I find myself drawn to its utter realism. If you enter into the rhythms and patterns of these verses, what you will find is probably something akin to your own life. If you are like most people, including most Christian people, then the pattern of your piety is probably something…
Psalm 93
Proper 29B
As I have noted before here on CEP, at Calvin Seminary we use Paul Scott Wilson’s “Four Pages of the Sermon” method as the grammar and structure of sermons. A key part of that is locating what Wilson calls “Trouble in the Text.” What is the tension, the crisis, the question, the issue at hand…
2 Samuel 23:1-7
Proper 29B
The so-called “last words of David” are curiously placed. For one thing, there is quite a bit more action involving David in the balance of even 2 Samuel. But there will be more words and more narrative to come in also the opening portion of 1 Kings. It’s as though the author and editor of…
Content related to Old Testament