Psalm 47
Easter 7B
[…] it is. This isn’t an impossible task for us because in a very real sense it’s not a task at all. It’s who we are by grace. Pentecost is coming up in two weeks. We are drenched in the Spirit’s presence now and as a result of that divine gift, everything changes. God has […]
Psalm 97
Easter 7C
[…] helps us see the earth-shaking importance of Christ’s Ascension, which we celebrate on this seventh Sunday of the Easter season. As Easter fades into the distance and Pentecost rustles just around the corner, we need to be reminded that the ascension of Christ was as important as his resurrection. Indeed, an old preacher friend […]
1 Corinthians 10:1-13
Lent 3C
[…] Spirit of God would one day get poured out on God’s children. All that unhappy wilderness stuff Paul refers to from Exodus and Numbers was way before Pentecost, way before stony hearts had become fleshy hearts onto which God inscribed his very Self in a New Covenant in Jesus’ blood.” All true. Except that […]
Psalm 16
Proper 28B
[…] death. However tenuous this faith may have been for the Psalmist, it becomes the cornerstone of God’s saving power in Jesus Christ. In Acts 2, Peter’s great Pentecost sermon reaches its climax with a meditation on Psalm 16. Fellow Israelites, I may say to you confidently of our ancestor David that he both died and […]
Colossians 1:1-14
Proper 10C
[…] wants us to do. However, Paul reminds us that before we can do any of that, we first need God to act in and on us. On Pentecost the Church celebrated the Holy Spirit’s equipping of Jesus’ followers to boldly speak the gospel in a variety of languages. We remembered how Peter insisted God […]
John 20:19-31
Easter 2C
[…] about Jesus’ bearing a grudge. He was not out to settle any old scores but to create a whole new situation. In what some call John’s mini- Pentecost, Jesus breathes on them the sweetness of the Holy Spirit. And like that first breath of life that the Almighty Creator God breathed into Adam’s nostrils […]
Acts 10:34-43
Easter Sunday
[…] at their table non-kosher table (as Fred Craddock once mused, can you imagine Peter eating pizza!! With ham and pepperoni!). And he did it. The Spirit of Pentecost that converted Peter to faith in Jesus in the first place often provides many subsequent mini-conversions. As we say on Easter Sunday, “He is risen! […]
Psalm 4
Easter 3B
[…] upon us once more. If this way of reading Psalm 4 is correct, then it is instructive for all of us. No, this side of Easter and Pentecost we should not conclude that every time something goes wrong in life it is because God is punishing us. Indeed, we believe the punishment for all […]
Acts 1:6-14
Easter 7A
[…] the twelfth apostle. And note how Luke makes a point of including women in the waiting, praying, witnessing body (a foreshadowing of Joel’s prophecy coming true on Pentecost?). They were all together. Second, they prayed, and prayed, and prayed. “They all joined together constantly in prayer….” They were not praying to change the will […]
Psalm 67
Easter 6C
[…] on that night in the upper room to hear Jesus say “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.” What became more startling still after Pentecost was a further, related truth: if the world sees the Father at all, it will be through what they see in now us. Psalm 67 may […]
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