John 11:1-45
Lent 5A
Comments, Questions, and Observations The word “love” is used only three times to describe Jesus’s feelings for the siblings, Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, but it permeates the entire narrative. Mary and Martha send a message to Jesus to let him know that their shared beloved, Lazarus, is ill to the point of death. Jesus tells […]
Ezekiel 37:1-14
Lent 5A
Sample sermon: It is a sad statement on the last 100 years that we can rather easily imagine the scene Ezekiel describes in his famous 37th chapter. Whether or not the people in Ezekiel’s original audience had ever seen such a valley full of bones, we have. We’ve seen the mass graves of Auschwitz and […]
John 12:20-33
Lent 5B
[…] know me when you see me. I’ll be the suffering and dying one. But I hope you’ll come by to see me anyway.” Note: We have additional Lenten Resources, worship ideas, and Sample Sermons on our Year B Lent and Easter page. Textual Points: As Richard Burridge helpfully points out in the Eerdmans’ The […]
Psalm 25:1-10
Lent 1B
[…] recognize their dependence, who rebel against God’s good and perfect ways (10). Psalm 25 is part of the Revised Common Lectionary’s readings for the first Sunday in Lent. The other readings focus largely on baptism. In that context, Jacobson suggests that Psalm 25 addresses both the benefit and importance of the covenant God makes […]
John 4:5-42
Lent 3A
[…] standing around and sipping their water, the sailors would also swap shipboard rumors. Hence, “scuttlebutt” eventually became a way to refer to gossip. (A latter day equiva lent is “the water cooler syndrome” in which water coolers become the place where employees gather for a cool drink and a bit of office gossip.) […]
Philippians 3:17-4:1
Lent 2C
[…] “blown around” by those heavy gales, he is standing firm in his commitment God’s saving grace and sovereign purposes. Yet since Paul imitates Jesus Christ, in this Lenten season proclaimers want to summon our hearers to follow his example of imitating our Lord and Savior. We can’t, of course, imitate him in saving the […]
Mark 8:31-38
Lent 2B
[…] us down with him. Because this same Jesus also had something to say about what would happen three days later . . . Note: We have additional Lenten Resources, worship ideas, and Sample Sermons on our Year B Lent and Easter page. Textual Points: In the Greek there is a curious parallel between verses […]
Numbers 21:4-9
Lent 4B
[…] only Son, Jesus Christ. God sent not a snake made of bronze, but Jesus Christ, made of flesh and blood. As my colleague Neal Plantinga, who also lent me some ideas for this Sermon Commentary has noted, that bronze serpent felt no pain as it dangled from a pole. Jesus Christ, however, felt all […]
Psalm 51:1-12
Lent 5B
[…] Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” Short, sweet, accurate. And it is basically Psalm 51 in a dozen-word nutshell. Note: We have additional Lenten Resources, worship ideas, and Sample Sermons on our Year B Lent and Easter page. Illustration Idea Theologian Miroslav Volf once pondered the shape and nature of […]
Exodus 20:1-17
Lent 3B
[…] stone.” Legislating Morality? “You can’t legislate morality,” or so the saying goes. But, of course, the subject of these 10 Commandments are rules in themselves and have lent themselves to guidance in the churches and laws in the public sphere. Blue laws against alcohol sales on Sundays may evoke a by-gone era in some […]
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