Isaiah 40:1-11
Advent 2B
[…] by that image are more in touch with its radical nature than those of us who look at it without batting an eye. The Second Sunday in Advent brings us to another location that is at least as un-Christmasy as the First Sunday in Advent’s consideration of the day when all the cosmic lights […]
Matthew 11:2-11
Advent 3A
[…] firm, to stand up for the truth lest our whole celebration be watered down or flat out taken away from us. Yet in this Third Sunday in Advent reading from Matthew 11, we actually encounter a text that casts something of a doubt-filled pall and a sense of uncertainty over the season after all. […]
James 5:7-10
Advent 3A
[…] sense without a context, and in this case that context is brutal. It is a curious thing that the Year A Lectionary on this Third Sunday in Advent gives us a Gospel text from Matthew that is all about doubting the validity of Jesus as the Christ and now an Epistle reading that tears […]
Zephaniah 3:14-20
Advent 3C
[…] the mood of most of Zephaniah. Indeed, if our Lectionary reading for today didn’t focus on the very last verses of Zephaniah, this minor prophet would ruin Advent. This Minor Prophet is filled with anger, fear, and judgment. And there is no mention of a coming Messiah. Our reading from Jeremiah two weeks ago […]
Isaiah 64:1-9
Advent 1B
[…] so that I may gain a heart of wisdom and just walk before you with love, reverence and humility.” Something like that happens in this Year B Advent selection from Isaiah 64, too. Here the chapter begins with a plea for God to set the heavens to roaring and the mountains to quaking by […]
Luke 1:26-38
Advent 4B
[…] this or that difficulty in our family’s dynamics. At least some such concerns are not bad things to think about, they’re just nowhere near the core of Advent. Christmas isn’t first of all about our agenda. As with Mary, so with us: God brings us what he knows we need whether we thought we […]
Mark 1:1-8
Advent 2B
[…] even though she was still in her pajamas, Goldilocks jumped out of bed, ran out of the house, and then went on to start having a real adventure as she tried to find her way back home through a thick and dreadful forest.” Were you to do this, the faces of those innocent little […]
Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11
Advent 3B
[…] in fact, is the shortest day of the year in the northern hemisphere. Even our churches are relatively dark, symbolically lit largely by the candles of our Advent table. However, Christmas is also a season, for some, of emotional darkness. Studies suggest that during this season depression and heartache are all too common for […]
Matthew 3:1-12
Advent 2A
[…] a kind of weird new normal. Indeed, if I had not told you this is what I wrote three years ago when last Matthew 3 was the Advent II Lectionary text, you would have assumed I had been describing the last two months in 2019. Perhaps it was not so different in the days […]
Isaiah 40:1-11
Advent 2B
[…] by that image are more in touch with its radical nature than those of us who look at it without batting an eye. The Second Sunday in Advent brings us to another location that is at least as un-Christmasy as the First Sunday in Advent’s consideration of the day when all the cosmic lights […]
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