Movies for Preaching
E.T. the Extra Terrestrial (1982) – 1
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982). Directed by Steven Spielberg, Written by Melissa Mathison. Music by John Williams. Staring Henry Thomas, Drew Barrymore, and Peter Coyote. 115 mins. Rated PG. And to the mountaintop they go, the lonely small boy and the odd green fellow, as well they (and we) should, for ascension is about to happen—and…
Additional content related to Ascension
John 6:56-69
It’s the last of John 6 and the last of the gospel of John for a while—next week we jump back into Mark. As it comes to reactions to Christ, the end of John 6 is a mixed bag. Even while excluding the verses about Judas’s impending betrayal and including Peter’s declaration of faith and…
Acts 1:6-14
When it comes to what’s up and what’s down in this passage, there is a lot of back-and-forth when you think about it. First off, as we begin Acts, Jesus is where he has been for about the last six weeks: he is mostly here on this earth walking around with, eating dinner with, and…
Ascension Day: How We See Things
One of the most mind-boggling spectacles I’ve ever seen is a short science movie titled “Powers of Ten.” Many of us no doubt saw this movie in a high school physics class. More recently a new version of this came out for IMAX called Cosmic Voyage (narrated by God himself, which is to say Morgan…
Luke 24:36-48
The end of Luke’s Gospel sums it all up pretty well. In swift strokes of Luke’s quill, we move from Easter Sunday evening directly to the Ascension of Jesus (just beyond the bounds of this lection). We learn from Luke’s other New Testament contribution, Acts, that Jesus lingered in physical form for a good forty…
Acts 1:6-14
On this Seventh Sunday of the Easter season, it is fitting that the first reading is about the Ascension of Jesus. There is a real sense in which Jesus’ resurrection and his ascension are two parts of one glorious act; he rose from the dead and he kept rising into heaven. Between the two risings…
Hebrews 9:24-28 [10:11-18]
Digging Into the Text: I imagine that by this time, you preachers out there might be getting a little burned out with Hebrews and its priests and sacrifices and temples, and worried the congregation may feel the same way. Some commentators think that Hebrews is not so much an epistle in the usual sense, but…
Psalm 68:1-10, 32-35
Psalm 68 is known as the most difficult Psalm, but it is a fine choice for this Seventh Sunday of Easter, also known as Ascension Sunday. The connection to Christ’s Ascension is rooted in the way the early church read it, as evidenced most clearly in Paul’s use of verse 18 in Ephesians 4:8-13. Within…
Acts 1:6-14
Why do you stand here looking into the sky? is the compelling question around which, in some ways, the text the Lectionary appoints for this Sunday revolves. However, it’s also a question that the Lord might pose to Acts 1’s preachers, teachers and those who listen to us: Why do you stand here looking into…
John 20:1-18
A friend of mine who is a true believer in the Gospel once confessed to me that Easter services can be a little hard on him. There’s just something about all that exuberance, all that blaring brass, all those bright lights and white lilies that combine to go sufficiently over the top in ways he…
Preaching Connection: Ascension