Hebrews 2:10-18
Christmas 1A
[…] would anyone have been able to pick him out of the other babies in the nursery? Would he have been the baby who, as we sing at Christmas, made no crying? If Jesus’ friends had been choosing sides for their soccer game, would they have known how to pick Jesus out of the pack […]
2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16
Advent 4B
Comments, Observations and Questions: Verse 16 is a glorious refrain, especially in close anticipation of Christmas Eve worship (likely less than 12 hours away). “Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever.” The preacher might well add, “If you want to hear more, I’ll see you […]
I Samuel 2:18-20, 26
Christmas 1C
Acknowledging that the Hebrew Scripture text may not be everyone’s immediate choice for the Sunday after Christmas, I want to use this text as a lens on the others or, perhaps, to demonstrate reverberations and harmonies between this text and the others as a way of deepening your engagement with all the texts together. […]
1 Corinthians 1:3-9
Advent 1B
[…] our Lord Jesus Christ.” That is Advent language. This text can help us remember that Advent is not just about the first coming of the Christ at Christmas, but also about his second coming at the Parousia (which, of course, was the focus of the RCL at the end of this liturgical year). A […]
Isaiah 40:1-11
Advent 2B
[…] as the Son of God prepares to return to judge the living and the dead. If looking ahead to an apocalyptic time seems at variance with “the Christmas spirit,” then week two of Advent may seem that way, too, as we are thrown out into the wilderness where grass withers and flowers fade and […]
Psalm 84
Proper 16B
[…] to which the psalmist refers at the end of Psalm 84. Illustration Idea A few years ago my family and I visited China. Our visit stretched over Christmas Day. As we strolled around an ancient walled city among people on whose lives Christmas Day seemed to make little impact, it hardly felt to us […]
Galatians 4:4-7
Christmas 1B
[…] So Paul spends almost the entire first four chapters of Galatians hammering away at the why and the how of this bad idea. On the Sunday after Christmas for which this Galatians 4 passage is assigned for the Lectionary, we have the opportunity to see in the birth of the Messiah the glorious conferring […]
Psalm 80:1-7
Advent 4C
[…] psalm. It is filled with dark and bitter imagery. It is written from the depths of sorrow. All in all, in short, this does not feel terribly Christmas-like. Yet in 2018 this is the Psalm assigned for a scant 2 days before Christmas Day. Probably most preachers will opt for the alternative reading of […]
Mark 13:24-37
Advent 1B
[…] in Advent directs us to the Olivet Discourse and Jesus’ words about the end of the world, it can be a stretch to do the seemingly UN- Christmas-like thing of pointing to the end of the world. Long about the time most people are switching all of their Christmas lights on to celebrate the […]
John 1:(1-9), 10-18
Christmas 2B
[…] has been staggeringly enough at all time highs. Maybe then this year the Lectionary text from John 1 that often gets assigned for the Second Sunday after Christmas is particularly apt and maybe in its own way hopeful. Because a lot of the time this past year we maybe had a hard time discerning […]
Search Results: christmas