2 Peter 3:8-15a
Advent 2B
[…] text for the second Sunday of Advent is a vivid reminder that Advent is not only about the coming of the “tender and mild” baby Jesus at Christmas, but also about the Coming of God in the terrifying Day of the Lord. Frankly, no one really wants to think about that Day, especially during […]
Four Pages: The Journey Is Too Much
[…] them back together with the glue of grace. I once read a story about Tommy, a little six-year-old boy in Kindergarten. For a couple of weeks before Christmas all the children in the class worked on a very special present for their parents and on the final day of school before the Christmas holiday […]
Psalm 148
Christmas 1B
Some years back at a worship service we used St. Francis of Assisi’s poem “Canticle of the Sun” as part of a responsive reading. There was, alas, a slight typo in the bulletin that made it sound at one point as though we were worshiping Mother Earth. This led a rather conservative member of my…
Psalm 147:12-20
Christmas 2A
Two rather striking features to this psalm leap out at you. First, there is the singularly positive, sunny statements about how God has strengthened Jerusalem, given peace within Israel’s borders, and just generally provides a warm and safe environment for God’s people. The second striking feature is the celebration at the end of Psalm 147…
Mark 1:1-8
Advent 2B
[…] on, Mark, go back, get back to angels and shepherds and stars and stables and mangers and all that good stuff. This is Advent not Epiphany. It’s Christmas, for pete’s sake, and the last place we want to be in December is in the middle of some dry, dusty wilderness where someone is screaming […]
Isaiah 64:1-9
Advent 1B
[…] you come.” O Come, O Come, Immanuel….” Perfect! Except that many people don’t want to hear something like this the Sunday after Thanksgiving and four weeks before Christmas. What we want is the holidays, good cheer, “a merry little Christmas.” Especially this year, a year devastated by COVID, riven by racial division, and roiled […]
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