Luke 21:25-36
Advent 1C
[…] I suppose it’s this way every year but at this moment late in the year 2015, it certainly looks as though we will be celebrating Advent and Christmas this year under the shadow of ISIS and all the mayhem it is unleashing on the innocent (and all the bombing campaigns and police raids the […]
Isaiah 64:1-9
Advent 1B
[…] it’s not just terrorists, abusers and polluters who have who have sinned against God. It’s also us, the very people who can hardly wait to celebrate God’s Christmas arrival. We too have continued to sin against God. So God didn’t just have to tear open the heavens to come to earth in order to […]
Zephaniah 3:14-20
Advent 3C
[…] what he commands. Seek righteousness, seek humility, perhaps you will be sheltered on the day of the Lord’s anger (2:1-3).” Not exactly “have yourself a merry little Christmas,” is it? This is not the kind of stuff people want to hear two Sundays before Christmas. I mean, the world is dark enough. We come […]
Luke 21:25-36
Advent 1C
[…] the equivalent of trying to empty the ocean one thimble-full at a time—but kingdom vision sees things differently! Of course and as always, we celebrate Advent and Christmas and we sing our carols and we light our little candles in an often dark and turbulent world. Many nations, including the United States, are living […]
Philippians 2:5-11
Lent 6B
[…] their voices, they gasped, “Who was that masked man?” That’s how the first century crowds responded when they encountered Jesus, the Godhead “veiled in flesh,” as the Christmas carol put it. To set up Paul’s deep answer to the question, it might be helpful to explore the various answers given by Jesus’ contemporaries (as […]
Hebrews 10:5-10
Advent 4C
[…] alone refers to Christ’s sacrifice on our behalf no less than five times. Jesus’ friends may wince at talk about Christ’s sacrifice (especially during the week of Christmas). However, the Spirit can use Hebrews 10 to help remind Jesus’ friends that he was born in Bethlehem’s manger in the long shadow cast by Calvary’s […]
Psalm 25:1-10
Advent 1C
[…] done away with. And so cue once more Psalm 25: If we are to follow the Savior whose birth we anticipate and then celebrate in Advent and Christmas, we need to do what Psalm 25 exhorts us to do: repent of the crookedness of altogether too many of the pathways we forge on our […]
Isaiah 64:1-9
Advent 1B
[…] every year. The hope we find in these Scripture text is not of the cozy, festive, cheery sort we expect to find in the lead up to Christmas. Instead, we remember that what we are waiting for is … judgment. Our hope begins with a baby in a manger but it finds its completion […]
Christmas A: Flutter of Angels
The Advent world is a world of angels. It’s a world alive with the flutter of angels. Our world, in contrast, is inhospitable to angels. It seems totally void of angels. This discrepancy between the Advent world and our world is the thought behind H. G. Well’s story, “The Wonderful Visit.” One day, so this…
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