Jeremiah 31:7-14
Christmas 2B
It takes so long for Christmas to get here. We wait and wait through the long season of Advent for the coming of the Lord. Then in one day we celebrated his coming, and we’re done. No wonder many non-liturgical Christians simply ignore Advent and spend a month celebrating Christmas. Such a miraculous event […]
Christmas B: The Shepherds Returned
[…] startle you with their freshness. But I mention this novel because of another motif or theme that weaves through the book–a theme that may well fit our Christmas reflections today. Not surprisingly, Rev. Ames’s impending death has turned his mind toward thoughts about heaven. Yet the more he thinks about heaven, the more fond […]
Titus 3:4-7
Christmas Day A
I suspect that few preachers will employ this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson as a Christmas Day “stand-alone text.” That doesn’t, however, mean that Titus 3:4-7 has no place in a Christmas message. It, in fact, offers a way for Jesus’ friends to think about just why Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem is so important. While many […]
Psalms 96 and 97
Christmas Day A
[…] of readings. I was irritated this time because once again the Lectionary selects a passage that it focused on just a few months ago. The Psalms for Christmas Eve and Day in this liturgical year are Psalms 96 and 97. But I just wrote on Psalm 97 on May 2 and Psalm 96 on […]
Christmas
[…] very life. When you really think about it, this is the amazing thing. The child has a belly button. This morning we read John’s version of the Christmas story, if you can call it that. It’s not much of a story. At first glance it seems more like a heavy theological treatise. But if […]
Isaiah 61:10-62:3
Christmas 1B
My wife and I have a friendly but persistent discussion about on what date we should begin singing Christmas carols. Were it up to her, our home’s halls would start ringing with carols the day after American Thanksgiving. Were it up to me, we’d begin singing Christmas carols roughly one week before Christmas Day. […]
Titus 2:11-14
Christmas Day A
Yes, this text is aptly Christmas-like enough, being all about the “appearing” or Epiphany of God’s Son into our world. It’s all about God’s “indescribable gift” to the world and so has plenty of Advent and Christmas Day resonances. Yet in a real way this is the Christmas story for the day after Christmas, […]
Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19
Advent 4A
A scant three days before Christmas this year, the Lectionary via Psalm 80 takes us out of any setting we might ordinarily associate with the holidays and settles us instead into a very bleak landscape. There can be no missing in Psalm 80—despite the Lectionary’s attempted leap-frog over the starker verses in the middle […]
Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19
Advent 4A
Comments, Observations, and Questions A week before Christmas this year, the Lectionary via Psalm 80 takes us out of any setting we might ordinarily associate with the holidays and settles us instead into a very bleak landscape. There can be no missing in Psalm 80—despite the Lectionary’s attempted leap-frog over the starker verses in […]
Isaiah 63:7-9
Christmas 1A
[…] short, the opening of Isaiah 63 is far from pleasant and a far cry from anything we’d care to consider for very long on this Sunday after Christmas and on New Year’s Day 2023. Yet this is the context for today’s Old Testament Lectionary selection: bloody conquest of the nations on one side, a […]
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