Exodus 34:29-35 Sermon Commentary
Transfiguration Sunday C
Commentary: It’s instructive that the season of Epiphany, which begins with a bright star in the East, leading the Magi to worship the Christ-child concludes with Transfiguration Sunday, in which glory and shining, brilliance and light are, again, prominent themes. This imagery would have been at home in the Ancient Near Eastern imagination as, according…
Psalm 99 Sermon Commentary
Transfiguration Sunday C
Psalm 99 might seem to be a better fit for the Reign of Christ Sunday later this year than for Transfiguration Sunday. There is really nothing in the accounts of Christ’s transfiguration that point to God—or Christ Jesus—as King. But that is what Psalm 99 is all about. Probably if we wanted to make a…
Luke 9:28-36 Sermon Commentary
Transfiguration Sunday C
Comments, Questions, and Observations The liturgical calendar gives us a glimpse and experience of glory before reminding us that we are dust and to dust we shall return. Transfiguration Sunday ends Epiphany even as our heels are nipped by Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent—a season where we will try our very hardest to…
2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2 Sermon Commentary
Transfiguration Sunday C
It may be a good thing that Transfiguration Sunday happens only once a year. After all, it’s not just that Jesus’ transfiguration is even to his closest friends among the most puzzling moments in his earthly life. It’s also that the RCL editors seemed to struggle to find passages outside of the gospels that speak…
Psalm 37:1-11, 39-40 Sermon Commentary
Epiphany 7C
Psalm 37 is a little bit all over the place. The Lectionary would have us skip 27 of this poem’s 40 verses but to preach well on this psalm, we need to at least read through verses 12-38. And if we do so, then we see that Psalm 37 is at once highly realistic and…
Luke 6:27-38 Sermon Commentary
Epiphany 7C
From the highs of naming names and giving the high and mighty the what for last week, we come down to the realization of what God’s mercy means for all of us this week. It turns out that those who are blessed are meant to love, do good towards, and bless and pray for those…
Genesis 45:3-11, 15 Sermon Commentary
Epiphany 7C
It matters how you tell the story. After chapters and chapters of some narrator telling us Joseph’s story, with very few places where Joseph, himself, gives meaning to the unfolding events. After the most recent three chapters where we experience the brothers living out their story until, two weeks ago, Judah finally spilled the whole…
1 Corinthians 15:35-38, 42-50 Sermon Commentary
Epiphany 7C
The Scriptures’ “perspicuity” is for some Christians a familiar but sometimes misunderstood concept. By it Jesus’ followers basically mean that the Holy Spirit makes clear what God wants to communicate through the Scriptures to God’s people and world. So we sometimes say the Spirit makes perspicuous the Scriptures’ central truths like God’s creation of everything…
Luke 6:17-26 Sermon Commentary
Epiphany 6C
Along with a number of his others disciples, the newly minted inner twelve have come down the mountain with Jesus. The plain where Jesus stops them is full of people: great crowd of disciples, great multitudes from all over. They are all there because of Jesus. The people have come to hear him and be…
Sermon Commentary Library
Our weekly sermon commentaries are Lectionary-based, which across its three-year cycle, encompass a vast array of biblical texts. Filter the Sermon Commentary Library to search Scripture texts by book and chapter to find commentary, illustrations, and reflections to spark ideas.
Looking for something else? View our Heidelberg Catechism sermon resources and our Reformed Connections to the RCL section that traces Lectionary texts to specific parts of the Heidelberg Catechism and the Belgic Confession.