Christmas and Empire

When we sit down and read the Christmas story, as recorded for us in Luke, around our cozy living rooms surrounded by friends and families with warm drinks in our hands we often don’t pick up on the subversive nature of the story being read.  While sitting in our pews and holding our candles, raising [...]

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The Lesser to Be Greater

The Gospel lessons this year come predominately from Luke, thus this is where my studies have been focused.  It is well known that Luke is constantly showing how the marginalized are exalted in God’s Kingdom as clearly displayed in life of Jesus, showing that the lesser will be greater.  It is intriguing how Luke constructs [...]

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Transfiguration and the Lenten Journey

I realize that this post is a couple of weeks late, but the more I work through our lenten journey at our church the more importance Transfiguration Day takes.  I have come to appreciate the placement of the story of the Transfiguration in the Gospels in a completely different way since becoming a pastor.  A few days [...]

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The Samaritan Woman and Repentence

In John 4, it is recorded that Jesus knows about the woman’s relationships, that she has had 5 husbands and the one she is living with currently is not her husband.  Yet, unlike the beloved, though highly questioned as to its authority or accuracy, story of John 8 where Jesus instructs the lady to “sin [...]

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Mary, mother of Jesus, & Pentecost

A few questions for the online community: Mary, the mother of Jesus, and the women were with the disciples in “the upper room” waiting as Jesus had told them to (Acts 1:12-14).  And in 2:1 Luke writes that “they were all together in one place.”  Did the Spirit fall upon Mary and the women?  Did [...]

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“Revealed” and Spiritual Reality

“…until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.” (1 Peter 1:5) Often times it seems the church thinks of what is yet to come using terms such as ascending and descending.  Yet, Peter uses the word “revealed.”  The picture is that of the curtain being drawn, and [...]

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The Living Hope of Resurrection

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!  In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade.” (1 Peter 1:3-4) Here the Apostle Peter reminds the [...]

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Calvin Introducing 1 Peter

John Calvin writes:  ”The design of Peter in this Epistle is to exhort the faithful to a denial of the world and a contempt of it, so that being freed from carnal affections and all earthly hindrances, they might with their whole soul aspire after the celestial kingdom of Christ, that being elevated by hope, [...]

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The Easter Season

The Lord IS Risen! Easter truly is the greatest celebration in the Church calendar. It is on this day that we celebrate God’s awe-some triumph over His enemies as put on display in the Resurrection of Jesus the Messiah. Yet, after the day is done the church goes back to business as usual, forgetting the [...]

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Be Perfect

Last Sunday’s text ended with: “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Because I did not mention this much in the sermon, due to the volume of other material, I thought I would say something brief on this passage. This text is often used to scare people into repentance, reminding them of how [...]

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