So, It’s Easter. Yes, it’s still Easter. Easter is a season, not just a day. A fifty day season to be exact. Too bad there isn’t a catchy little song, like, “on the 34th day of Easter my true love gave to…” But, alas. There isn’t. And, alas—if your church is anything like any church I’ve ever been too, attendance will be a little smaller this week than it was last week. Perhaps it will […]
In the history of Christian thought there have been many theories of how we are made at-one with God (atonement). One theory which we find referenced as early as the 500’s AD, called the “Ransom Theory,” or the”Classic Theory” suggests that because we are sinful that we actually belong to Satan. The Ransom theory, building itself on the verse from Paul, “you were bought with a price” (1 Corinthians 6:20) identifies Jesus’ death with his […]
It’s interesting that while the Last Supper was an event that so obviously happened in the evening (it is a supper, after all), most of our commemorations of that event occur in the morning. On the night before Jesus died, he took bread…after supper he took the cup. But, the context in which we say those words and celebrate that meal today is usually far closer to breakfast. Brunch, at best.
The following is a reflection on Mark 16:1-8, the secondary Gospel lesson for Easter.
The following is a reflection on the Passion in the Gospel of Mark. For a version of the Prayers of the People based on the Christ Hymn in Philippians, suited for use on Palm Sunday, click here. The portrayal of the Passion and Crucifixion in the Synoptics differs from the Gospel of John. In the Synoptics the Crucifixion is a moment of agony. Jesus is screaming screams of abandonment while being tortured.
The following is a reflection on Hebrews 5:5-10, the Epistle Lesson for the Fifth Sunday in Lent, according to the Revised Standard Lectionary. Hebrews 5:1-10 is the Epistle Lesson for Proper 24B. Abram had been told by God to pick up from his land—the only home he had ever known—and go to a new place.You can’t possibly imagine how big this is unless you’ve ever been among people who are rooted to their land through […]
The following is a reflection on John 3:14-21, the Gospel lesson for the Fourth Sunday in Lent, Year B, according to the Revised Common Lectionary. The scene of the brazen serpent (in Numbers 21:4-9) immediately makes me recall the serpent in the Garden of Eden. That the Israelites were punished for their thanklessness with deadly biting serpents, and then forced to look upon the image of another serpent to find a cure, makes me think […]
The following is a reflection on John 2:13-22. the Gospel lesson for the Third Sunday in Lent, Year B, according to the Revised Common Lectionary. But he was speaking of the temple of his body. In my imagination, it went something like this: It was a stunningly beautiful morning. You know that kind of morning? When the sun just seems to shine brighter, and the sky is so brilliant blue that it makes you stop […]
On the cross you don't just lose your life, but you do so in a wholly unfashionable way.
I think Mark, and Jesus, also believed that the spiritual life and ministry itself should be shrouded in urgency. When life and death, light and darkness, hope and despair, love and hate are at stake, there is no time for laziness. There isn't time for ho...hum...what to do now? No time for commissions to endlessly propose another commission to begin a study, and report back in four years, so that another commission can consider the study and propose another one. No.