John 6:51-69 “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” – so said many of Jesus’ disciples in today’s text. Maybe you’ve said those words at some time in your life, or at least thought them. Maybe you …
Mark 6:1-13, 2 Corinthians 12:1-10 Dear friends in Christ: The Gospel lesson just read begins with Jesus going back to preach in his home town. Most of us preachers have had the opportunity to do this at some point in …
Zechariah 9:9-12, Mark 11:1-11, Mark 14:1-9 What a beautiful thing this woman did! The text doesn’t tell us why she anointed Jesus, but we can assume that she had been moved by his ministry. Perhaps it was his care and …
Genesis 17 – Our Amazing and Surprising God! Dear friends: God calls, and God promises. When Jesus began his ministry, one of the first things he did was to call people to follow him. The Gospels record a number of …
Isaiah 40:21-31 Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus. Amen. Dear friends in Christ: The Gospel lesson we just read begins with Jesus performing acts of physical healing. Those …
Matthew 2:1-12 Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus. Amen. Dear friends in Christ: When Jesus was born, the message of his birth was first announced to shepherds. We …
John 8:31-36 Dear friends in Christ, today is a very special day. On this day, people throughout the world are observing the 500th anniversary of the beginning of a great movement that changed the world. 500 years ago, a little-known Augustinian …
The women who saw the empty tomb on that first Easter morning ran away from it with fear and great joy (Matthew 28:8). I’ve always been struck by that description. Fear and great joy—those are two emotions that don’t often …
Today’s Gospel reading is another of the long conversations, as recorded in John’s Gospel, between Jesus and a person he met during his days of ministry. In chapter three Jesus spoke to Nicodemus, a ruler of the people, who came …
Lenten Theme: The Art of Living by Faith Text: Romans 4:13-25 “You are dust, and to dust you shall return.” When the church says this to our face, while applying ashes to our face, it is reminding us, in the starkest and …