Search Results

In Luke 14:25–33, Jesus’ teaching takes a sobering turn as he underlines the demands of discipleship. Preparing to engage this from the pulpit, preachers may wish first to render vividly the crowds’ joyous amazement at (...)

The Trinity presented to us in John is a manifestation of God’s love for us, a way of opening a door to the mystery of God that allows us to see ourselves embraced by it.   (...)

When caught in between waiting and pain, human souls long for either a word of hope or a song in the Lord’s land. With suffering comes the forfeiture of witnessing and mission on the part (...)

The liturgical season of Easter draws to a close with Jesus’ final words to his friends before his arrest. In John 13-17 Jesus has been comforting, instructing, and preparing “his own” (as his friends are (...)

The wording of the Proper Preface for Holy Communion varies a bit as we move through the church calendar, but it always ends with these or very similar words: “And so, with all the choirs (...)

As is the case with many lectionary texts, something is lost when this passage is not read in its literary context.1 The context of this passage, of course, is John’s account of Jesus’ last supper (...)

In Wes Howard-Brook’s important book, Come Out, My People: God’s Call Out of Empire in the Bible and Beyond, he shows that the root of religion, religio means to “bind again,” suggesting that we can (...)

Context and intertext These verses in John 19 continue to the next stage of the Passion Narrative. Having been found innocent by Pilate, yet threatening enough to be sentenced to death, Jesus is handed over (...)

As the moment of Jesus’ death approaches in this short passage, we find two notes about how Jesus is fulfilling Scripture through these events. This may seem to be a story about human sin, cruelty, (...)

Mary Magdalene, whom we met at the cross in John 19:25, comes to the tomb early on Sunday morning. John does not introduce Mary as someone who had multiple demons cast out (Luke 8:2). And (...)