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Read MoreAuthor: Chris Kelly
What Day is Today
Text: Matthew 28:1-10
This is not a day of sweet contentment. This is not the day that resolves Holy Week’s mysteries. This is not the explanation. It is instead a day of disruption. Of new mysteries made.
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Read MorePalm and Passion
Text: Matthew 26:14—27:66
Other texts: Matthew 21:1-11
There is a lot of hoopla today, in a seriously religious kind of way. And it will continue throughout this week until next Sunday, Easter Sunday. This is the central moment in the church year, far outweighing Christmas, and we rightly make a big deal of it.
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Read MoreResurrection Life
Text: Ezekiel 37:1-14
Other texts: John 11:1-45
Hooray. A warm sunny day. Spring finally has forced its way to the front, pushing winter to the back of the line. The crocuses’ prematurity has been vindicated. We can breath again. A fitting day for texts whose theme is clearly resurrection and rebirth.
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Read MoreSimple Suffering
Text: John 9:1-41
A common way to interpret the Gospel of John is to consider it to have two parts. In this view, the first part is called the book of signs and the second part the book of glory. The first part contains seven stories, which we might call miracle stories. For example, the first of these is the changing of water into wine at the wedding feast at Cana. Each of these stories is described by John as a sign. They point to something. What they point to is the glory of God embodied in the person of Jesus Christ. We are supposed to pay attention, like the famous smart dog, to the thing pointed to more than the finger pointing to it.
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Read MoreNo Tent
Text: John 4:5-42
Other texts: Exodus 17:1-7
It is common to refer to people new to the habit of going to church as “seekers.” Some churches have special worship for seekers, different from worship for others, which I guess they could call “finders.”
Read MorePeople of the Cross
Text: John 3:1-17
We are people of the cross. A church, a faith, of the cross. This is a tale of three crosses.
The first cross is a crucifix. Jesus on the cross. A physical, embodied, suffering human.
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Read MorePrecise Bliss
Text: Matthew 4:1-11
Other texts: Genesis 3:1-7
The Gospels are not exactly history. They are a different form of writing, a different genre. They tell a truth, but the order of presentation and the rules of evidence are not the same as a modern history might be. What is left in or left out has a particular purpose. Which is to reveal God in the person and life of Jesus Christ. Every passage in the Bible was a choice made by the original compilers, and a choice repeated century after century by copyists.
Read MoreCredibility
Text: Matthew 17:1-9
We have to ask ourselves: is this story credible?
Even for Peter, it is too much. Even for Peter—Peter, the most enthusiastic, observant, faithful disciple of Jesus—Peter, the disciple who just identified Jesus as the Messiah—even for Peter it is overwhelming and weird.
Read MoreDangers of Mercy
Text: Matthew 5:38-48
Other texts: Leviticus 19:1–2, 9–18
The Bible is full of information about how God wishes the world to be. It contains lots of statements about what we should do as a culture, a nation, and as individuals within communities, to make it that way. We loosely refer to all these statements as laws. The Ten Commandments are examples, and though they are more accurately called the Ten Words (decalogue is the formal name), they are clearly commands. Imperatives. Do this and do not do this.
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