John 3:1-13 I am the one who comes by night; I am the one who comes. Forgive me for having the cowardice to come by night, but please remember that I am one that comes to see and learn. Some will deride me, saying, “He is a teacher of the law and should know all things. He is embarrassed, and this is why he comes by night.” Others will ridicule me, saying “He is a coward, afraid of those in... Read more
John 2:13-25 I love the fact that Jesus cleansed the Temple, and especially the fact that He made a whip of cords and overturned the tables and drove out the money changers from the Temple. This single passage does more than perhaps any other passage to drive out of the Church the false images of Jesus Christ that have been propagated for centuries, especially, it seems, since the late 19th century. No more Bearded-Lady-Christs for me; no more Victorian Sissies;... Read more
John 2:1-12 As we proceed through the season of Epiphany this year, it’s good for us to rehearse the origin and themes of the season. Epiphany comes from a Greek word which means to appear or reveal. Epiphany is one of the earliest of Christian holy days and dates from the 2nd century in its earliest form. The ancients believed that January 6 was the winter solstice, that time when the days of the year begin becoming longer – in... Read more
John 1:35-51 In this morning’s seemingly quiet lesson I see a mountain filled with thunder and lightning and earthquakes, for in this morning’s lesson I see Jesus Christ calling men to Himself to be His disciples: I see the beginning of the New Covenant, and I see Satan fall like lightning from the sky. John presents this heaven and earth and humanity-changing series of events in such simple and humble language that the grand and glorious work of God may... Read more
John 1:19-34 Flannery O’Connor, the great Roman Catholic novelist of the 20th century, once said: “The novelist with Christian concerns will find in modern life distortions which are repugnant to him, and his problem will be to make these appear as distortions to an audience which is used to seeing them as natural; and he may well be forced to take ever more violent means to get his vision across to this hostile audience. When you can assume that your... Read more
John 1:1-18 Years ago one Christmas, in my adventures with a friend of mine, we stumbled across the New Mexico town of Madrid. Madrid had formerly been a coal mining town and then a ghost town, and most recently artists had started to re-colonize it. But back in the 1930s Madrid had a spectacular display of Christmas lights, so bright that TWA re-routed their flights to behold the glory of this small mining town’s lights. When the town died, so did... Read more
Acts 11:1-18 “What God has cleansed you must not call common” (verse 9). That is the message this morning. St. Peter had a hard time accepting that when God called all foods clean, he, Peter, had better stop calling some of them unclean (or “common” or “profane”). The Jews had a hard time accepting that when God called the Gentiles clean they had better stop calling them unclean. And us? We seem to have a hard time accepting that when... Read more
Romans 15:8-21 The vast majority of you who are reading this are Gentiles and if so, God has a special message of hope for you this morning. For this is the Day of Epiphany when the whole Church celebrates the revelation of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles. More than just an asterisk in world or sacred history, the coming of Christ to the Gentiles is nothing less than the destruction of the Old Covenant and the birth of the much... Read more
Luke 3:15-22 “What shall we do then?” Imagine that you are in 1st century Israel, minding your own business, groaning under the Roman Empire and looking with weariness and almost complacency for the Messiah. Suddenly, someone dressed in camel skins and a leather belt and eating bugs and bug by-products arrives in the region aroundJordan. He attracts a lot of people, not so much by his weird threads and snacks but by his voice. Before you can even see him,... Read more
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Monday of the 2nd Sunday after Epiphany – John 3:14-21
John 3:14-21 When did John 3:16 become the most famous verse in the Bible? I’m not sure. If you had to pick only one verse in the Bible to memorize, you probably couldn’t do better, although there are many others equally worthy. What I fear is that anyone would think that the verse is sufficient by itself. Implicit in this wonderful verse about the love of God is the sinister antithesis of the love of God: man’s disobedience and unlove... Read more