Sermons from March 2024
Resurrection happens in the dark
Easter 2024 Happy Easter! So, this Easter we hear the resurrection story from Mark’s gospel, which I usually avoid, but using John’s version, because the ending to Mark is notoriously odd. In Mark, the tomb is empty (apart from the messenger), but nobody gets to see Jesus or touch the nail holes in his hands. There is no great commission, no recounting of the Hebrew Scriptures or a meal shared with travelers to Emmaus, and no intimate conversation with…
Do we wish to see Jesus?
5 Lent – March 17, 2024John 12:20-33 “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” The setting is Jerusalem, the occasion is Passover, and the people making the request are Gentiles, visiting the city for its traditional religious festivities. “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” It sounds so simple. A straightforward request. But is it, really? Is it ever? Maybe it’s one of those questions that asks more than we could ever realize. Perhaps it’s an example of “be careful what you wish…
Snakes and wolves
4 Lent – March 10, 2024John 3:14-21 We have an interesting pairing of stories today – one from the Old Testament Book of Numbers, and one from John’s Gospel. In the Old Testament story, the Israelites, having lost patience yet again with the hardships of life in the desert, speak out against God and Moses. “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness?” they ask. “For there is no food and no water,…
Your temple
3 Lent – March 3, 2024John 2:13-22 All four gospels include an account of Jesus’ disruption at the temple. Matthew, Mark and Luke all place this story at the end of Jesus’s ministry, sandwiching it between his triumphal entry into Jerusalem and the parable of the tenants. John, however, puts the story at the beginning of Jesus’s ministry, after the changing of water into wine at the wedding in Cana, which makes it one of his first public acts. Both of these…