Sharing a meal with Jesus and hearing the scriptures are the two main elements of our worship service every Sunday. Both happen in our gospel reading today. Jesus and his disciples share a breakfast of broiled fish while he explains to them the meaning of his suffering, death and resurrection. In fact, the gospel for […]
Hiding behind locked doors after the tomb was found empty, Jesus’ disciples wondered what to do next. They were at a dead end until the risen Jesus came and stood among them and breathed peace into them. Our world also hides away behind locked doors of fear, prejudice, anger and violence. Can Jesus breathe peace […]
Christ is risen! Jesus is alive, and God has swallowed up death forever. With Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome, we may feel confused, afraid, terrified, unsure of what to make of the empty tomb and the promise of new life. But this is why we gather: to proclaim, witness, praise, and […]
This day is intense as we pivot from triumphant shouts of “Hosanna” and palms in Jesus’ parade to look towards the somber events to come later this week. In the middle of these stories we hear about the unnamed woman who anoints Jesus as a prophetic act before he is crucified. Her unconventional gesture of […]
We all have moments of heartbreak in our lives. It’s part of being human. But when our hearts are broken, it is like the turning of soil in the spring to be planted with new seeds and the hope of something new. Jesus tries to explain his coming death and resurrection using the image of […]
Sometimes the Bible is just flat-out weird. Our readings today include a strange and mysterious story of poisonous snakes with the Israelites in the wilderness and a strange and mysterious conversation that Jesus has with Nicodemus at night. The thing that causes sickness and suffering in these stories is transformed into an agent of healing. […]
What’s hiding in your closet? The Ten Commandments call us to trust that God will provide all things that we need. Therefore we don’t need to spend our whole lives accumulating more. When Jesus throws the merchants out of the temple, he is cleaning house, defending the worship of God alone and rejecting the ways […]
What does it mean to follow Jesus in the way of the cross? What does it mean to trust God’s promise to work in and through the lives of our elders like Abraham and Sarah? How can we care for each other on our journey through life? Today we hear from guest preacher Pastor Jeff […]
In these stories of flood and wilderness, we hear about the power of a new beginning, a fresh start. However, a fresh start isn’t always the same as a clean slate. It doesn’t always look pretty, but God takes our raw materials and builds something new out of them. God takes what we are and […]
At his transfiguration, Jesus becomes dazzlingly bright and his face and clothes shine like the sun. But what about the others there? They don’t get the “glow up” treatment that Jesus does, but they too are transfigured in a slower and less sparkly way. God calls and transfigures us to shine brightly as agents of […]