Tag: Cross
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Dying To Tell The Truth – A Sermon On John 18.1-19:42 For Good Friday
“That’s not a ditch I’m willing to die in.” You know that saying, right? You’ve probably heard others say it. Maybe you’ve said it. The thing that strikes me about that saying is that I’ve never heard anyone say, “That is a ditch I’m willing to die in.” Have you? And neither have I said Read more
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What If The Gospel Is Like A Backwards Bicycle?- A Sermon On Mark 8:31-38
Imagine trying to ride a bike but the steering has been reversed and is completely opposite to everything you’ve been taught about and experienced riding a bike. When you turn the handlebars to the left the wheel turns to the right. When you turn the handlebars to the right the wheel turns to the left. Read more
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Fields Of Pain – A Sermon On Matthew 9:35-10:8
There’s a lot of pain in the world today. But you don’t need me to tell you that. It’s an everyday reality; physical pain, emotional pain, spiritual pain, and the systemic pain of violence, injustice, poverty, racism, to mention just a few. We read about in the news. We see it in the tears of Read more
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On Days Like This – A Sermon On John 18:1-19:42 For Good Friday
I used to try to understand, explain, or make sense of this day, Good Friday. I don’t anymore. I’ve given that up. What do you say on days like this? What can be said? Besides, most of the explanations that I’ve heard or come up with myself don’t really satisfy. They are mostly ways of Read more
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Lifting Up Our Contradictions – A Sermon On John 3:14-21
Some of the funniest and most terrifying aspects of my life are my self-contradictions – the contradictions with which I live, the contradictions that live within me. My wife would probably say they are more aggravating and frustrating than funny. Most days my life is a living contradiction between what I say and what I… Read more
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Who Holds the Cross of Christ?
Pilate asked Jesus, “Do you not know that I have power to release you, and power to crucify you?” (John 19:10) Pilate thinks he holds the cross of Christ. Jesus knows otherwise. How we see and understand the cross is determined by who we believe holds the cross. In human hands the cross is imposed. Read more
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Crucifixion, A Love Story – A Sermon for Good Friday; John 18:1-19:42
The collect and readings for Good Friday may be found here. The following sermon is based on John 18:1 – 19:42. I have come to believe that the crucifixion did not kill Jesus. Crucifixion is merely the external force and circumstance of his death. At a deeper level the cross points to the intense relationship Read more
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Denying Self, Choosing Christ – A Sermon on Mark 8:31-38, Lent 2B
The collect and readings for the Second Sunday in Lent, Year B, may be found here. The following sermon is based on Mark 8:31-38. Then Jesus began to teach his disciples that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, Read more
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The Feast of the Holy Cross
September 14 is the Feast of the Holy Cross. In the Eastern Church it is called the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. The historian Eusebius, in his Life of Constantine, tells how that emperor ordered the erection of a complex of buildings in Jerusalem “on a scale of imperial magnificence,” to set forth as “an Read more
Interrupting the Silence 