December 7, 2022 Good afternoon, ADVENT I wake to a world riddled with mystery:darkness shot through with the first ray of light.December and still still, the ladybug wants in. Wants to sheltering that thin place between the glass and wooden frame of the patio door. Look: a table spread with star-shaped sprinkled sugar cookies, a shimmer of […]
November 22, 2022Good afternoon,“Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written“ John 21:25 We are at the end of John. Here in the last chapter, we have two stories and then the […]
November 21, 2022 (My dad would be 106 years old today ) Good afternoon,” This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah the son of David, the son of Abraham… ” — Matthew 1:1 This gives us the end of the story in the first sentence of the Gospel. Jesus is the Messiah, the awaited person from the various […]
October 17, 2022Good afternoon,”… with men needing to be men, just imagine how Jesus would be treated for washing feet, weeping with others , for being single, for riding a donkey instead of a horse, for loving his enemies rather than fighting them and for telling them to put their swords away . ” Rich Villodas This is […]
October 18, 2022Good afternoon,( back to the Gospel of John )” He [ Joseph of Arimathea ] was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night. Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds. Taking Jesus’ body, the two of them wrapped it, with the spices, in strips of linen. This was in […]
October 11, 2022 Good afternoon, ” For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this ? “. Mordecai to […]
October 12, 2022 Good afternoon, ” Jesus is dead, long live Jesus Christ “Read John 19: 31-37 Finally, the other two people on the crosses are mentioned. Jesus has died too. John ties the death of Jesus here to some Old Testament prophecy . His legs were not broken and his side was pierced. Someone has told […]
September 20, 2022 Good afternoon, back to the trial… John 18:18-27” You are a King then? ” said Pilate. Jesus answered, ” You are right in saying I am a King. In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth […]
September 19, 2022 ( the funeral services for the Queen ) Good afternoon, Flooding in Pakistan Deaths 1508 Injured 12,758 Roads destroyed 12,718 kms Bridges destroyed 390 Houses destroyed 1,817,550 Livestock deaths 927,543 People affected 33 million These numbers are numbing. I cannot imagine what this kind of disaster looks like. It is beyond the numbers. Each of these houses wrecked are of […]
August 29, 2022 Good afternoon,” Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is.” Frederick Buechner David Brooks wrote about Frederick Buechner in the weekend edition of the New York Times. Last week I wrote in my blog about the influence that Buechner had on me as a person, and as a […]