To Live in the Light

Sermon for the Fifth Sunday in Lent
March 17, 2024

Let’s look at the last verse in this morning’s reading from 1 John 2. It shows us something about the translation we have in our pews that I talked about when we first got the New Living Translation. And that is about the philosophy behind it. It’s less a word-for-word translation and more of a thought-for-thought translation. If you look at the old Authorized Version, verse 10 begins this way: He that loveth his brother abideth in the light.

God's Poetry

Sermon for the Fourth Sunday in Lent
March 10, 2024

Rabbit holes.
I think we’ve talked about those before. It was originally a term taken from Lewis Carroll. He used it to open Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland—it’s where Alice ended up, chasing a white rabbit. These days, we use it to talk about surfing the web, and getting way too deep in a subject we often didn’t even know we were interested in.

Power and Wisdom

Sermon for the Third Sunday in Lent
March 3, 2024

Last week, we heard Jesus tell us to take up our cross and follow him. After all, the Lenten season is the time of year we’re most likely to talk this. Christians may talk and sing about the cross any time. But as we get closer to Good Friday and Easter, it’s a subject that’s on our mind more and more. We can’t properly celebrate the resurrection unless we remember Jesus’ death.

Take Up Your Cross

Sermon for the Second Sunday in Lent
February 25, 2024

It’s in Mark 8 that a conversation takes place that I think most of us remember. Jesus and his disciples are on a long road trip, and he asks them, “Who do people say that I am?”

“A prophet,” they answer him. “Some say John the Baptist, some say Elijah, and some say you’re one of the other prophets—but definitely a prophet.”

Driven

Sermon for the First Sunday in Lent
February 18, 2024

The oldest books in the New Testament are not the four gospels. In fact, that Gospel According to John is probably one of the last books of the Bible ever written. The first books were the letters of Paul. And of those, First and Second Thessalonians are the oldest—they were probably written just after A.D. 50. Most scholars agree that the first gospel to be written down was Mark, which came at least ten years later.

The Light Within

Sermon for Transfiguration Sunday
February 11, 2024

I can still remember where I was when I heard the news. I was driving on Loiza Street in Santurce, Puerto Rico. This was in the year 2000, and I was listening to WOSO, San Juan’s English-speaking radio station. And here’s the news that I heard. The Food and Drug Administration had just given permission to the California Prune Board to market their product not as prunes, but as dried plums.