Words of Welcome

  Gustav Dore, Jesus in the Wilderness Luke 4:1-13 The Lenten season begins on Ash Wednesday, which reminds us that we begin as dust and to dust we will return. The Gospel reading for the First Sunday of Lent takes us into the wilderness, where Jesus undergoes a series of tests given to him by the devil. This wilderness ordeal takes place immediately after Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan. According to Luke, after his baptism, Jesus was filled with the Holy Spirit, who then led him into the wilderness. While he was in the Wilderness, Jesus fasted for forty days and nights, after which he was tempted by the devil. The forty days Jesus spent in the wilderness form the basis of our Lenten season, whether or not we join Jesus in his fast.  Over the centuries many have followed Jesus into the desert, hoping to purge themselves of spiritual distractions and sin. Desert fathers like St. Anthony went into the desert and practiced extreme forms of asceticism. According to their testimo...

Matthew 14:13-21 After Israel crossed the sea to freedom, they began to complain that Moses had led them into the desert to die of starvation. Slavery was bad, but starvation was worse. God had compassion on the people, and promised to give them bread from heaven  (Exodus 16:1-4 ). Then, the morning after God made this promise, the people looked out and found a white substance covering the ground. They gathered it up and made bread from it. They called it manna. This manna sustained the people of Israel during their journey across the desert ( Exodus 16:13ff ).  As we continue with our “Eating with Jesus” sermon series, we hear Matthew’s report that Jesus has retreated to a deserted place after Herod Antipas had John the Baptist beheaded. Most likely he went into the wilderness to pray about his future. Would his fate be the same as John’s? It was there, in the wilderness, that Jesus shared bread from heaven with hungry people caught in a deserted place. Accordin...

Mark 1:9-15 Each Sunday we pray: “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”  What does this request of God mean? What is this heavenly reality that we seek to experience here on earth? After his baptism and sojourn in the wilderness, Jesus went into Galilee preaching the good news that God’s realm was near at hand? What does Jesus’ preaching mission have to do with you and me? How is this good news? On the first Sunday of Lent, the lectionary readings from the Gospels focus on Jesus’ sojourn in the wilderness where he faced a time of testing before he began his public ministry. While Matthew and Luke are a bit more expansive than Mark, they all tell us that Jesus experienced what some would call an ordeal. In many cultures young people go through some kind of rite of passage. It might simply be a ceremony, like confirmation or baptism, or it might be something more demanding, like going out in the wilderness and facing down a lion. When you ...

Jeremiah 31:1-6 It may have come early this year, but today is Easter Sunday. Therefore, it’s time to celebrate. Easter is one of those holidays that combines religious and nonreligious elements, and you get to choose which part to emphasize. For many people, it’s a time to color eggs and hide them; a time to eat chocolate bunnies, and it’s a time to bring out our new spring clothes. Yes, today is a day to wear our spring best; maybe, even put on a new hat. Back in the day, if you can believe the movies, Easter was the day when people got all dressed up and paraded their new stuff in front of their neighbors. Irving Berlin wrote the music for a movie with the title Easter Parade , starring Judy Garland and Fred Astaire. Now that musical really didn’t have anything to do with Easter, but apparently they did have fashion parades back in the old days – before any of us were around. Easter is also a celebration of spring. We celebrate the rebirth of nature, of the flowers and the trees, wh...