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& now you finally know that The Holy Gospel according to St. Luke the 24th chapter ! The resurrected Jesus turns up in their midst; they look upon the wounds from that terrible day. Indeed, it is the same Jesus they followed, ate with, watched preform miracles, and then, horrifyingly, gawked at as the nails were driven through his hands and feet, and finally ran from as he died. Now, though; now here he is. It’s Jesus, and he still has the scars to prove it. Instead of being overjoyed, though, Luke tells us there was joy,yes;  but joy and disbelief, joy and wonder… It’s an odd detail, isn’t it? You’d think that after the terror and tragedy of the cross, Luke would be more than ready to move on, and talk about Jesus perfect victory that casts out all doubts. Only that isn’t what Luke does; which should serve as a perennial reminder that the truth is stranger than fiction. In that simple line, you could even call it throw away one, you get the ...

this i've tried and now refuse... The Holy Gospel according to St. John the 20th chapter! Later on that first Easter, the disciples had gathered together, but, fearful of the jewish leaders, had locked all the doors in the house. Jesus entered, stood among them, and said, “Peace to you.” Then he showed them his hands and his side.  The disciples, seeing the master with their own eyes, were exuberant. Jesus repeated his greeting: “Peace to you. Just as the Father sent me, I send you.” Then he took a deep breath and breathed into them. “Receive the Holy Spirit,” he said. “If you forgive someone’s sins, they’re gone for good. If you don’t forgive sins, what are you going to do with them?” But Thomas, sometimes called the Twin, one of the Twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. The other disciples told him, “We saw the Master.” But Thomas said, “Unless I see the nail holes in his hands, put my finger in the nail holes, and stick my hand in his side, I won’t beli...

by love are we thus bound The Holy Gospel according to St. John The intensity continued to build, hard as that may be to believe. So even those stone-hearted disciples couldn’t miss the significance of that night. As the Passover drew near, Jesus gathered these twelve for a meal.  Although they couldn’t have imagined it would be the last one they shared together with this Jesus; none of them could have missed the gravity of that evening, either… So they gathered with this Jesus they had been through so much with, and tried to make heads and tails of everything that was beginning to spin wildly out of control.  Suddenly though, in the middle of the meal, this Jesus stops, takes off his robe, gets a basin and water, and begins to do something embarrassing, embarrassing and inappropriate; he washes his disciples’ feet. As everything was coming to a crescendo, nothing was getting any more coherent for the disciples that night. Sure, at that time it ma...

you look for Jesus who is not here The Holy Gospel according to St. Mark ! Even on the most ordinary of occasions it’s a bit of an unsettling story, isn’t it? What, with the empty tomb, the young man announcing that Jesus isn’t there, he’s been raised, he’s ahead of them, in Galilee; just as he said . Yes, in it’s own way, it’s kind of a disquieting story…  As today is Easter Sunday, though ; what’s really unsettling about this story is how it ends . After hearing that Jesus is risen, the women don’t exclaim, ‘he is risen indeed, alleluia;’ rather they run off afraid , and they don’t say a a single, rotten word. Yes, it’s an unsettling story; especially today.  Maybe, though, it is a fitting Easter story. After all, it isn’t always easy to say “alleluia,’ is it?  That’s how it was for those women that first Easter.  After a night of undoubtedly restless sleep, they wake up at the crack of dawn, get everything together and go to THE t...

in the veil of great surprises... Jesus told them a parable about the need to pray always and not lose heart.                                   -Luke 18:1 The Gospel for Easter is the puzzling ending of Mark’s Gospel: As they (Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome) entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe; and they were alarmed. But he said to them, ‘Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.’ So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid. (Mark 16:1-8, abridged) For as unsettling as this ending is to the Gospel, ...

The Holy Gospel according to St. Mark ! Alongside the road; S. Central to be exact, sits a church. The people there live by the light of their best window.  The window was a gift, actually; after members there had to rebuild after a fire destroyed the first building they purchased to worship in.  This window isn’t a Tiffany masterpiece, by any means. In fact, as far as church windows go, it’s pretty boilerplate, standard; Christ in the clouds, opening his hands in welcome. But the folks there, alongside the road, they live in the light of this window. The sanctuary, in fact, was designed to direct everyone’s sight to that stained-glass depiction of the resurrected Savior.  So the folks who worship there, week after week, live in the light of that window; their best one… Some have been going there so long, the window has begun to blend in; and they can only remember the days when the window first struck them. Memories of wondering if those we...

The Holy Gospel according to St. John Today we lay Jeanne to rest.  Her struggles with her health this past year had taken their toll on Jeanne; and so although we do grieve today, we also take some solace in the fact that she is at peace now. That isn’t to say, it was easy getting to this point. When she was at the care center or hospital she longed to be home, to have coffee with the gals. Then, the day the doctor told her and her family, there wasn’t any more that could be done; Jeanne did struggle; at first . She would often talk to me about being a little apprehensive about being laid to rest; not knowing exactly what was next. And I know that, shortly after her doctor visit, she also told some of you that she was afraid… Yet between then and last Saturday Jeanne passed peacefully.  And not only that; because after that talk with the doctors, after Jeanne had time to pray, read her Bible, and talk with her loved ones, she was able to say she ...