Month: March 2024

Easter, March 31, 2024: Isaiah 25:6-9; Acts 10:34-43; Mark 16:1-8; Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24 The journey of Holy Week is intense. We walk with Jesus and his friends through triumph and despair. Thursday night and Friday, I find, are devastating. Watching the stripping of the altar, attending a service in a church empty of all its…

Palm Sunday/The Sunday of the Passion, March 24, 2024: Mark 11:1-11 or John 12:12-16; Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29; The Passion: Isaiah 50:4-9a; Philippians 2:5-11; Mark 15:1-39; Psalm 31:9-16 Today we experience what I’ve come to think of as whiplash Sunday: we begin with the joyous procession into Jerusalem with palms, and end with the death of…

Fifth Sunday of Lent, March 17, 2024: Jeremiah 31:31-34; Hebrews 5:5-10; John 12:20-33; Psalm 51:1-13 “I will put my law within them, and I will write it in their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” (Jeremiah 31:33) “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies,…

Fourth Sunday in Lent, March 10, 2024: Numbers 21:4-9; Ephesians 2:1-10; John 3:14-21; Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22 Today our gospel includes John 3:16, which for many evangelical Christians is the central text of their faith: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not…

Third Sunday in Lent, 3 March 2024: Exodus 20:1-17; 1 Corinthians 1:18-25; John 2:13-22; Psalm 19 I always find it interesting how a Sunday’s readings echo and connect to each other. Today is particularly striking. It is the middle of Lent, and we are reminded in today’s Psalm that “the Heavens declare the glory of…