Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and to the other apostles, ‘Brothers, what should we do?’ Acts 2. 36. - 41 In today's reading from Acts, Peter struggles to convince the people that the Jesus whom they crucified is now Risen. "God has made him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified," he says. The little line which they are recorded saying "they were cut to the heart" struck me today. Sort of like the cock crowing for Peter

Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, "I have seen the Lord" John 20. 18 In a magnificent Easter sermon yesterday, the Reverend Scott Brown suggested that the five most important words of the Easter gospels are "I have seen the Lord." In conversation after the sermon, Scott asked the parishioners what that statement might mean to them. My response was to ask "how, when, where, what, why?" What has happened in us when we can say "I have seen the Lord?" In many

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. John 20. 1 On my walk down to the river this morning, there was a bustle of activity. Though it was still dark, the amphitheatre at the senior citizen's center was lighting up. An Easter moon shone brightly over the road, and a man with several fishing rods in the water was trying his luck at catching something. The three empty

"He went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus..." Matthew 27. 57 - 66 When my father died, my mother and two brothers and I were there with him. After the initial wave of grief had passed, we put on our Martha hats and thought about the practical things we needed to do. Call the funeral home, make arrangements for the body to be picked up, start thinking about when and how we would bury him and celebrate his life. I made the call to my friend Aaron Bivens, the funeral

Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” 38  Pilate asked him, “What is truth?” When my sister in law died suddenly at age 39, my father in law said he would no longer be able to say "This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it." And he carried that feeling for the rest of his life. Good Friday stirs up the

Jesus said to him, “Truly I tell you, this very night, before the cock crows, you will deny me three times.” Matthew 26. 34 In the little community where we are living when we are in Florida, there is an errant rooster who patrols the grounds. He is an elegant fellow, beautifully appointed with a regal countenance who does not suffer fools gladly! In Mr. Rooster's mind, my Golden Retrievers are fools and when they are within Mr. Rooster's field of vision, he approaches with

"Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!" Matthew 21. 1 - 11 The Hebrew word for Hosanna is hoshiah na   which combines yasha  ("deliver/save") and anna  ("beg/beseech"), essentially meaning "I beg you to save!" or "Please save us!" I don't know about you, but that is not what I thought it meant all those years when I would cry it out and sing it during Palm Sunday services. I thought we were praising

Look, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey." Zechariah 9.9 On the day we call Palm Sunday, we remember Jesus' humble entry into Jerusalem on the back of a young donkey never ridden before. Followers wave palms and cry "Hosanna" lauding him as the Son of David, spreading their garments down before him. In this way, Jesus fulfilled Zechariah's prophesy that "your king comes to you righteous and victorious." On the

I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live...Ezekiel 47. 1 - 14 The great contemporary Hebrew scholar, Robert Alter, describes Ezekiel as "surely the strangest prophet of all" and his prophecy "a God intoxicated derangement." This story of the clinking and clanging of the rising of the dry bones is one of the oddest prophecies in scripture...And also one of the most poignant Old Testament stories of resurrection. So I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I

...from Padraig Ó Tuama's book again, a story from the Corrymeela Community in Northern Ireland: "I once asked a community member, Dave, who is blind what he thinks about this idea of blindness as a metaphor for lack of insight. He said, 'Don't use my impairment as a metaphor for your ignorance.'" Though we who are sighted struggle mightily to understand literal blindness (in our humble opinions), Dave's words speak adamantly to the truth that a miracle happened in this stor