Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:
I pray you have had a blessed week.
It is hard for me to believe that the season of Easter is about to come to an end. I love the season of Easter. It is a time when we sing hymns like “Christ the Lord is Risen Today” and we begin every worship time with the great Easter proclamation, “Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!”…
Posted by dwhetter |
Right off the bat, we have a question about our story today, don’t we? Who is this Judas, (not Iscariot) that Jesus is answering? Well, he is one of “The Twelve.” Actually he is one of the 14 disciples that are identified by name as being in the group of “The Twelve” according to the four Gospels. Yes, if you go and read each of the Gospels, you will discover that when it comes…
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:
I pray you have had a blessed week.
I can’t remember exactly where, but there is a phrase that I read once that has always stuck with me. In the article I was reading, the author made the comment that, “The Holy Spirit often leads us places we do not want to go.” At the time, I was bothered by the statement because I thought, well,…
Posted by dwhetter |
As Jesus met with his disciples on that final evening, the night before he was crucified, he said, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another” (John 13:34). Love, love, love! How many times have we all heard this verse of Scripture? We all know it. In our lectionary we hear it at least once a year, on Maundy…
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:
I pray you have had a blessed week.
Our son and daughter-in-law celebrated their eighth wedding anniversary this past Tuesday. That morning, Jill and I received a text from them wondering if we would be interested in having dinner with our two grandchildren while they went out to dinner to celebrate. Well, you don’t have to ask us twice if…
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:
I pray you have had a blessed week.
The world is filled with voices trying to grab our attention, isn’t it? There are voices that want us to believe that we should be fearful of those that are different than us. There are voices that proclaim that unless we believe a certain way or act a certain way that God will not love us. There are voices…
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:
I pray you have had a blessed week.
Holy Week and Easter are always hectic times around the church. Between preparing for all the extra services, actually leading the services, and then adding to that all the additional, unforeseen things that inevitably come up, when I get to Easter and finish that last service, I am ready for things to get…
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:
I pray you had a blessed Easter.
Our Gospel text this coming Sunday, April 3, is the same text we read every year on the Second Sunday of Easter, John 20:19-31. Now, most of us refer to this story as the story of “Doubting Thomas,” but as I have said before, I don’t like to refer to Thomas in this way because I think it makes Thomas…
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:
I pray you have had a blessed Holy Week.
Easter is so early this year. Now, I know that the weather around here for the most part has been incredible already and many of us have flowers blooming in our yards, the daffodils are blooming at Salem, but in many places across this country people will go to church this Easter where trees will…
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:
I pray you have had a blessed week.
As I write this note, it is early Thursday morning, it is St. Patrick’s Day and although there are some fun stories in the news about St. Patrick’s Day, the majority of the news is filled with stories about our government and how it can’t seem to function, as it should. Today, our government is fighting…