Posted by dwhetter |
Today we begin our final week of our Lenten journey. In the church we call this Holy Week and it begins today with Palm/Passion Sunday, which I always find to be a very odd day. Today we began our time of worship with a celebration. Like those faithful followers back in the first century, we shouted Hosanna and we celebrated Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Our Messiah arrived…
Posted by dwhetter |
So did the “Greeks” that wanted to see Jesus get to see him or not? That is a question I ask every time I read this story. All we know is that when Andrew and Philip told Jesus that these folks wanted to see him, Jesus gave a cryptic reply and then began speaking to the crowd, then he offered a prayer for others to hear and then God spoke and then Jesus spoke to the crowd again. We…
Posted by dwhetter |
This verse is perhaps the most popular verse in the New Testament and it is considered by many as the best summary of Christianity as a whole. The verse became extremely popular in the 1970’s when Rollen Stewart, a self-proclaimed hippie with a rainbow afro wig, would dance around at NFL games holding up a sign that read, John 3:16. With sports being televised so much more and the growth…
Posted by dwhetter |
Today, and for the next two weeks, we will be reading our Gospel text from the Gospel of John and not the Gospel of Mark. Now in John’s Gospel, things often happen in a slightly different order than in the other Gospels and our story today is one of those stories.
In the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke the story of Jesus entering the temple overturning the tables of the money…
Posted by dwhetter |
I know I date myself when I do things like I am about to do, but how many of you remember this jingle: “Hold the pickles, hold the lettuce, special orders don’t upset us, all we ask is that you let us serve it your way. Have it your way, have it your way, at ....” Yes, at Burger King! Yes, for 40 years, Burger King promoted itself with the slogan of “Have it your way!”. That notion…
Posted by dwhetter |
As we begin the season of Lent, we begin with Jesus proclaiming the most critical point that he will proclaim throughout his life and ministry, “the Kingdom of God has come near…” (1:15). In Mark, as in Matthew and Luke, “the kingdom of God” is THE announcement around which the rest of Jesus’ words and deeds will revolve. But before Jesus can make this announcement, Mark…
Posted by dwhetter |
So have you been watching the Olympics? They can be addictive. Aside from hockey, though, I really don’t know anything about most of the winter sports. Although, I may know nothing about these sports, I still marvel at the abilities of those athletes. Did you see Mirai Nagasu? She is the first American female to land a triple axel in the Olympics. I get dizzy just thinking about doing…
Posted by dwhetter |
One of the things I don’t like about using lectionary readings is that we often read stories out of order, or begin in the middle of a story, and today is a perfect example of what I mean. Our gospel lesson today begins with the phrase “Six days later…” If you haven’t been reading the whole story from the beginning, you must be asking the question, what happened six days earlier?…
Posted by dwhetter |
We are creatures of habit, aren’t we? Now, I say this not as a negative, but as an honest statement of how we live our lives. In fact, I would argue that without habits we might not be able to function. Psychologists tell us that we all have an enormous amount of activities, or behaviors, that we must do every day. These behaviors include things like eating, speaking, working, playing……
Posted by dwhetter |
We have spent three of the last four weeks reading through the beginning of Mark’s Gospel and just here in the first chapter we have heard many voices speak out in this story. Three weeks ago, Mark began his Gospel with a voice of “one crying in the wilderness,” (1:3) John the Baptist, and in that same story we heard the voice of God proclaim, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you…