During this year in which I have been pondering the Church Calendar and its seasons, I’ve also been thinking a bit about church worship services in general. How do we keep our worship practices rooted in the Universal Church, which receives direct nourishment from the Holy Spirit of God? One of the arguments against the […]
Tag: Gospel
On the Expansive Gospel
The season of Easter ends with a celebration of Jesus’ ascension. It’s another mountaintop moment of the Church Year and a fitting transition into Pentecost and the mindset that we should live with during the long stretch of Ordinary Time that lies ahead. The various gospel narratives all handle the last moments of Jesus’ earthly […]
On Clarification
The liturgical three-year cycle of gospel readings centers on the synoptic gospel texts of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Meanwhile, the gospel account attributed to the apostle John gets spread across all three years, with particular devotion designated annually during the seven-week season of Easter. Among the varying gospels, John is the most debated—from who really […]
On the Good Shepherd
One of my favorite “Easter eggs” of Eastertide is Good Shepherd Sunday. Nowadays often the fourth Sunday of Easter, this Christian sabbath day is all about the imagery of our Lord as a shepherd and we humans as the sheep. It is imagery that is rooted in the Old Testament scriptures (most famously, Psalm 23) […]
On Joyful Disbelief
Disbelief gets a hard rap, and sometimes for good measure. Jesus critiques the disbelief of the disciples quite often in the scriptures. However, the resurrection narratives found in the gospels remind us that not all disbelief is the same. After Jesus is buried in the tomb and all hope seems lost, the disciples are overwhelmed […]
On Point of View
A recurring theme on this blog has been that of respecting and honoring different perspectives. In the four gospel narratives, there is perhaps no greater point of deviation than what is told in the post-resurrection accounts. Each book seems to have an entirely different take on what happened after Jesus was buried. In the first […]
On Easter Morning
Oh happy day to outshine all other happy days! The Lord is risen! The Lord is risen, indeed! It’s easy to think that Christianity revolves around the crucifixion, however it is really anchored in the resurrection. Jesus’ celebrated triumph over the dead is the greatest mystery of them all and the greatest hope for humanity […]
On Simplicity
During the season of Lent, many Christ followers strive for more simplicity, with the hope of noticing the presence of God in the day-to-day and becoming more content with the routine blessings God provides. The discipline of simplification goes against the grain of many cultures, which value having much, and the bigger the better to […]
On Discipleship
Many of those who identify as Christians these days have a savior complex. Either they think they are called to be a savior, or they are looking for another humanly savior to preserve their worldview and way of life. However, when we ground our faith in the Gospel, we discover that we are not called […]
On Proclaiming Good News
During this period of the Church Calendar known as Epiphany or the “the time Epiphany”, we look back on the “firsts” of Jesus’ ministry. Recently in this series of reflections, we have touched on how Jesus’ mission is introduced and how the first disciples were called. It is appropriate for us to also look at […]
Relevant Reformation 