Acts 16:16-34 John 17:20-26 While certainly the drama in our lesson from Acts peaks once Paul and Silas find themselves in prison, it is what led up to their being beaten, bound and imprisoned that first captures my imagination this week. For I can’t help but wonder what happened to the slave girl who was …
Category: John
If We Have Love For One Another
John 13:31-35 This last Sunday night we spent some time thinking about forgiveness with our confirmation youth. Specifically, we were focusing in on the petition of the Lord’s Prayer where we pray, “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.” To bring the learning home, one of the exercises we shared …
Tell Us Plainly
John 10:22-30 If I’m honest, on some days I can certainly resonate with those who demanded that Jesus ‘tell them plainly’ who he was. In fact, sometimes I have a hard time fully understanding the people around me, much less those who walked among us thousands of years ago. In fact, this challenge of understanding …
Back to Where They Began?
John 21:1-19 At least the disciples have managed to get themselves out from behind locked doors. For as you may recall, when last we met up with them in John’s Gospel, that is exactly where they were when they last encountered Jesus. Paralyzing fear can do that to us, of course, and perhaps it is …
Belief and Doubt and Forgiveness of Sins
John 20:19-31 It came across my news feed this week. A young friend from another time and place is in distress. I would not venture to offer the multiple causes of her worry, however there was this. An older friend suggested she might think about coming back to church for the support of God’s people …
This Dying: We Could Do No Better Than This
John 18:1-19:42 We took our confirmation youth to the funeral home a few weeks back. It is a long standing tradition in our congregation — one surely made easily possible by the fact that an active member has been the owner of a local funeral home for many years. As you can imagine, this gives …
The Anointing
John 12:1-8 It was some years ago now that I went to call on a man who was in his last hours of hospice care. I made my way in through the side door into the kitchen for his hospital bed was blocking the front entry. When I entered I found his wife of 60 …
Water into Wine…Or Something More?
John 2:1-11 A few months back I stopped to call on a member of our congregation. It was intended to be just a short visit as I was dropping in on my way home for supper (and before an evening meeting), He was getting ready to leave early the next morning for surgery at a …
The Force Awakens: The Light Shines in the Darkness
John 1:1-18 I will never forget the feeling of sitting at the old Hub Theater in Rochelle watching the first Star Wars Movie. I was sixteen. I was not then, and am certainly not now, especially a fan of science fiction, but the epic battle portrayed in the story caught my imagination and stirred something …