John 18:1-19:42 Some of you will know that I began going to a chiropractor last fall. We think it was the result of a fall last June, but for some reason I didn’t feel it until later. By the end of October I was unable to turn to the right without significant pain. I had …
Tag: John
Shredded: Some Thoughts for Maundy Thursday
I waited in line for nearly an hour last Saturday afternoon. It was ‘Community Shred Day’ at our local credit union, you see, and I had shredding to do. My mother retired from teaching third grade twenty-one years ago this spring. All these years she has kept the grade-books from her last ten years in …
Dying and Living and a Late Winter’s Cold
John 12:20-33 I came down with a cold two days after Ash Wednesday this year. I confess to feeling a little smug that it had not taken me down earlier. Well, maybe not exactly smug — but certainly grateful and surprised. Everyone around me had fallen to the nasty germ and somehow I had escaped. …
Light and Darkness
John 3:14-21 I find myself remembering Lyle this week-end. Lyle was a member of my first congregation. He was number seven or eight in a line of children — all then in their late 60’s or 70’s, all still living, and for the most part, all still living within reach of one another. He was …
Fresh Eyes: Jesus Cleansing the Temple
John 2:13-22 Like many of you, my attention has been captured in these last days by the matter of ‘the dress.’ You know the one I’m talking about: that one which is making its rounds on the internet these days and has captured the imagination of early morning news hosts. That dress which is clearly …
No Plastic Jesus Here: The Word Became Flesh
John 1:1-18 We had our “Christmas in the Barn” again this year. The weather was a little warmer and so the crowd was a little bigger and there were a number of children present with us — ranging in age from 18 months to maybe seven years. I called them to the front after I …
John the Baptist: Pointing to Jesus
John 1:6-8, 19-28 I am not an artist, nor do I have a great deal of understanding of art. Indeed, I was a young adult before great art even began to capture my imagination. I was in college and my sister, Martha, and I had ventured into the Art Institute of Chicago for the Monet …
On Truth and Freedom and the One Who Sets Us Free
John 8:31-36 “And you will know the truth and the truth will make you free…” John 8:32 I have to say that, like many, I have a rather checkered relationship with ‘the truth.’ And while I’m going back close to fifty years to make my point, it would, no doubt, be less than truthful for me …
John 3:16
John 3:13-17 You knew it, too, of course, the reference above. Oh yes, we know it by heart, those of us who have followed this path of faith. Indeed, we know it so well I expect that we hardly pause to take in its import much of the time. But stand still in this with me …
“All Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine…”
John 17:1-11 There is a great deal before us in the words of Jesus’ prayer before us now. While there are a number of directions one could go, this section seems to be building t the same point as the following one: the unity of those who follow Jesus. Indeed, it seems to me this …