Mark 8:27-38 I am doing something new this year. We have just a small group of young people who are ‘affirming their baptism’ this fall: four fourteen year old’s who will stand before our congregation and claim for their own the faith they have been raised in. Or maybe it is better to understand this …
Tag: Mark
Driven by Love…
Mark 7:24-37 Love drove her. Of course it did — an elemental, primal kind of love of a parent for a child, a mother for a daughter. Love. And, no doubt, lingering memories of a better time. And hope for all that child could be, surely would have been, had not a demon taken possession …
What Matters and What Doesn’t…
I am sharing an old blog this week as I am on vacation in the days leading up to when I would normally write. While this one was written several years ago, the questions posed seem especially timely given the opportunity we have now to sort through why we do what we do and the …
Seeing With the Eyes of Jesus: Like Sheep Without a Shepherd
Psalm 23 Mark 6:30-34, 53-56 I only have glimpses of what it is to see as Jesus did — harried as I often am even as those disciples must have been “with many coming and going and no leisure even to eat.” It is far too occasional that I am able to look at the …
The Beheading of John: Why Is This Story Even Told?
Mark 6:14-29 This has been a dark place to ‘live’ this week, with the fateful, gruesome end of John before us now. In fact, I have found myself wondering why Mark and Matthew chose to include this story at all, with all of its awful detail. Perhaps it is simply to ‘close the loop’ on …
Sending of The Twelve: “Nothing” for the Journey
Mark 6:1-13 I have paused in this portion of Mark’s Gospel or Luke’s parallel countless times by now. In fact, this has been the case so many times that by now nothing much surprises me — except for the ways in which it comes alive just outside my door from time to time: I was …
Twelve Years: Pointing to the Fullness of God
Mark 5:21-43 There is so much richness in the stories before us now. There is courage and fear, despair and hope. There is power and generosity and joy in the healing we witness. And there is, as always, our wonderment at all of its meaning for us. I found myself returning again and again to …
In the Storm: Who Is This One?
Mark 4:35-41 I cannot help but believe that all of us have experienced something of ‘storms’ in these last many months in a way perhaps we never did before. And no, not only the sort of midwestern squall which passed through here the other day, bringing much needed rain to the drought which is already …
Meeting Jesus in Galilee…
Mark 16:1-8 Many of you will know that for most of the years I have been a pastor, I have started Easter Day in a cemetery. Anymore I rather delight in the shocked looks which sometimes cross the faces of others when they hear this. But the truth is, I have always heard the Easter …
The Easter Mystery
Mark 16: 1-8 I was visiting with a friend a few days ago. She asked how I felt about the week ahead. I replied that Maundy Thursday and Good Friday seemed to be well in hand. However, I had not yet begun to think about what to offer on Easter. And she replied, “Well, Easter …