Reflections on Matthew 28:1-10

It is a dark and stormy night in upstate New York as I write this, and I close my eyes to recall the sun that warmed me one spring day several years ago, in Jerusalem. I was on a seminary trip and I had taken my last free day to go back with my video camera to “The Garden Tomb,” a verdant postage stamp-sized plot of ground off Nablus Road that stands as good a chance as any of being the actual site of Jesus’ burial and resurrection.

I warn my seminary students to watch out for “litmus test” theology. “If you find yourself getting backed into a corner on a doctrinal issue, with someone pressing you merely to ‘check “yes”’ or ‘check “no,”’ do your best to redirect the conversation,” I advise them.  Being a Christian believer is not, primarily, about checking the right boxes.

What does it mean to be an Easter Church—that is, a church that confesses “God raised the crucified Jesus from the dead?” Is there only one correct interpretation of that most central of Christian confessions or is there room in that confession for different interpretations of what it means? Is there only one “orthodox” interpretation?

Reflections on John 20:1-18

Every few years the calendar conspires against the church by placing the moveable feast of Easter on the same day most of the country springs forward to Daylight Savings Time. This year’s calendar is kind to us, and this ecclesiastical “perfect storm” is avoided.

Reflections on Matthew 21:1-11

On Palm Sunday at the Brick Presbyterian Church in New York City, churchgoers arrive early to get a good seat. The graceful procession of the children waving palms is a sight I recall decades after I worshipped there.

The response to the tragic tsunami on December 26 in a wide area of southern Asia has been overwhelmingly positive as the United Nations, numerous countries around the world, non-governmental agencies like the Red Cross, Oxfam, Catholic Charities, and United Jewish Appeal, orchestras in Vienna, celebrities and school children have donated generously to save lives and rebuild destroyed cities and villages.

“Jesus began to weep.”

This man does not do this often. 

This is the only time that the gospels record Jesus’ weeping. Something has struck the deepest chords in Jesus.  This is a resurrection story, but Jesus is weeping.  What do the tears mean?

It’s easy to bash the Pharisees in the gospel of John, but we do so at our peril. One writer notes, “For the Pharisees, protecting the identity of the Jewish people in the midst of a hostile world was an overwhelming priority. To continue to be ‘God’s people’ meant that they had to use every tool they had to remain distinctive, to resist the temptation to assimilate into the dominant culture.” [1]

THE SEVEN LAST WORDS FROM THE CROSS. By Fleming Rutledge. Eerdmans. 2005. $12.00. 91p. (0-8028-2786-1). Pb.

Rutledge presents seven meditations on the final sayings of Jesus. He links the sayings from the cross with contemporary events and concerns, incorporating recent biblical scholarship and modern questions about the death of Christ.

Third Sunday in Lent

A man and a woman meet at a well. They talk. Their heads bend toward each other. Her head jerks back in astonishment. He leans forward to explain. With a sweep of an arm he gestures for her to leave, and she drops her head to say something.

Reflections on Romans 4:1-5, 13-17, Second Sunday in Lent

The Epistle reading for Lent 2 is Paul’s most extended discussion of Abraham. Paul points to Abraham to illustrate his doctrine of justification by grace through faith. The faith of Abraham is witnessed in his trust in the promise of God. (4:20).

How strange to end as it began. . .

amniotic . . .

straw within a manger stall

water from a cattle trough

as his first bath among the ruins

of humankind so set on death

Lent 1:  Genesis 2:15-3:7

Prayer after reading of the garden’s Keeper

 Maker:

for gardens and walls;

for Eden and our homes to the east;

for your talk with us and ours with you;

Reflections on Matthew 4:1-9, First Sunday in Lent

I am haunted by the story of the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness. So was the Russian novelist, Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Early in his novel, The Brothers Karamazov, Ivan tells Alyosha of a poem he has written he calls "The Grand Inquisitor." In the prose/poem Jesus returns to earth in human form, but it is not to Nazareth in Galilee. It is to Seville in Spain in the midst of the Spanish Inquisition of the 16th century.

Local television and radio stations across the width of New York State issued warnings of a series of rolling thunderstorms approaching the area. Some of them might be severe, the announcers said, possibly with tornado force gales. Just after 8 p.m. lightning hit the walls of the sanctuary of First Church of Pittsford, producing a blast like a freight train driving full speed into a depot at the end of the line.

Is your pastor a theologian? 

A long time ago, when I was first at Princeton Theological Seminary, President James McCord informed incoming students that all pastors should consider themselves to be theologians. I was wise enough (or naive enough) to take his advice literally, and in my own ministry I have always tried to achieve the goal he set for us.