On the Last Sunday of Epiphany each year, we contemplate the Transfiguration of Jesus Christ. In this season of celebrating the power of God the Father to reveal the glory of the Son in the world, the various accounts of the Transfiguration in the Gospels form a bookend for the worshiper with those of the…
Today in the Spirit: Epiphany 5B
We continue this week following the narrative in the Gospel of Mark of Jesus’ first days of ministry in Capernaum. The church assigns Mark 1:29-39 which reports on a period covering only eighteen hours during which Jesus heals Peter’s mother-in-law in the afternoon (a private moment), heals many in front of the whole city (a…
Today in the Spirit: Epiphany 4B
In the week of Epiphany 4, Year B, we continue our way through Mark’s narrative of our Lord’s first weeks of ministry in Galilee. Mark 1:21-28 tells the story of Jesus’ first visit to Capernaum, where, after teaching in the synagogue, he exorcizes a demon from a man in attendance. An emphasis in the story…
Today in the Spirit: Epiphany 3B
On the Third Sunday of Epiphany each year, we walk with Jesus through the episodes of his early ministry in Galilee (northern Palestine). At this juncture in the church year, the church selects Gospel readings that highlight our Lord’s earliest preaching events, the various responses of the people to hearing his teaching, and his labor…
Today in the Spirit: Epiphany 2B
The early Sundays in the Epiphany season are dedicated to the revelation of the Son of God in the successful formation of the community of disciples. In Epiphany 2B, the assigned Gospel reading out of John 1:43-51 recounts for the worshiping church Jesus’ calling of the apostles Philip and Nathanael. The devotion of these two,…
Today in the Spirit: Epiphany 1B
Prepositions are important in the Book of Common Prayer (BCP). One change in the BCP 2019 that can easily go unnoticed is the designation of Sundays “of Epiphany” in the new book compared with Sundays “after Epiphany” or “after the Epiphany” in earlier books. So we might ask, what does the new title communicate? One…
Today in the Spirit: Christmas 1B
The Church’s messaging on the Sundays following Christmas Day might best be summed up as promises fulfilled with more to come, or light shining with ever-increasing brightness. The Christmas 1 readings are the same all three years. It is on this Sunday that we receive as a Gospel selection the famous prologue to John’s Gospel,…
Today in the Spirit: Advent 4B
The festival day is at hand, yet the Church would have us linger longer in Advent, contemplating all that God the Father has done to foretell and prepare the arrival of “Yeshua” (“the one who delivers”) into the world. In Advent 4, Year B, the assigned Gospel reading from Luke 1:26-38 relates the narrative of…
Today in the Spirit: Advent 3B
It is the Advent 3B selection of readings that really puts the joy in “Joy Sunday.” All four readings include either an explicit exhortation for God’s people to rejoice in the Lord or a testimony of joy from the narrator’s heart. Since all that Mark has to say about John the Baptist before Jesus’ arrival…
Today in the Spirit: Advent 2B
Like many of our favorite movies, Advent 2 takes us, suddenly, to a flashback in time from the noise and upheaval of the Son of Man coming on the clouds to the silence of the Judean wilderness and the sight of a strange man dwelling there. In the Gospel of Mark, though it is shorter…
