Easter 4 is Good Shepherd Sunday every year. The collect and most of the readings through the three-year cycle on this day make explicit reference to God as the shepherd of his people. The assigned Gospel readings for Easter 4 over the three years take us sequentially through most of John 10. Ironically, while we…
Today in the Spirit: Easter 3A
On Sunday, Easter 3, the church moves forward with its messaging on Christian living, grounded in the truth of Jesus Christ’s resurrection and appearance. In Year A, the assigned Gospel reading out of Luke 24:13-35 recounts Jesus’ post-resurrection appearance to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. Luke’s skillful narration in this passage demonstrates…
Today in the Spirit: Easter 2A
The church reserves the six Sundays after Easter Day and before Pentecost Sunday for worshipers to contemplate the New Testament resurrection appearances of Jesus and his most significant teachings on life in the power of his resurrection. Our attention in this period is directed mainly to the Gospel of John, and especially our Lord’s last…
Today in the Spirit: Easter Day A
“Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!” At no time is the thrill of shouting out this cheer louder than on Easter Day. “Enter then, all of you, into the joy of your Master. First and last, receive alike your reward. Rich and poor, dance together. You who have fasted and you…
Today in the Spirit: Palm Sunday A
In our walk with Jesus through the liturgical year, Palm Sunday is designed so that we might contemplate Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem and his death on the cross as a unit. Yes, the reading of the Passion or our Lord on Palm Sunday is no doubt an accommodation to the fact that many churchgoers would…
Today in the Spirit: Lent 5A
The designation of Lent 5 Sunday as “Passion Sunday” in the BCP 2019 is a return to the same designation in the BCP 1928, where the two-week period from Lent 5 Sunday through Holy Saturday is also called “Passiontide.” The Collect and readings assigned in Lent 5A continue the trajectory of the penitential season, highlighting…
Today in the Spirit: Lent 4A
Lent is a season the church employs to teach that, by the light of the Son of God coming into the world, darkness opposed to his arrival is exposed. In these middle weeks of Lent Year A, the church assigns long Gospel readings from the Book of John in which there is significant dialogue between…
Today in the Spirit: Lent 3A
“It gives me great pleasure to see the stubbornness of an incorrigible nonconformist warmly acclaimed.” The scriptures, contrary to Albert Einstein, regard stubborn disobedience to the word of God as a non-conformity in which the Almighty takes no pleasure (though he forgives through Christ). As a group, the readings assigned for Lent 3 perhaps deliver…
Today in the Spirit: Lent 2A
In our worship during Lent 1, the church introduced, in dramatic fashion, the intense opposition in the world to the revelation of the Son of God. Now in Lent 2A, the prayers and propers highlight a critical internal conflict within the believing community: faith versus works as the path to fellowship with God. The assigned…
Today in the Spirit: Lent 1A
Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent and an abrupt shift in the church year from the Incarnation cycle (Advent through Epiphany) to the Paschal cycle (Lent through Pentecost). If, in general, the celebration of the incarnation of Christ has oriented us to wonder at the glory of Christ in the world, our worship now…
Today in the Spirit: Last Sunday of Epiphany A (Transfiguration)
On the Last Sunday of Epiphany every year, we contemplate in our worship the Transfiguration of Jesus Christ. In this season of celebrating the Father God’s power 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 the accounts…
Today in the Spirit: Epiphany 5A
At the end of the Beatitudes we heard last Sunday, Jesus makes a dramatic shift from the third person “Blessed are those” to the second person “Blessed are you,” and there he remains throughout the remainder of the Sermon on the Mount. At Epiphany 5A, we hear in the assigned Gospel reading Matthew 5:13-20 the…
