A sermon for the Fourth Sunday of Easter

The Twenty-Third Psalm is among the top five passages of the Bible that most people know. And the question is: Why? There is something about it that speaks to us. The first four verses are a dramatic parable about the shepherd and the sheep and how the Lord is the shepherd who cares for us.

Then there’s a separate picture in the last two verses: “Thou preparest a table before me . . . and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” Another little parable. It’s dramatic. In the Bible there are many places where the Lord is the Great Shepherd: Ezekiel 34, John 10, a couple of places in Jeremiah, and 1 Peter 2:25: “For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls.” There is something about this which says: This is what we need. This is what we want to remember.

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A sermon for the Third Sunday of Easter

What do we talk about when we get together? We talk about the weather. We talk about prices, gas prices, food prices. We talk about what’s happening around us. Who has moved? We talk about unusual accidents. Have you heard? Did you know? 

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John 20:19-31

A sermon for the Second Sunday of Easter.

“Doubting Thomas.” Doubting Thomas is not the way it’s put in the text. He’s called Thomas the Twin. We call him “Doubting Thomas” because we like him. He’s the one who had the courage to say: “Unless I can actually touch the wounds, how can I know?” We all see that as common sense.

Thomas, doubting Thomas, is a great favorite. The text, however, doesn’t say that he actually did doubt. Just for the sake of discussion, assume that he did. Then he says in a confession: “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28). There was for him this reality. Miraculous. He was actually able to see, to hear, and to touch.

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Easter Sunday

The weekend edition of most newspapers features obituaries. That edition is usually available late Saturday night. If there were such a thing in Jesus’ day, imagine what the Saturday night edition of Jesus’ obituary might have said. Perhaps something like this:

“Jesus, Son of Joseph, died, crucified. He had come into conflict with the Jewish and Roman authorities. Known as a carpenter and wandering preacher and healer, there were those who said he said would redeem Israel. He was preceded in death by his father, Joseph. Survivors include his mother, Mary, and several brothers and sisters. He was buried immediately because he was crucified just before the Sabbath, the high Holy Day of Passover. Visitation at the tomb is provided by Joseph of Arimathea, beginning Sunday morning.”

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The seventh in a series of seven sermons for the season of Lent

[“Again, in spite of that, we call this Friday good.” T. S. Eliot, “East Coker.” From the second of his Four Quartets.]

In 1939 the US began the top-secret Manhattan Project to develop an atomic bomb. In 1942 Manhattan Project chemists at the University of Chicago, under the leadership of Enrico Fermi, set up a makeshift laboratory under the Stagg Field stadium. One of the things they did was take two pieces of plutonium and mechanically, by hand with a Geiger counter, bring them together to see what would happen, to see the Geiger counter increase, to see how close they could get before something big happened. It was called “twisting the tail of the dragon.” Would it blow up the stadium? Chicago? Or a chain reaction which would blow up everything? The thrill of being right on the edge makes life meaningful and exciting. What is implied is that life itself is otherwise mundane, boring, and meaningless.

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