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

Luke 19:28-40; 23:21

Everybody loves a parade and a party. There’s Macy’s parade on Thanksgiving. The Rose Bowl Parade on New Year’s Day, and many other local and national parades throughout the year. It’s festive to see the flowers, bands, and floats, but there is something very different about the parade on Palm Sunday.

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2 Cor 5:19

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

Luther’s claim: “The cross alone is our theology,” is simply an axiom based on the what the Apostle Paul writes in 1 Cor 2:2: “For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.”

Why did God have to do it this way?  After all, he could have done any number of things. He could have said, “Be done with sin and death.” But this is what he did. And we have asked ourselves why.  This is the basic question.

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