John 20:19-31

A Sermon for the Second Sunday of Easter

We are like Thomas.  We want visible proof. He said: “Unless I can see for myself and touch his wounds, I will not believe.”

Here it is eight days later, and eight days means a week. It means a week after the resurrection. The disciples are together and the Lord appeared to them. When Thomas arrives, they report: “We have seen the Lord!”

But Thomas doubts; he wants to see for himself. There’s a name for that. It’s called common sense philosophy. If you can see with your own eyes and hear with your own ears, then you can know for sure.

The disciples were not hiding out, and they weren’t the only ones to have seen him. Paul writes that one time he appeared to five hundred brethren (1 Corinthians 15:6).

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Colossians 3:1-4; John 20:1-18

We are gathered here today to celebrate the life and mourn the passing of Jesus of Nazareth. No, that is not the story. Not the real story.

The real story is: Death is dead. Death is over. And it’s all because of him.

What do people commonly think about life and death? Many think: “Eat and drink for tomorrow we die.” Of course, this way of thinking is nothing new.

People today are basically the same as they have always been. Look at what Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15:32: “If the dead are not raised, ‘Let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die.’” In the First Century that’s what people commonly thought. And he is quoting what was said centuries before him, in Isaiah 22:13. “Let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die.” Death is the end, that is it.

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Matthew 21:1-11

A Sermon for Palm Sunday

Everybody loves a parade. There is Macy’s Parade on Thanksgiving Day, the Rose Bowl Parade on New Year’s Day. Parades all over the country on the Fourth of July. The floats, the horses, the bands, and drum majorettes. It’s fun to be in a parade and watch a parade.

All of that has its place, but there’s something very different about the parade which took place on that first Palm Sunday long ago. It is said by the experts who know the First Century A. D. that a six-year-old girl could carry a sack of gold from Athens to Rome and not be robbed or injured in any way.

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Romans 8:6-11

A Sermon for the Fifth Sunday of Lent

In Romans 8:1-11 we have the whole of the Christian faith. Well, at least two-thirds of the heart of it. The text for today begins at verse 6; it’s useful, however, to see verses 6-11 in light of what comes before.

The first verse 8:1 announces: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” To put it in our terms today: “There is therefore no death sentence for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Death is dead. That’s the whole ball game.

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John 9:1-41

A sermon for the Fourth Sunday in Lent

“I see,” said the blind man as he picked up his hammer and saw.

We see that kind of contradiction at the end of the text from John for today: “For judgment I came into the world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind” (John 9:39).

What is it to see? To be blind? Three examples:

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