“In Mark’s version of the temptation story, just before Jesus is driven into the wilderness, he sees the heavens open and the Spirit descending like a dove. Mark tells us that Jesus, still…

“Like an infant swaddled, Lazarus is bound in strips of cloth, his face wrapped in bands of fabric. ‘Unbind him and let him go.’ The fetters of death and despair are unfastened. The shroud…

“Throughout the years, Calli has taught me so much about living with frailty and an illness that is not only ‘messy,’ but which can lead to more and more serious and even fatal…

“Advent in general, and in the year 2020 more specifically, arrived with an unimaginable—not imaginable—host of negativities: skepticism, bitter certainties, despair, and cynicism nipping at the outer flanks of what we hope is true. We…

“It is about being ready for an arrival, as well as about not being ready for a delay. We’re oh so ready for a vaccine, for a return to the analog world, for…

“What we find in this story is a Jesus who doesn’t say what we expect him to say, doesn’t act the way we expect him to act. At first glance, this seems to be…

“I wanted to do something completely different this morning as I fear the sermons preached to an empty sanctuary may be getting tiresome . . . at least they are for me. I…

“This is the day that God’s breath, the Holy Spirit, was breathed forth into our church, but now a viral pandemic rampages as we wonder and worry if there will be enough respirators…

“Oh, how my own father and I struggled to say good-bye. I sat at his bedside throughout his last night, holding his hand, stroking his head, administering morphine under his tongue. Knowing his…

“The road from Jerusalem to Emmaus was about seven miles long—a two- to three-hour walk. It is a long walk when your loved one has died, or you’ve lost your job, or a relationship has been…