“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…

“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…

“Seeing may be believing, but there are times when something so remarkable happens that we cannot believe even our own eyes. Years later, after Eli had died, I was living in Wilmington, Delaware, where…

“The journey must have begun after sunset. When you follow a star, you can only walk at night, when the world is not so busy, so noisy. When you travel at the rate…

“Mary’s words imply more than just hope for the future. She sings not of things as they will be, but of things as they are changing. She does not say, ‘God will bring…