So, a few years ago, I had an old college friend visit me while I was living in Arizona. It’s always nice when friends come to visit, isn’t it? Especially now after a year of isolation… Well, for his visit, my friend rented a 2017 Dodge Challenger… V8 HEMI, rear wheel drive… the quintessential muscle car. Anyway, we were driving around out on these remote desert roads and having a great time, let me tell you, those cars are fast…. Well, we decided to take the long way home when I noticed a road on my GPS map that went around the mountains. At the time, it seemed like it would be a great scenic route and a wonderful idea, but as they say, hindsight is 20/20.  ...  read more

In our gospel lesson today, we encounter the followers of Jesus hiding out and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked… Why? Because they were afraid. Fear is a funny thing, and it makes us act in ways that can be contrary to our best interests. I guess, if we think about it, there is a lot that we can be afraid of. And, if we didn’t have the risen Christ at our side, if we didn’t have the Holy Spirit, if we didn’t have each other, then perhaps we would be right to be afraid.  ...  read more

Alleluia, Christ is Risen!!! The Lord is risen indeed, Alleluia!!! I have been waiting a year to shout those words and actually hear people respond… Man that feels good… Let’s do it again to make up for lost time… It’s been a year… hasn’t it… We’ve lost so much… Many of us have lost friends and loved ones… For a time, we lost the ability to meet in person, we lost being able to celebrate Easter with our friends and loved ones last year, and while some of us are here today… We are still missing those who would normally be with us, but aren’t able to join us in person quite yet… It’s been a hard hard year… and we’re not quite out of the woods yet… But in the words of the great poet, prophet and sage Pat McDonald… We can see the light at the end of the tunnel… And it’s not a train… And this… All of this is why I believe that now more than ever, we need to look to the empty tomb and be reminded of our greatest hope… ...  read more

Every year we Start outside with a procession of palms… Every year we tell the story of the passion… Every year we celebrate the Eucharist and break bread together… And every year, on Palm Sunday, we begin Holy week… We join Jesus and his disciples on Maundy Thursday for the washing of feet… for prayers and sorrow in the garden of Gethsemane… We will still experience the stations of the cross and the crucifixion on Good Friday and we will feel the gravity of Christ crucified… We will then wait with anticipation on Holy Saturday… All the while keeping a hope filled heart for glorious, glorious Easter Sunday… Easter Sunday where we celebrate the resurrection and the gift of new and unending life in Christ Jesus… This… This is the foundation of Christianity… Everything has led us to this point…And today… today in the midst of a worldwide pandemic… In the midst of social distancing and sheltering at home… We still… remember. The parade of Palms… The parade where Jesus king of kings and Lord of lords Enters Jerusalem to shouts of joy and praise! All while riding on a donkey… So just a brief aside… During our bible study on Tuesdays, I think it’s likely safe to say that folks are beginning to learn that I am fascinated with an area of study called biblical criticism… This includes things like, interesting or controversial translation choices, scribal errors, omissions and additions, historical context, and some other things that are likely boring to almost anyone except for priests… In fact my wife is part of a clergy spouses group on Facebook where she recently posted something to the effect of “Tell me you’re a priest’s wife without saying you’re a priest’s wife…” Under which she wrote, “The mail came and I heard my husband shout, ‘Yes!’ so I ran over and Excitedly asked ‘What is it???’ to which he answered, ‘My crown of thorns came a week early!’ When you do eventually see my wife, please take pity on her.  ...  read more

“The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah… It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke…” The days are surely coming… I think there are a number of instances in both the old and new testaments where someone starts out what they have to say with something like… The days are surely coming… These words have this dark and ominous feel to them… Almost like they would be better suited for some Stephen King novel rather than have a place in scripture… But there are a number of places in scripture that use this type of language… There are a number of places in scripture that use this type of language usually as a prophetic prediction concerning the destruction of a city, or the razing of the temple, or some other piece of bad news… So when we hear something like “The days are surely coming” in our Old Testament lesson or, “The hour has now come” in our gospel lesson, we rarely make the jump that would be required to connect these words to good news… ...  read more