2020 Treatises

(Gospel Reading - Luke 24.13-35) Alleluia.  Christ is risen.  The Lord is risen indeed.  Alleluia.   "He descended to the dead," "He ascended into heaven." In our believing faith, in the creeds we say in worship, it's easy to look at these two affirmations of faith as bookends on the journey of Christ.  One could understand that descending might be an understanding of humanity as dead - lacking the life of God.  On the other hand, Christ's ascension into heaven is his pre-incarnational homecoming to His Father; when Jesus as a body in which God took flesh is no longer seen, so He's "up there", where 'heaven' is according to an old cosmology, but even the New Testament's view of heaven more inclines to seeing heaven as the dwelling place of God. As we've endured a celebration of Easter without its usual ecclesial trappings and an astonishing quiet where loud voices and louder instruments are usually intoning our victory...

Alleluia.  Christ is risen.  The Lord is risen indeed.  Alleluia. The Gospel for the Second Sunday of Easter immediately moves us toward a rich, comprehensive and comprehensible experience of faith.  To the room where disciples were quartered for fear of the authorities - that the same thing that happened to their Leader might happen to them - came a surprising presence:  the fearless Leader Himself! "Peace be with you," He said.  Of so much that could be said, we can simply say that this greeting banishes the palpable fear in the room.  "For He is our peace," wrote the letter to the Ephesians, "breaking down the walls of distrust and fear." (2.  )  [Walls, of course, are the great confession of how afraid its erectors are.]  Peace, in the context of what Jesus declares, is the unity that faith brings.  What's contested or questioned in today's readings isn't the content of peace or faith;  it's faith itself and what that ...

Alleluia.  Christ is risen.  The Lord is risen indeed.  Alleluia . Eggs. Bunnies. Chocolate. Ham. Sweet potatoes. More eggs. We hope to begin with words noncontroversial to Easter - except maybe the quantity and fairness of their distribution to the family. From here on words that have potential to various levels of trouble. Let's jump right in. "What am I going to preach on Easter this year?" said the long-toothed pastor to his friends. After decades of Easter preaching, how many different ways can I present "Christ is risen from the dead.  The stone is rolled away.  The disciples were filled with awe and fear." What can I say that is new?" Resurrection troubles. "Christ is risen.  So what?  What's the good news in that?" One of my doctrinal theology professors in 1973 in the middle of a church splitting controversy, didn't calm anyone down.  Even if his sermon did proclaim that a risen Christ brings for us the only news th...

Alleluia.  Christ is risen.  The Lord is risen indeed.  Alleluia. On this night of the passover of our Lord from death to life, we embrace in faith the god who has inhabited the world and now inhabits eternity, the habitation of God.  Tradition compels us to recognise that we in Holy Baptism, are buried with Christ and raised with Christ to the anticipation of newness of life.  We are made children of God as Abraham and his children were made; children of the promise.  So throughout the ages God has worked the promise of new life in the most desperate of times and  the sacrament of Baptism has met us and honoured us to be a part of the people of God.  In light of a new identity, we then appeal to heaven and other secondary considerations.  If God is present in his promise and if God Himself creates faith, then certainly heaven or at least its foretaste is wherever its' foretaste is, or wherever we can smell heaven, there is God. To live i...

As I look back on 2019, it was a good year for victories for my favourite teams.  The first Stanley Cup championship in the history of the St Louis Blues, and the first Super Bowl win for the Kansas City Chiefs.  I am amazed at these wins in the last year or so, but I remember more of the games in 1969 and 1970, like last month to me.  Where has the last 50 years gone?  As we hear the passion of our Lord and adore His Holy Cross, we proclaim the joy that the cross has brought the world;  we adore Christ and His cross for bringing us a renewal of life in God.  This veneration of the cross is not a nostalgic walk into the world of ancient Rome.  We don't worship a Saviour who had an isolated win followed by a drought of a couple of millennia.  The Lamb slain on the cross has won a victory like no other  First of all, there aren't too many who would consider an odd trial and execution a "victory".  So right there, He is living in rarifi...

It is probably in the last century that we have seen the renewal of Easter (Pascha) celebration as three days providing the central holy days of who we are.  The passion of Jesus and His rising from the grave; the Holy Sacrament of Baptism, particularly as foreshadowed in the flood and in the rescue of Israel through the sea and the journey to the promise land; the Lord's Supper as the food of our redemption and sustenance of the daily and weekly life which is that of being a servant to others.  The Paschal story it is of  the lamb of God taking away the world's sin moving toward the lamb who sits on the throne as Ruler of the Universe, the apocalypse or revelation that we seem to forget in the terrors and tragedies of the world. Our outlook on "Holy Week" is living in a transition between three individual holidays with titles for each day and the Triduum or three days which are of one liturgy, over multiple days. From a culture that goes home between days as a majo...

We've joined the children who waved palms leading a joyous procession into the city. "Our glad hosannas Prince of Peace, your welcome shall proclaim." (ELW 239) But unauthorised demonstrations and parades are not pleasing to the frightened, reactionary regime of Jerusalem in Jesus' time.  There was a testy truce between the spiritual authorities of the Jerusalem temple and the "temporal" authorities of the Roman Empire.  Holy Week finds Jesus and his disciples caught in the cross fire of a cynical struggle for power in a conflict that neither the Jewish leaders nor the Roman occupiers would win. Jesus, of course, was not coming for their positions, much to the disappointment of many of his followers, particularly those who shouted, "Hosanna to the Son of David:"- incendiary language welcoming a king stoking the hopes of an immanent regime change.  That's why Jesus had to be dealt with quickly and carefully, so as to avoid political violence...