Pentecost Sunday

Psalm 104:24-34, 35b

Ezekiel 37:1-14
Acts 2:1-21
John 15:26-27, 16:4b-15

Today is Pentecost Sunday! Hopefully that isn’t a surprise to anyone.  I was glad that our church not only acknowledged, but actually preached on it and then had an international luncheon afterwards.  So what is Pentecost Sunday anyway?  Pentecost, or the Feast of Weeks, was originally an Old Testament festival beginning on the 50^th day after Passover.  It was originally an agricultural festival (Lev. 23, Ex. 23, 34), but gradually became a celebration of God creating His people Israel.  By AD 70, and still today, it is a celebration of God’s gift of the Torah on Mount Sinai.[1]

For Christians, Pentecost is also 50 days after Easter, or 7 Sundays after Easter.  On this Sunday we celebrate many things.  First and most obviously, we celebrate the sending of the Holy Spirit upon the followers of Jesus.  Second, the power the Holy Spirit gives us.  Third, the hope that God is doing a new thing in the world (see the Ez. reading this week) Fourth, we celebrate and recognize that God’s work is done through His people and through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Easter Week 7

Psalm: Psalm 1
Acts: Acts 1:15-17, 21-26
Gospel: John 17:6-19
Epistle: 1 John 5:9-13

Our theme this week juxtaposes two groups of people, or two “ways” as Psalm 1 calls them.  On the one hand, there are those who follow the way of the righteous, who are blessed and known by the Lord.  In contrast, those who follow the way of the wicked will perish.  Many of the Psalms and Proverbs, in fact, juxtapose these two way; the way of God leads to life and the way of the wicked leads to death.  This is not unique to these two books; our reading in 1 John does the same.  It says, “He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life.” (5:12)

Ascension Day

Ephesians 1:15-23 Matt 28:16-20

Today is Ascension Day, which occurs 40 days after Easter.  Thus, it is always on a Thursday. I think we Protestants can miss so much of the beauty of the Christian Calendar by pretending it doesn’t exist or by calling it too Catholic.  In fact, by observing the Church year we are continually brought back into the Scripture and the Story of God.  Ascension occurs 40 days after Easter, and 10 days before Pentecost.  Thus it is the perfect time to follow the narrative presented in the Gospels.  We obviously can’t have Pentecost and the giving of the Holy Spirit without Jesus ascending to the Father.

Easter Week 6

Psalm: Psalm 98
Acts: Acts 10:44-48
Gospel: John 15:9-17
Epistle: 1 John 5:1-6

Our reading this week allows us to focus on a different aspect of the Kingdom of God.  The last few weeks we have focused on the love God calls us to: to himself, our fellow believers, and to the world.

Psalm 98 begins by praising the Lord for all the wonderful things he has done.  In verse 3 the Lord is faithful to Israel, but from there the scope of God’s salvation and work is greatly expanded. “All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.”  In fact, it’s not just humanity that has experiences God’s redeeming work, it is all of creation.  Five of the nine verses deal with nature.  The Old Testament clearly testifies to the Lord being a God of all the earth.  God is not merely the God of Israel. He is the God most High; the Creator of Heaven and Earth.

Easter week 5

Psalm: Psalm 22:25-31

Acts: Acts 8:26-40
Gospel: John 15:1-8
Epistle: 1 John 4:7-21


Well, I made it all the way to May without being late on my blog, but this week got the better of me. First, I had two papers due on Monday, on top of working 14 hours last weekend. Then when I got home on Monday to write, I broke my laptop. Oops. A new screen is set to arrive tomorrow and my laptop will hopefully be up and running. If anyone wonders, I did finish my papers, even if one was a day late.


This week’s readings contain many of the same themes as last week since our New Testament readings continue to be from the Johannine corpus. However, I wanted to make one observation from the Gospel of John. This passage is the well-known saying of Jesus that he is the vine and we are the branches. Those branches that bear no fruit the Father cuts off and throws them into the fire. The other branches are those which bear fruit; these are also cut, so that they will bear even more fruit.  Something that stuck out to me when reading it is that either way, the branches are cut.