Category: Church Year
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Restoration Amidst the Ruins
Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11 I am fascinated by ruins. I think it started where I grew up. I grew up in a small town that used to be a fairly sizeable community, but as the nearby city continued to grow and expand, and as more people started working there, the community began to decline, as well.…
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The Great Multitude of the Saints
Revelation 7:9-17 All Saints’ Day is a day I feel. It’s a day I feel in my bones, in the deepest recesses of my being. It’s also a day that I have a hard time talking about. And I think it’s because there’s something ineffable about it, something which can best be experienced, best be…
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I’m just regular dust: A reflection on Ash Wednesday
I’m not stardust. I don’t sparkle. I’m not made of the magical stuff from far off and distant places. I’m made of ordinary dust. The dust that is below my feet. I’m made of the stuff that this earth is made of. I’m a part of that cycle. My essence is not connected with something…
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A Wonky Advent Wreath
We recently took our Advent/Christmas decorations down from the attic. The tree went up, we fought with the lights (as we always do), our two-year-old almost destroyed the ornaments, and we began the annual adventure of rediscovering what we actually have in the Advent/Christmas bins. One thing I knew that we had, however, was our…
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The Redemptive Wilderness
Sermon originally delivered to the Calvary Reformed Church of New Berlin, Wisconsin. Text: Luke 4:1-13. The other day, I went out for a walk, as I often like to do in the winter, on the lake behind my house. It is shallow, and it freezes over quickly, solidly, and smoothly. For someone who cannot…
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Up from the grave
Sermon originally delivered on April 5, 2015 at Calvary Community Church in New Berlin, WI. Text: Matthew 28:1-10 So often we find ways to sanitize death. Often times, death happens in a hospital or some other facility. The family may or may not be there and may or may not witness the death itself.…
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The Fourth Magus
I think that next Epiphany, I am going to add a fourth magus to my nativity. Why do we sing “We Three Kings…” and place three figures when we are never told that there were actually three? Why not two, or twenty? Far from trying to be difficult, though, my desire to add a fourth…
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Hump Day Hymns – Lent edition: The Glory of These Forty Days
The glory of these forty days We celebrate with songs of praise; For Christ, by whom all things were made, Himself has fasted and has prayed. Alone and fasting, Moses saw The loving God who gave the law; And to Elijah, fasting, came The steeds and chariots of flame. So Daniel trained his mystic sight,…
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Christmas in a train station
One of the crosses that those in pastoral ministry bear, is that we are never able to be with family for the holidays. Holidays are spent with church, with parishioners, with the community of faith. We can certainly celebrate holidays with family, but it is always “Christmas, observed.” For me, Christmas Day is a day…
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The light shines
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light…
Matthew van Maastricht 