Second Sunday of Easter - A
David Coffin
It is the time of year for the last push of demands before the summer season beckons upon the horizon. The children's school system is squeezing in as many meetings as possible for parents. Teachers are trying to push assignment and test dates before the even warmer days arrive in May and June. Many church organizations have their denominational gathering about this time of year. They have business they hope to have wrapped up so staff and volunteers can take the summer off out of the area or on mission trips.
Schuyler Rhodes
Recently a friend told me the story of his move to our community. It was a job transfer, and he was needed in the new location much sooner than he or his family had expected. Previous excursions to the area with his wife to look for a new home had proven unsuccessful. The home they were leaving had been sold, and they needed to find a new house quickly. So with the help of a realtor and with his wife unable to be present, my friend selected and bought a house for his family. The best he could do was to attempt to describe the house to his wife, but he had no pictures to send and no way for her to see the house before he bought it. Can you imagine buying a house for your wife without her seeing it? My friend let it be known that he would never do anything like that again. Somehow I believe...
Wayne Brouwer
One of my good friends died last year. He had reached a good age and was mostly ready
to go. In fact, he once told me he had more lives than the proverbial cat's nine. On too
many occasions, because of cancer and accidents and blood diseases, doctors had written
him off. Yet, like the Energizer bunny, he kept going and going and going....
But in the year before his death he knew the end was coming. He joked about it one day, telling me that several of his friends had recently conversed about death. One said that when he was gone, he hoped people would say nice things at his funeral about how he was a truly godly man and always tried to do the right thing. Another chimed in that he hoped people would mention how much he loved his family and was a friend on which...
But in the year before his death he knew the end was coming. He joked about it one day, telling me that several of his friends had recently conversed about death. One said that when he was gone, he hoped people would say nice things at his funeral about how he was a truly godly man and always tried to do the right thing. Another chimed in that he hoped people would mention how much he loved his family and was a friend on which...
Recently a friend told me the story of his move to our community. It was a job transfer, and he was needed in the new location much sooner than he or his family had expected. Previous excursions to the area with his wife to look for a new home had proven unsuccessful. The home they were leaving had been sold, and they needed to find a new house quickly. So with the help of a realtor and with his wife unable to be present, my friend selected and bought a house for his family. The best he could do was to attempt to describe the house to his wife, but he had no pictures to send and no way for her to see the house before he bought it. Can you imagine buying a house for your wife without her seeing it? My friend let it be known that he would never do anything like that again. Somehow I believe...
Fresh air is precisely what many people feel they never get in church. Many recall the experiences of former times when the air was stodgy and stuffy. In some communities of faith the air is still a bit stifling, and so when invited to worship, the response is often, "Been there. Done that."
Yet our lessons are full of the freshness of spring, bringing life and vigor to what had been dormant, as though frozen in winter and refusing to thaw.
Acts 2:14a, 22-32
The isolated verse that introduces our pericope identifies the speaker of the following sermon as Peter. The audience, omitted by our not reading the second half of verse 14, is the people of Judea who had gone up to Jerusalem as the rules required for the festival of Passover. Yet their...
Yet our lessons are full of the freshness of spring, bringing life and vigor to what had been dormant, as though frozen in winter and refusing to thaw.
Acts 2:14a, 22-32
The isolated verse that introduces our pericope identifies the speaker of the following sermon as Peter. The audience, omitted by our not reading the second half of verse 14, is the people of Judea who had gone up to Jerusalem as the rules required for the festival of Passover. Yet their...
Biblical scholars, conservative and liberal alike, date most of the New Testament letters before the gospels and Acts, as in Luke-Acts. So a sermon reconstructed in Acts -- few believe that we have stenographic records, either, in these compressed half-column sermons -- is not the first preached witness to the resurrection. But the story of Pentecost, the early gathering day with its account of the coming of the Spirit, qualifies as a symbolic "first sermon" tryout.
Quite naturally, scholars and people of ordinary faith probe the few lines here to get clues to the mentality of people who thought they had buried hopes with Jesus, only to find Jesus Christ and their hopes liberated and very much alive. This time, Peter speaks to the "men of Judea and all who live in...
David Kalas
The Sunday after Easter is an unenviable time for preachers in many churches. The mood and events of Holy Week have both a depth and an excitement that can make the Sunday after Easter something of a letdown. The palm branches are gone. The lilies are gone, and it will seem that a great many people are gone, too. Surely the attendance in so many of our American churches is a letdown on the Sunday after Easter.
So what shall we do on the Sunday after Easter? Take a vacation? Follow the lead of our people who stay home in great numbers this day? Bring in someone off the bench to fill the pulpit?
Throughout the gospels, Jesus repeatedly told people not to spread the word about him. After they were healed (Luke 5:14), after they witnessed miracles (Matthew 17:9;...
So what shall we do on the Sunday after Easter? Take a vacation? Follow the lead of our people who stay home in great numbers this day? Bring in someone off the bench to fill the pulpit?
Throughout the gospels, Jesus repeatedly told people not to spread the word about him. After they were healed (Luke 5:14), after they witnessed miracles (Matthew 17:9;...
David Coffin
As a pastor and a Christian, I have always found the challenge of “Easter” to be not allowing it to be reduced to one climactic Sunday after the 40 days of Lent. That is, how can one celebrate and experience the new life of this season in a way that it is a meaningful part of the spiritual journey, when the rest of the society might give people maybe the afternoon of Good Friday off from work for the weekend of Easter Sunday. The Easter season of new life is not the old life resuscitated (like Lazarus in John 11). New life has both comforting as well as unanticipated stressful experiences in this season.
Acts 2:14a, 22-32
Acts 2:14a, 22-32
David Kalas
Last week felt very much like a climax.
In many of our churches, the season of Lent is experienced as weeks of focus and expectation, leading up to Easter Sunday. Starting on Ash Wednesday, perhaps as individuals or perhaps as a church family, we engage in seven weeks of deliberate reflection and spiritual discipline. And last Sunday represented the grand conclusion of that period.
Meanwhile, even if the larger season of Lent is not high-profile in your church, or even if this year’s Lenten season was significantly interrupted, still your people probably experienced Holy Week as full and significant. There is the festivity of Palm Sunday, the drama of Maundy Thursday, and the somber darkness of Good Friday. But it all comes to a joyous climax on Easter Sunday....
In many of our churches, the season of Lent is experienced as weeks of focus and expectation, leading up to Easter Sunday. Starting on Ash Wednesday, perhaps as individuals or perhaps as a church family, we engage in seven weeks of deliberate reflection and spiritual discipline. And last Sunday represented the grand conclusion of that period.
Meanwhile, even if the larger season of Lent is not high-profile in your church, or even if this year’s Lenten season was significantly interrupted, still your people probably experienced Holy Week as full and significant. There is the festivity of Palm Sunday, the drama of Maundy Thursday, and the somber darkness of Good Friday. But it all comes to a joyous climax on Easter Sunday....
Mark Ellingsen
The lessons and the theme of the Second Sunday of Easter testify to how Christ and his resurrection have their way with us. This theme matches the practice of the early church on the Sunday after Easter when newly baptized members were admitted into the fellowship as full members, a Sunday to celebrate how the Easter Gospel had changed them.
Acts 2:14a, 22-32
In the First Lesson we consider the second half of the two-part early history of the church attributed to Paul’s Gentile associate, Luke (Colossians 4:14; II Timothy 4:11; Philemon 24). Its main emphasis is the universal mission of the church and to vindicate Paul’s ministry. But as Paul did not negate the Jewish inheritances of the faith, so in this lesson we hear part of Peter’s address...
Acts 2:14a, 22-32
In the First Lesson we consider the second half of the two-part early history of the church attributed to Paul’s Gentile associate, Luke (Colossians 4:14; II Timothy 4:11; Philemon 24). Its main emphasis is the universal mission of the church and to vindicate Paul’s ministry. But as Paul did not negate the Jewish inheritances of the faith, so in this lesson we hear part of Peter’s address...
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