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Lectionary Readings
(from the Revised Common Lectionary)

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This lectionary covers the next thirty days. For full lists, see the seasons and years below.

Sunday, March 24, 2024

Liturgy of the Palms—Lent, Year B

Summary

The two sets of readings at Palm or Passion Sunday can give people emotional whiplash. It’s hard to reconcile the tone of the joyous triumphal entry with the sorrowful Passion reading while still looking forward to the resurrection. All of this should also matter to the practice of the believer’s faith as more than the memorial of a great deed at a moment in time.

A traditional solution is for the preacher to focus on the Philippians passage, where Paul describes the attitude of Jesus to be emulated in the believer’s life. This makes the memory of Christ’s passion a present reality, a mystery to be participated in.

Another solution is to choose which passage to focus on. Since the Passion is covered again on Good Friday, the triumphal entry is often emphasized on the one day it is commemorated. If this is the chosen route, there are a few canards for the preacher to avoid.

The first is to use the colt to overemphasize Christ’s poverty. Kings routinely rode on donkeys, a comfortable ride in the ancient world. The meaning is found in the prophecy of Zechariah 9:9 which sees the king coming to Jerusalem in peace instead of on a warhorse. Second, the waving of palms and cloaks spread on the road are not ad hoc substitutes for a more glorious entry which Jesus deliberately eschews. Rather, they recall the “festal procession” of Psalm 118:27 up to the Temple.

Jesus certainly is “lowly” and his kingdom brings justice to the poor, but the emphasis here is on his rightful authority to rule—a kingship which here is happily celebrated, but will later be rejected by the same crowd, after coming under the influence of the chief priests.

Sunday, March 24, 2024

Liturgy of the Passion—Lent, Year B

Summary

The two sets of readings at Palm or Passion Sunday can give people emotional whiplash. It’s hard to reconcile the tone of the joyous triumphal entry with the sorrowful Passion reading while still looking forward to the resurrection. All of this should also matter to the practice of the believer’s faith as more than the memorial of a great deed at a moment in time.

A traditional solution is for the preacher to focus on the Philippians passage, where Paul describes the attitude of Jesus to be emulated in the believer’s life. This makes the memory of Christ’s passion a present reality, a mystery to be participated in.

Another solution is to choose which passage to focus on. Since the Passion is covered again on Good Friday, the triumphal entry is often emphasized on the one day it is commemorated. If this is the chosen route, there are a few canards for the preacher to avoid.

The first is to use the colt to overemphasize Christ’s poverty. Kings routinely rode on donkeys, a comfortable ride in the ancient world. The meaning is found in the prophecy of Zechariah 9:9 which sees the king coming to Jerusalem in peace instead of on a warhorse. Second, the waving of palms and cloaks spread on the road are not ad hoc substitutes for a more glorious entry which Jesus deliberately eschews. Rather, they recall the “festal procession” of Psalm 118:27 up to the Temple.

Jesus certainly is “lowly” and his kingdom brings justice to the poor, but the emphasis here is on his rightful authority to rule—a kingship which here is happily celebrated, but will later be rejected by the same crowd, after coming under the influence of the chief priests.

Monday, March 25, 2024

Monday of Holy Week—Holy Week, Year B

Wednesday, March 27, 2024

Wednesday of Holy Week—Holy Week, Year B

Thursday, March 28, 2024

Maundy Thursday (Holy Thursday)—Holy Week, Year B

Summary

As on Palm Sunday, the preacher has choices on Maundy Thursday. There is the servant leadership on display in the foot washing, the mandate to love one another following Christ’s example, and the all-important institution of the Lord’s Supper. But the preacher will also find a helpful application in an oft-neglected tradition of expounding the Exodus reading on the Passover, (the pasch) and how Jesus fulfills it even now in his church.

Like the Israelites, the church has gathered together for Holy Week. Our lamb is Christ the Lamb of God, a male without blemish (as Jesus was sinless). In the Eucharist, his perfect once-for-all sacrifice is mysteriously made present, and his flesh and blood nourish those gathered in the sacramental bread and wine. In this way we come “under the doorpost” of the lamb’s blood, and death passes us over. But we are also to eat this Eucharistic meal with our loins girded, our shoes on our feet, supplied for action, since we are not supposed to rest in this world but with the Lord at the end of all things.

The church is not a sedentary institution, but the embodiment of God’s Spirit which is always on the move to convict the proud, to bless the needy, and to act as guides—with staffs in hand!—to show the way to salvation.

Friday, March 29, 2024

Good Friday—Holy Week, Year B

Summary

At the Cross, victory and agony are met, death is swallowed up in victory, and the way is opened to everlasting life. But yet sorrow is the theme of today.

Preaching on the passion and the crucifixion, the preacher is rarely without content—Christ’s death for our sins is the foundation of our salvation. Rather, it is the tone of sorrowful victory that is difficult to strike, hence the Isaiah prophecy of the Suffering Servant may be used as a framing device for expounding the passion narrative, offering many themes for the preacher to anchor the homily—and all of them intersect at the cross.

The multilayered theme of the servant “lifted up” (on the cross, in the resurrection, and at the ascension) recurs at Good Friday; his marred appearance is also his exaltation and victory. The reference to “sprinkling” in verse 15 recalls both Israel’s purification rituals and the priest sprinkling the blood of the atoning sacrifice at the altar. The double reference can be linked to the issue of water and blood from Jesus’ side and the water of baptism with which he will purify the nations of their sin.

The preacher will have no trouble finding further correlations between Jesus in John’s Passion and Isaiah’s foretelling of the cross (silent, stricken, pierced for our sins, scourged for our healing, yet sinless and blameless). But the mysterious alignment of suffering and victory in Christ’s “lifting up” at the cross is not to be missed, because it has the power to change the believer’s orientation toward suffering in this life: not as meaningless pains to be anesthetized, but as an opportunity for imitation of and intimacy with our Suffering Lord.

Sunday, March 31, 2024

Resurrection of the Lord (Easter Day)—Easter, Year B

Summary

On Easter Day, the apex of the Christian year, it is difficult for the preacher to resist the temptation to take a victory lap or use the sermon as an orientation for the inevitable flock of visitors to the life of the local congregation. But the Resurrection itself ought to be the unbroken focus.

Easter Sunday’s most explicit proclamations of the gospel come from the 1 Corinthians reading (15:3-4) or Peter’s sermon in Acts (10:39-40). In both of these readings, it is worth emphasizing that Jesus’ death and resurrection happened “according to the scriptures” (1 Cor. 15:4; Acts 10:43) and that the whole Old Testament points forward to Easter day.

The John passage is most interesting for how it highlights the factual reliability of the Resurrection, a special interest of modern persons. The disciples are incredulous, assuming other natural explanations. But the evidence militates against these. Jesus himself first appears to a woman, who would not have been considered a credible witness had the disciples wanted to convince the world of a hoax. The linen cloths are seen neatly laid in the tomb, something a graverobber would not have taken the time to do.

The Christian hope has always been placed on the truth of what Jesus accomplished in his resurrection, and it is enough for the preacher to point simply to this so that the people may come to its light.

Sunday, April 7, 2024

Second Sunday of Easter—Easter, Year B

Summary

Many paths are open to the Preacher in John 20 and it is futile to rank them in order of importance. Jesus’ declaration of peace when he joins the disciples in the room is an opportunity to share that peace always accompanies the presence of Jesus. The church acts, but not randomly; speaks, but not frantically, prophesies, but not chaotically. All is guided by the spirit of peace.

Second, there is Jesus breathing on his church, granting them the empowering presence of the Holy Spirit. His church now has his authority to forgive sins and from now on will act in his name. Theological emphases will vary across traditions, but the central fact in the scriptures is that the apostles are made co-laborers with Christ in sanctifying the world, a great responsibility and an exciting mission!

Thomas’ doubts are a supporting story to the above, but have lately become a popular episode to focus the entire sermon on. In attending to Thomas, the preacher should avoid the recent trend of flattering the modern skeptic by lauding Thomas’ high epistemic standard. The story is in John to highlight that the Holy Spirit must be received from Christ in faith. Thomas’ skeptical disposition divides him from his brother apostles—they have put together all of the facts that he refuses to connect: Jesus’s explicit foretelling of his resurrection, the fulfillment of the scriptures in their sight. All this he sets aside until he is given a personal sign, which the Lord graciously grants him. The proper disposition of the believer is to open the eyes of faith and waste no time falling at the feet of Jesus confessing “My Lord, and my God!”

Sunday, April 14, 2024

Third Sunday of Easter—Easter, Year B

Summary

The congregation may have noticed by now that readings from Acts have replaced the Old Testament during Easter. This is to give special emphasis on the continuity between the ministry of Jesus and that of his church—indeed the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts are one work in two volumes.

Peter’s sermon in the Acts reading is the recommended text for today. The preacher has a special opportunity here to learn gospel preaching from Peter while preparing to preach from that same text. Peter’s wastes no time to get to the central fact of the Christian gospel: the death and resurrection of Jesus. He does so using the Old Testament scriptures (v. 13; also 22-26). He attributes miraculous healing to the name of Jesus and the gift of faith in the receiver (16). He calls his hearers to repent (v. 19) and promises ultimate healing and refreshment.

Note that in this earliest gospel preaching the core message is what Jesus did. Jesus was the greatest teacher, but what Jesus accomplished on the cross for sins, and the new life that becomes possible for those with faith in him was the reason he came into the world. It is the perennial temptation for the preacher to enjoy being a curator of well phrased insights and advice. But the Christian preacher is a newsbringer first and a speaker second. Clever speech does not get the message across, but simple and direct proclamation, the call to repentance, and the assurance of new life.