1 corinthians on Hopelessness

It seems that every four years, the American people come through another exhausting political season. No matter who “wins,” there are feelings of frustration and disgust on all sides as we observe the...

Hope is one of the Theological virtues. A continual looking forward to the eternal world is not as some modern people think, a form of escapism or wishful thinking. But it's one of the great thing...

Our God, as we stand before the empty tomb, like Mary and the disciples we find it hard to believe that Christ rose from the dead. Forgive our unbelief. Take from our minds the shadows of doubt and he...

The hole in our holiness is that we don’t really care much about it. Passionate exhortation to pursue gospel-driven holiness is barely heard in most of our churches. It’s not that we don’t talk about ...

Heavenly Father, we confess that we come to this day of resurrection as imperfect people. Although we may have faith, we also carry doubts and apprehensions. Just as Jesus’s disciples were unsure of h...

The story of Passion-Tide and Easter is the story of the winning of that freedom and of that victory over the evils of Time. The burden of the guilt is accepted (“He was made Sin”), the last agony of ...

Gracious God, we confess that we think of Easter as the springtime holiday rather than the mystery holiday, the hope-time holiday, the now-its-up-to-us holiday. We’re more at home with bulbs and bunni...

I find that Holy Week is draining; no matter how many times I have lived through his crucifixion, my anxiety about his resurrection is undiminished—I am terrified that, this year, it won’t happen; tha...

The Easter message tells us that our enemies—sin, the curse, and death—are beaten. Ultimately they can longer start mischief. They still behave as though the game were not decided, the battle not foug...

The resurrection of Jesus is not simply the basis for Christian hope; it redefines the future toward which hope looks.

Gracious God, through that Easter morning, you changed everything. Yet we don’t change the way we live. You have freed us from sin and death, yet we daily choose to distance ourselves from you and to ...

The message of the resurrection is that this world matters! That the injustices and pains of this present world must now be addressed with the news that healing, justice, and love have won…If Easter m...

Risen Christ, The world despised and rejected you You responded with grace, humility, and welcome The proud questioned your power, devised your death You responded with peace, forgiveness, and new lif...

For those who first went out into the early dawn, when the sky was grey, taking spices to the tomb, there was terror, and surprise. For us, resisting the impulse to sleep in as part of a long weekend,...

Suppose I sell you a piece of commercial property on which I am already behind in my mortgage payments. You not only pay me a fair price for the property but also pay my overdue payments. Now the prop...

Q: What is your only comfort in life and in death? A: That I am not my own, but belong, body and soul, in life and in death, to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my sins w...

Our church has a large open field next to it, with a tall wooden cross in the middle– perhaps 15-feet high or so.  I love that cross. I’m always struck by its isolation, abrupt in the midst of land wi...

Father: You shape and form us so each is unique yet all are in Your image, when You breathe into us the breath of life. We praise You! Jesus, God the Son–Resurrection and Life: You chose to die and ri...

Thus on Easter we celebrate Christ’s Resurrection as something that happened and still happens to us. For each one of us received the gift of that new life and the power to accept it and to live by it...

The point of the resurrection…is that the present bodily life is not valueless just because it will die…What you do with your body in the present matters because God has a great future in store for it...

Jesus – You rose before we did today. You met us at the door to lift burdens, sins and hurts from our shoulders and replace them with Your strength, forgiveness and healing. The word seems so small c...

Almighty God, who by the death of your Son has destroyed sin and death, and by his resurrection has restored innocence and everlasting life in order that, deliv­ered from the power of sin, we may live...

It was Easter Sunday and the pastor gathered the children at the front of the church to ask them about the meaning of Easter. The pastor was disappointed as he listened to the first response: “Easter ...

Christ is risen: The angels of God are rejoicing. Christ is risen: The tomb is empty and still. Christ has indeed arisen from the dead. Glory and power are Christ’s for ever and ever. Amen.

Pastor: Heavenly Father, save me from sin! I know I am righteous only through Jesus’ righteousness, but I greatly desire to be more like him! I am your child, so help me to resist the temptation to si...

Less is more. Coined by Robert Browning and popularized by the German-born American architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, nothing could be further from the literal truth. But when people use this exp...

The Resurrection is the eucatastrophe of the story of the Incarnation - This story begins and ends in joy.

He attacked everything in life with a mix of extraordinary genius and naive incompetence, and it was often difficult to tell which was which.

Faith is not something that goes against the evidence, it goes beyond it. The evidence is saying to us, 'There is another country. There is something beyond mere reason'.

Pastor: O Christ, our King, live forever! You have made peace for us by the blood of Your cross.   People: By Your death You destroyed the power of death and by Your resurrection You opened the ki...