luke on spring (season)

Almighty God, Creator: The morning is Yours, rising into fullness.  The summer is Yours, dipping into autumn.  Eternity is Yours, dipping into time.  The vibrant grasses, the scent of flowers,  the li...

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...

Lent 2024: Do This in Remembrance Relationship and Ritual AIM commentary Ancient lens What's the historical context? Aren’t we doing what you’re asking of us? The people of God are wo...

Preaching Commentary Unexpected Circumstances Strange days,  unexpected  times: a belief-defying announcement of a pregnancy, a wearying journey to be taxed, an uncomfortable birthing bed in a hewn...

Note: This was originally part of a guide for the Fifth Sunday after Pentecost (RCL Year B) , which includes Job 38:1-11 and Mark 4:35-11 . I have adapted the discussion of each of these t...

A Sopping Wet Week in the Lectionary Today’s readings are thoroughly wet. In Job, God is master of the sea, Psalm 107 concerns mariners in the storm, Paul is a little drier, but still gets shipwrecke...

Death Is Common to All Shakespeare’s Queen Gertrude of Denmark implores her son Hamlet to move past mourning his deceased father, Thou know’st ‘tis common,—all that live must die, passing through n...

Preaching Commentary Death Is Common to All Shakespeare’s Queen Gertrude of Denmark implores her son Hamlet to move past mourning his deceased father, Thou know’st ‘tis common,—all that live must...

Christmas (a shortened form of "Christ’s mass”) has been an embattled holiday for much of its history— and not just because talking heads on TV like to argue about the “war on Christmas” every ye...

The season which Engages the whole World in a Conspiracy of love.

O God, Creator of all seasons, We thank You for the wonder of winter. As the earth is blanketed with soft snow, Help us to feel the warmth Of Your embrace. As ice coats bare branches, Glittering...

The Advent season is that time when we seek to, in a manner of speaking, mute our memory of what has already happened, that we might brighten our joy that it happened. We leave the already of His adve...

When the year dies in preparation for the birth of other seasons, not the same, on the same earth, Then saving and calamity go together make The Advent gospel, telling how the heart will break. Theref...

We ask that streams of Easter light might flow into the intimacy and privacy of our hearts this morning, to heal us and encourage us and enable us to make again a new beginning.

Pastor: The Lord bless you and keep you strong in resurrection faith. The Lord make His face shine on you and graciously let Easter joy dawn within you. The Lord lift up His countenance upon you...

Someone once quipped that we spend the first half of our lives struggling with the sixth commandment ( Thou shalt not commit adultery ) and the second half of our lives struggling with the fifth comma...

We have been having  epiphanies like suns, all this year long. And now, at its close  when the planets  are shining through frost, light runs like music in the bones,  and the heart ke...

Christmas is fast approaching. And now that Christ has aroused our seasonal expectations, he’ll soon fulfill them all!

The Greek word for Easter, pascha, means “passage.” It evokes so many different passages for us: the Israelites’ passage from slavery to freedom, our own passage from sin to forgiveness, Jesus’ passag...

It is the very essence of a festival that it breaks upon one brilliantly and abruptly, that at one moment the great day is not and the next moment the great day is.

Grace is the wonderful spirit that imbues every fiber of our being when we practice the fruits of the spirit: kindness, patience, understanding, forgiveness, love, gentleness, fellowship and endurance...

The story of Easter is the story of God’s wonderful window of divine surprise.

Is Advent a preparatory fast in preparation for the liturgical commemoration of the historical birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, or is Advent a season unto itself. A sacrament of the end of time begun in t...

O Splendor of God’s glory bright. From Light eternal bringing light, O Light of life, the living Spring, True Day, all days illumining. Dawn’s glory gilds the earth and skies; Let him, our perfect...

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,...

This vortex of dying and rising—Jesus’ and ours in him—is the paschal mystery. Christians still tell it and taste it, especially when we gather for worship on Sunday. Christ’s Pascha—the word for the...

Halloween is the beginning of the holiday shopping season. That’s for women. The beginning of the holiday shopping season for men is Christmas Eve.

Now Christmas is come, Let us beat up the drum, And call all our neighbors together, And when they appear, Let us make them such cheer, As will keep out the wind and the weather.

Leader: As we continue the season of Advent, we celebrate that Jesus has come, and that He promises to come again! Jesus came to bring light and hope, People: but our hearts are often shrouded by d...

Joining the Pilgrims on the Way to Jerusalem For most Christians observing Lent, Holy Week marks the height of the drama of the Christian year. The pilgrims who have made the long journey through Len...