the christian calendar on Loss

A preaching professor at Harvard University tells the story of the year his 5-year-old son was working on an art project in his kindergarten class. It was made of plaster, resembled nothing in particu...

Burnout is the disease of our age. Time magazine had an editorial way back in the 1980s about “the burnout of just about everybody.” I concluded that the metaphor of burnout was not quite right, parti...

Since failure is our unforgivable sin, we are willing to ignore all forms of deviance in people if they just achieve the success symbols which we worship.

Reflection It is striking that after Jesus’ death there are no close companions left to claim his body. All his public followers scattered. Only a secret follower, Joseph of Arimathea, accompanied by...

Tell me dear tree on which my Lord, my blessed Lord did hang, How could you hold the spotless Lamb, be party with the gang? That cheerless day, that shadowy hour, my blessed Savior died, to free my so...

I wouldn’t be surprised if, as a Protestant pastor, you approach All Saints’ Day with a little unease. After all, because Protestant churches tend not to have a special class of canonized exemplars ...

VOICE ONE To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Ch...

Getting in the Mood for Christmas Christmas movies do a variety of things: get us in the mood for the season, connect us with family, and entertain us. Alongside the stockings, fir tree, and nativity...

Christmas is Over It’s Christmas morning, not yet light. I am ten years old, creeping down the stairs, and I am full of hope. My siblings and I were told there will be no Christmas. Our mother told u...

What did they cry out that first Palm Sunday? Hosanna! Blessed is the One who comes in the Name of the Lord! Hosanna to the Son of David! Hosanna in the Highest! Hosanna! Save Now! Jesus, save us Sav...

Lord—we’re so anxious we can’t wait! Some of us can’t wait for Christmas to come, while (honestly) some others of us can’t wait for it to be over. We’re not proud of it—but that’s just the way it is ...

Is there anyone who is a devout lover of God? Let us enjoy this beautiful bright festival! Is there anyone who is a grateful servant? Let us rejoice and enter into the joy of our Lord! Are ther...

The Lord calls us to examine the wounds of the Risen One and to see there the depth of his love for us. Let us therefore approach the throne of God in confidence as we pray for the people of God in Ch...

The Need to Pray In light of the shocking Hamas attack on October 7 and the Israeli response, urgent prayer is needed by Christians for the people of Israel and Palestine. In numbers, 1,400 people we...

A Joyful Easter Proclamation John Chrysostom (344-407) was the Bishop of Constantinople and is remembered as a Doctor of the Church. He was a renowned preacher (his name, Chrysostomos means "...

This liturgy gives your congregation space to remember those who have gone before and to acknowledge both our gratitude and the pain of loss. VOICE ONE: To the church of God that is in Corinth...

A Blue Christmas Service is offered especially for those hurting during the holidays. It’s often offered December 21, the longest night of the year. Some come because they are mourning the death of...

Remember Jesus of Nazareth, staggering on broken feet out of the tomb toward the Resurrection, bearing on his body the proud insignia of the defeat which is victory, the magnificent defeat of the huma...

“It is finished.” With those words, You declared victory. Sin, death, and evil lost their power. We are the church: Each of us recipients of Your victory. In Jesus, we have won! But often we deny Your...

Nothing, how little so ever it be, if it is suffered for God's sake, can pass without merit in the sight of God.

To put it positively, the descensus is a thoroughly biblical doctrine, which teaches that Jesus experienced human death as all humans do—his body was buried, and his soul departed to the place of the ...

Our life and our death is with our neighbor. If we win our brother, we win God. If we cause our brother to stumble, we have sinned against Christ.

Grant, O Lord, that in your wounds we may find our safety, in your stripes our cure, in your pain our peace, in your Cross our victory, in your Resurrection our triumph, and a crown of righteousness i...

Pastor: For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised ...

In his book, Scary Close , Donald Miller acknowledges that over time he developed a mask, or a persona that kept even those closest to him from experiencing with him. As he began to peel back layers ...

Friends, the Lord is our strength and our defense. He has become our salvation. In the life, death, and resurrection of His Holy One, the repercussions of our sin are shattered. We have been brought w...

We want to avoid suffering, death, sin, ashes. But we live in a world crushed and broken and torn, a world God Himself visited to redeem. We receive his poured-out life, and being allowed the high pri...

On Holy Saturday Jesus entered into the kind of forsakenness and abandonment beyond anything any person could experience. He was not content to deal with our sin problem; his love extended into the wo...

In his highly insightful work, Inside Job , Stephen W. Smith shares the sobering truth of what happens to many leaders when they climb the “ladder of success”: The ground at the foot of the ladde...

Self-denial means knowing only Christ, and no longer oneself. It means seeing only Christ, who goes ahead of us, and no longer the path that is too difficult for us… . Self-denial is saying only: He g...