resurrection on Denial

Gracious God, we confess our sin to you, for we have denied your light in us; we have betrayed your Holy Spirit in us. For those sins which weigh upon us, and those we do not even know we ...

I remember growing up in the ’80s (yes, that dates me) when all kinds of fears and phobias seemed to be in the air—fear of the dark, snakes, scorpions, spiders. Someone in my own close circle was afra...

Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? Worldviews Collide In this passage, we have a clash of worldviews similar to some that we find today.  While the Sadducees were not mat...

Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? Worldviews Collide In this passage, we have a clash of worldviews similar to some that we find today.  While the Sadducees were not mat...

Reject Christianity, if you will, out of motives of cynicism; turn away from it because you believe. Reality is malign and punitive; choose a God that is cantankerous, vindictive, or forgetful, or det...

Every movement toward the humiliation of the false self, if we accept it, is a step toward interior freedom and inner resurrection.

I know the resurrection is a fact, and Watergate proved it to me. How? Because 12 men testified they had seen Jesus raised from the dead, then they proclaimed that truth for 40 years, never once denyi...

The greatest negative in the universe is the Cross, for with it God wiped out everything that was not of Himself: the greatest positive in the universe is the resurrection, for through it God brought ...

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...

Pastor: Even in our Easter joy, we confess before our gracious God our failings and sin. ( Silence for reflection and personal confession) Pastor: Merciful Father, People: we con...

Make no mistake: if he rose at all It was as His body; If the cell’s dissolution did not reverse, the molecule reknit, The amino acids rekindle, The Church will fall. It was not as the flowers, Each ...

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...

Norman Malcolm was an American philosopher who became close friends with Ludwig Wittgenstein (the founder of Analytic Philosophy, one of the most popular schools of philosophy up through today). In 19...

The practice of resurrection is not an attack on the world of death; it is a nonviolent embrace of life in the country of death. It is an open invitation to live eternity in time.

Almighty God, we too often live in fear. Fear drives our self-preservation, our self-centered decisions, and prevents us from comprehending the wonder of your presence among us. Like Peter, we would d...

Living God, we confess the weakness of our faith. While we have heard the news that, “He is risen,” we have kept it to ourselves. In church, in the presence of the Believing, we have professed Christ’...

I am still haunted by a long conversation I had with a man who was a member of one of my early congregations. . . . He had a stunning vision of the presence of the risen Christ . . . [and] had never t...

In spite of closed doors and the seclusion of the frightened disciples, Jesus finds them…. Nothing keeps Jesus, the good shepherd from finding his own.

Out of the depths, we cry to you, Lord; Lord, hear our voice. Let your ears be attentive to our cries for mercy. Living in frailty and weakness with adversity in our path, we too often buckle in despa...

The “swoon theory” argues that Jesus never really died, only appeared to have died, and then came back to life while buried in the tomb. It’s an interesting idea, one that was popularized in a book in...

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...

The resurrection was as inconceivable for the first disciples, as impossible for them to believe, as it is for many of us today. Granted, their reasons would have been different from ours. The Greeks ...

It has never at any time been possible to fit the resurrection of Jesus into any world view except a world view of which it is the basis.

It is not easy to convey a sense of wonder, let alone resurrection wonder, to another. It’s the very nature of wonder to catch us off guard, to circumvent expectations and assumptions. Wonder can’t be...

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...

The Celebrant and People together, all kneeling Most holy and merciful Father: We confess to you and to one another, and to the whole communion of saints in heaven and on earth, that we have sinne...

It is love that believes the resurrection. Culture & Value: A Selection from the Posthumous Remains rev. ed., G. H. von Wright et al., trans. Peter Winch, Blackwell.

Leader: We are people of the resurrection. Witnesses to God’s glorious victory in Jesus Christ, which brings peace and transforms the power structures of this world. But we also know that we live in ...

Pastor: God exalted Jesus at His right hand as Leader and Savior  People: to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. Pastor: In repentant faith, we come before our Lord in confessi...

Notes on the Passage Besieged from All Angles:  The context of this passage is best summed up with the words recorded throughout the letter: Trouble, Distress, Suffering, Hardship, Death at work, Ja...