Holy Saturday
Matthew 27:57-66 There are two disparate materials in this selection. The first, verses 57-61, is an expression of kindness and love shown to the body of Jesus by Joseph, a relatively rich man from Arimathea. The second, verses 62-66, depicts the chief priests and the Pharisees as gaining permission from Pilate to have guards stationed [...]
Easter Day, Cycle C
RESURRECTION OF THE LORD EASTER DAY The most important sentence of our Easter Day message each year is the statement of faith, “I believe that God raised Jesus from the dead and that God will also raise me and will raise you from the dead.” No Easter message is adequate without this statement of faith. [...]
Good Friday, Cycle C
Psalm 22 As followers of Jesus reminisced about the suffering that Jesus had experienced while he was being tortured and crucified by the Romans and about the significance that they saw in Jesus’ suffering for their own lives, no texts within the Hebrew religious traditions were more helpful to them in describing the crucifixion of [...]
Maundy Thursday, Cycle B
John 13:1-17, 31b-35 For most of us who have been accustomed since our childhood to observe this day as Maundy Thursday and to associate this night with Jesus’ words of the institution of the Eucharist on the night when Jesus would within a few hours be seized in the Garden of Gethsemane, it seems somewhat [...]
Wednesday of Holy Week
John 13:21-32 Not only is the Johannine Jesus in this text depicted as having the foreknowledge of which of the twelve disciples will “betray” him, the Johannine Jesus is portrayed as in a sense mandating that betrayal by saying to Judas Iscariot, “That which you are going to do, do it soon.” Various interpretations have [...]
