Preaching the Scriptures

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Luke 24:13-35 An Intimate Stranger One of the things that makes Easter so popular is that it is so familiar. Everyone knows what to expect: the aisles at Target fill with plastic grass and chocolate bunnies; circulars advertise great deals on pastel colored clothing; the church smells like lilies and brass musicians blast out the opening chords of “Jesus Christ is risen today.” On Easter the pews are full and the Alleluias hearty. Even the scripture readings are predictable. Unlike those Ordinary Sundays of the summer when Jesus' whereabouts and agenda are all over the map – some weeks it's a healing, others a parable, sometimes even an uncomfortable confrontation – on Easter we know exactly where Jesus is and what he is doing. He's in that garden and he is risen. It is always the same. It is ever familiar. Every Easter Sunday greets us with the same gospel story. We always follow Mary Magdalene to the tomb ea...

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson John 20:1-18 The Same Spirit Dwells in You In one of the few scriptures we didn't read this morning, the Apostle Paul writes, to a newborn Christian community, living in the shadows of the same powerful Empire that put to death their Lord Jesus, to a fledgling community struggling to survive: “The same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead dwells in you.” And here you sit today, descendants of those first Christians; and I want you to know: this message, Paul's message, is meant for you too. The very same Spirit of the living God, the same Spirit that empowered the baby Church, the same Spirit that spoke life into that dark cave, into that lifeless tomb, that same spirit that raised Christ from the dead dwells in you. You are housing resurrection power. Can you feel it? You are breathing the breath of God. What you are breathing in and out, holding in your lungs, is as ancient as Creation. In the beginning, before...

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson John's Passion It is Finished I make lists. And I check things off of lists. One-by-one, scratching out each task until all I see before me is a page of scribbles, no more words: I like that. I get a profound sense of satisfaction from gazing upon an accomplished to-do list. On the other hand, things left undone drive me crazy. Like an itch left unscratched, those things remaining, incomplete, unfinished weigh on my mind causing endless amounts of stress – stress that I know will only be quelled when I can finally look at my task list and sigh in relief: it is finished. The cross, that terrible instrument of death, it was always on Jesus' list. The cross, that terrible instrument of death, was the last thing between Jesus and his “it is finished.” Jesus' journey to the cross was much longer than anyone else realized, longer that anyone else could have imagined; it was always there. Long before he hung on the cross...