Preaching the Scriptures

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson John 20:19-31 A New Reality It was not hard to identify the moment in which life changed for the remaining eleven.   It was, of course, Friday.   On Friday, just a few days earlier, a few short days before our Gospel story takes place, they watched, from a distance, as Jesus was executed.   That harsh, abrasive sound of hammered metal echoed through their minds still.   The image of his dying body was burned into their memories.   The sounds of his last gasps for air were the stuff of their nightmares.   As Jesus died, so did their dreams, so did the triumphant future which they so surely expected.   They had imagined his fame and popular appeal might translate into a royal throne.   Everything they had seen –from the divine encounter on the mount of Transfiguration to the feeding of the masses, the way he could heal the sick and his power to calm even the turbulent waters – suggested that they had hitc...

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson A New Reality It has only been three and a half years, but sometimes I forget what it was like before I had a child.   Sometimes my son will appear in memories in which he does not belong – as if he were photo-shopped into a moment that once belonged to just me and my wife.   And usually it will be my wife who reminds me that that happened before we had kids.   It just feels like he has always been there.   Or maybe that's just because we haven't really slept in three and a half years.   But birth does that.   It creates a new reality.   It is amazing how one small human being changes an entire family.   One small human being changes other lives; that baby makes new parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins and siblings.   Birth does that.   It creates a new reality. Our Gospel reading from Luke begins with the world that was – that was before the birth.   There is th...