Author: Administrador

Karoline Lewis My birthday is December 24. For a long time, longer than I care to admit, I thought my birthday was actually on Christmas because my family always celebrated Christmas on Christmas Eve night. By the time we went to sleep, after the final Christmas Eve service (and there were a few of them … Continue reading “A Good Day to be Born”

Rachel Wrenn It’s almost Christmas. There are songs, pictures, and talk of Sweet Baby Jesus (à la Will Ferrell) everywhere. This baby is invariably adorable and always blessing the people around him. Which is not, as we know, always true of babies. (Far from it, says this mom of two under 3!) And it’s also … Continue reading “In Lonely Exile: Miscarriage and Infertility at Christmas”

Karoline Lewis The fullness of time has indeed come (Gal 4:4) and indeed, how can we keep silent (Isa 62:1)? For we have seen God’s salvation, prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel (Luke 2:31-32). The First Sunday of Christmas is … Continue reading “Just Praise”

Karoline Lewis Lucky you! A commentary on John 1:1-18 on WorkingPreacher.org and a Dear Working Preacher column on the same text, in the same week, both by me. You may be wondering, what else can she say? Believe me, so am I. In my commentary, I was explicit in naming a number of different sermon … Continue reading “A Prologue for the New Year”

Debra J. Mumford Just the thought of doing exegesis for one more sermon is enough to make some preachers want to scream. We all realize that good exegetical work is vital for good, responsible, and theologically sound preaching. Yet, we often despair at the thought of it because it requires time — something of which … Continue reading “An Existential Encounter with the Text”

Karoline Lewis I have said this before and I will say it again — preaching on the Baptism of Our Lord Sunday can quickly and despairingly devolve into bland, benign, boring, and banal descriptions of baptism, why it’s important, and why we should do it. Please don’t preach this kind of sermon. This is the … Continue reading “Baptismal Blessings?”

Kae Evensen [This article was first published on Jan. 5, 2009.] Without small birds, the world would be very quiet. In fact, it would hardly make a sound. In January the northern hemisphere is locked in silence and in a sense, that emptiness in itself is a beauty. And it is beauty of another kind when … Continue reading “Mark’s Gospel and The Small Bird’s Immediacy”

Karoline Lewis Look it up. What does epiphany actually mean? Of course there will be several possible definitions, but here’s one that caught my attention — an immediate and meaningful understanding of something. Surprising. Sudden. Profound. Have we thought of Epiphany in this way? Or have our Epiphany anticipations been tilted more toward ecclesial and … Continue reading “Epiphany Expectations”

Nathan Aaseng In 1920, University of Notre Dame’s football star, George Gipp, contracted pneumonia and died, just weeks after being named an All-American. According to his coach, the legendary Knute Rockne, Gipp had told him on his deathbed that when the time came that the Irish were in a desperate situation, he should invoke Gipp’s … Continue reading “Winning One for the Gipper”

Arland J. Hultgren When Eliza Doolittle is finally able to say, “The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain,” Henry Higgins blurts out, “I think she’s got it! By George, she’s got it!” At last she was able to suspend her cockney accent and pronounce words properly — or at least properly to the … Continue reading “Review: New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology and Exegesis”