Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ!  Amen. “Two others, who were criminals, were led away to be put to death with him.  And when they came to the place that is called The Skull, there they crucified him, and the criminals, one on his right and […]

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ!  Amen.  There is an apocryphal saying attributed to Martin Luther about the end of the world.  Supposedly, when asked what he would do if he knew that the world was going to end tomorrow, he replied, “Plant an apple tree.”  […]

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! Amen. “Pastor, how do I know that God is listening?” “Why doesn’t he answer my prayers?” “Do my prayers even make a difference?” These are the kinds of questions I hear from you with great regularity. And these are not […]

SAMARITAN LEPER: “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” That was the first thing we said when we saw him—my fellow lepers and I. I don’t know if it was the right thing to say or the only thing to say. But that’s what we needed more than anything: mercy. I used to be a leper—something […]

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.  In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus seems to address various odds and ends of the Christian life: temptation, forgiveness, faith, and duty.  Yet one thread ties them all together: the theme of forgiveness.  Forgiveness is hard.  As C.S. Lewis writes […]