Tag Archives: resurrection

Discipline & Commitment

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Second Sunday of Easter, Year C
April 28, 2019

Acts 5:27-32 Jesus, whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree.
Revelation 1:4-8 To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood.
John 20:19-31 Peace be to you…I send you…receive the spirit of holiness.

O God of life, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

 Our Gospel reading for today is a little like watching a prime-time serial program where the story leaves off at the end of one episode and picks up the next week only several hours later in the story. This passage begins, “being evening on that first day” – narratively, the same day that the women had found the tomb empty, the same day that Mary Magdalene had encountered the risen Lord. The disciples were hiding behind shut doors because they were afraid.
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Heaven

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Easter Sunday (C)
April 21, 2019

Isaiah 65:17-25 Be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating.
1 Corinthians 15:19-26 The last enemy to be destroyed is death.
Luke 24:1-12 Amazed at what had happened.

Good morning! I was hoping you’d be here. You look beautiful. Thank you for coming to Emmanuel Church to kick-off the festival of the Great Fifty Days of Easter. I think that the Church gives us 12 days of Christmas, 40 days of Lent and 50 days of Easter, because Easter is the hardest to grasp. I’m glad that you’re here whether you love this holiday, or you don’t so much. Maybe you are here because it matters to someone you love, or you are here for a sadder reason. I love to say, whether you have come for celebration or solace, whether you are energized or exhausted, excited or grumpy, whether you have skipped or stumbled into this sanctuary, my hope for all of you is that, you will leave here today knowing more deeply that you are loved – that even if (and maybe especially if) you don’t feel like you “fit in,” still, you belong here today. Emmanuel Church is a place where we actively practice belonging to one another no matter what. It’s not always easy, but it is always worth it. This is a place where we focus our efforts not on whether we (or anyone else) will get into heaven, but on whether any heaven will get into us.[1]

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Looking More Resurrected

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Second Sunday of Easter, Year B, April 8, 2018; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Acts 4:32-35 There was not a needy person among them.
1 John 1:1-2:2 If we say that we have no sin we deceive ourselves.
John 20:19-31 Peace be with you.

O God of our wildest dreams, grant us the wisdom, the strength and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

Today is the eighth day of Easter. Eight out of fifty of Easter – so it’s still early. The puppets from our grand first-day procession last week have been returned to their storage places, but the flowers are still pretty fresh, and there are still good Easter hymns left to be sung. We have a baptism to celebrate today. Emilia Julu Hudson Houge has brought together family and friends from near and far to join her Emmanuel Church peeps for a ceremony of Christian belonging. Thank you all for being here today. Almost any day in the church year is a good day for a baptism, as far as I’m concerned, and today is especially rich because the theological message for the second Sunday in Easter is always: “you should believe it whether or not you’ve seen it.” Because of Emi’s baptism, I’m reminded of what one of my seminary professors was fond of saying: “I believe in infant baptism, heck, I’ve seen it!” I want to make sure you know that you don’t have to have a baptism ceremony to belong here at Emmanuel Church, but why not give the community another reason to rejoice?
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It’s funny. Live in the along!

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Easter, Year B, April 1, 2018; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Acts 10:34-43 I truly understand that God shows no partiality.
1 Corinthians 15:1-11 Also you are being saved.
John 20:1-18 I have seen the Lord.

O God of laughter, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

Happy April Fools’ Day everyone! I’m so glad you’re here. You look very beautiful (and that is no joke). Welcome to those of you who are here for the first time; welcome to those of you who have been here more times than you can count, and welcome to everyone in between!  Thank you for coming to Emmanuel Church to begin the festival of the Great Fifty Days of Easter.  You honor us with your presence this morning. We are glad that you’re here whether you love this holiday, or you don’t so much, but you are here because it matters to someone you love, or you are here for a sadder reason.  Maybe some of you don’t even quite know the reason you’re here – and I’m grateful that you’re here too!
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The Art of Resurrection

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Easter Year A, April 16, 2017; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Jeremiah 31:1-6 I have loved you with an everlasting love.
Colossians 3:1-4, 5-15 When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory.
Matthew 28:1-10 Go and tell.

O God of new life, grant us the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may and cost what it will.

I love the Gospel of Matthew’s account of the resurrection of Jesus. But before I get to it, I need to say something briefly about our readings from Jeremiah and Colossians. Many of you know that promoting Biblical literacy is one of my life projects, and so I don’t want to miss the opportunity to draw your attention to the God of Love represented in our First Testament (also known as the Old Testament) reading. In Jeremiah, God is saying to Jeremiah “In the days to come, I will be their God and they will be my people. [Remember] the people who survived the sword found grace in the wilderness when they were returning homeward.” Then God says to those who are living in exile as captives of the Babylonian Empire, “I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you…I will build you up again and you’ll make music and dance, you will plant long-term crops and live to enjoy the fruit.” Continue reading →

Mystery, Meaning, Risk & Relationship

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Third Sunday of Easter, Year B, April 19, 2015; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Acts 3:12-19. You Israelites
1 John 3:1-7. We should be called children of God and that is what we are.
Luke 24:36b-48.  And the psalms must be fulfilled.

O God of Hope, grant us the wisdom, the strength and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

You probably know that the Gospel of John, for all of its beautiful love poetry and prose, is notoriously anti-Jewish or anti-Judean in its rhetoric about the death and resurrection of Jesus, written as if it were Jews and not Romans who were the threat to Jesus. In the Gospel of John is codified one side of a late first century argument about ways to move forward socially, politically and theologically in the precarious time after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans. The writer of John places anti-Jewish words anachronistically in the mouths of Jesus and his friends who were, of course, all Jewish. Continue reading →