Category Archives: Scripture

Good Shepherd Sunday

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I AM the Good Shepherd3This coming Sunday, the 4th Sunday of Easter, is known as “Good Shepherd Sunday,” because of the gospel that is proclaimed:

11 I am the good shepherd. A good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12 A hired man, who is not a shepherd and whose sheep are not his own, sees a wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away, and the wolf catches and scatters them. 13 This is because he works for pay and has no concern for the sheep. 14 I am the good shepherd, and I know mine and mine know me, 15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I will lay down my life for the sheep. 16 I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. These also I must lead, and they will hear my voice, and there will be one flock, one shepherd. 17 This is why the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again.   18 No one takes it from me, but I lay it down on my own. I have power to lay it down, and power to take it up again. This command I have received from my Father.”

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The Acts of the Apostles

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Throughout the Easter Season, our first reading if from The Acts of the Apostles. This is the second volume of Luke’s two-volume work, continues Luke’s presentation of biblical history, describing how the salvation promised to Israel in the Old Testament and accomplished by Jesus has now under the guidance of the holy Spirit been extended to the Gentiles. This was accomplished through the divinely chosen representatives whom Jesus prepared during his historical ministry and commissioned after his resurrection as witnesses to all that he taught. Luke’s preoccupation with the Christian community as the Spirit-guided bearer of the word of salvation rules out of his book detailed histories of the activity of most of the preachers.

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Imago Dei

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The gospel for the 2nd Sunday of Easter for this year is filled with so much. It contains homily material for a month of Sundays. Among it all is this simple verse: “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” (John 21:21)  At a simple level it is the Johannine post-Resurrection commissioning, but it is the how that points to more: “As the Father sent me…” It wasn’t the simple commissioning in Matthew:

Go, therefore,* and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.* And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.”(Matthew 24:19-20)

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Royals Priests

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Adam is created as God’s first-born son. He’s also conceived as a priest. In previous posts, we saw how the world was fashioned as a Temple and the Garden of Eden was depicted as the sanctuary of the Temple – the holy place where God dwells. If you have a temple, you need a priest to guard it and keep it and to offer sacrifices. And that’s the task that God gives to Adam. It’s a “priestly” task. But you need to know a little Hebrew to understand it.

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Emmaus & Jerusalem

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This coming Sunday is the 3rd Sunday in Easter, Year B.  You can read an complete commentary on the reading here:

35 Then the two recounted what had taken place on the way and how he was made known to them in the breaking of the bread. 36 While they were still speaking about this, he stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.” 37 But they were startled and terrified and thought that they were seeing a ghost. 38 Then he said to them, “Why are you troubled? And why do questions arise in your hearts? 39 Look at my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you can see I have.” 40 And as he said this, he showed them his hands and his feet.

41 While they were still incredulous for joy and were amazed, he asked them, “Have you anything here to eat?” 42 They gave him a piece of baked fish; 43 he took it and ate it in front of them. 44 He said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses and in the prophets and psalms must be fulfilled.” 45 Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures. 46 And he said to them, “Thus it is written that the Messiah would suffer and rise from the dead on the third day 47 and that repentance, for the forgiveness of sins, would be preached in his name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. 48 You are witnesses of these things. 49 And (behold) I am sending the promise of my Father upon you; but stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.” Continue reading →

Can’t live with ’em

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Sennacherib

In my experience when you ask folks about the Kings of Israel and Judah, you are likely to get an “Oh, yeah… like King David and King Solomon.” Some might know more of the names of kings, such as Saul or Hezekiah, but no one will be able to name them all (nor can I). But stop a moment and think about the whole ideas of Kings. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, and Joshua -all great names in the history of the people of Israel – but none of them were kings. There were prophets and judges, heroes and heroines, but from where came the kings?

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The Son of God

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JesusIconNazarethThe gospel reading for today has a rather odd phrase: Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your law, I said, ‘You are gods’”?  I think there is a tendency to be mystified and at the same simply think, “OK, Jesus said it…. That’s enough for me.”  And then move on. But there is a lot going on in John 10, of which this gospel selection is just a portion.

The context for this chapter of the fourth gospel is the feast of Hanukkah (sometimes known as the feast of Dedication), a commemoration of the recovery of Jerusalem and subsequent rededication of the Second Temple at the beginning of the Maccabean revolt against the Seleucid Empire in the 2nd century BCE. This feast celebrated the reconsecration of the temple by Judas the Maccabean (164 B.C.) after its profanation three years earlier by the Syrian Antiochus IV Epiphanes (1 Macc 4:36–59; 2 Macc 10:1–8; who had sacrificed a sow to Jupiter on the altar of the Temple). This yearly celebration lasted nine days, was a “lights” ceremony like the feast of Tabernacles (John 7:2), and was celebrated in mid-December Continue reading →

Now is the time

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Our text from the 5th Sunday in Lent (Year B) is located in the final section of the “Book of Signs” in the Gospel according to John. You can read a full commentary here. As a bit of refresher, the seven signs in John’s Gospel are:

Through the story of the raising of Lazarus we already know that Jesus has power over death, but in this gospel account it is revealed that He will give life through death. A death that is quickly approaching as this gospel account occurs after Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem that we celebrate on Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion. Continue reading →

When we walk out on God

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The Book of Judges, the seventh book of the Old Testament, is a narrative that covers the time between the death of Joshua who lead the Hebrews to settle the Promised Land, and establishing the age of King as described in the Books of Samuel, the last of the Judges. In the in-between times God raised up Judges to serve as temporary leaders of the 12 Tribes of Israel.

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Joshua

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While reading the Old Testament, you probably noticed there are moments of violence in which the role of the antagonist is played by the Hebrew people. The Book of Joshua, following on the heels of the Moses and the time in the wilderness, presents a narrative of the way Israel took possession of the land of Canaan, making it the land of Israel – by conquest.

The Book of Joshua is not a newspaper report or a historical reporting – most scholars hold that it was not composed at the time of Israel’s entry in the Promised Land, but is a later composition that preserves older oral narratives of Israel’s settlement of the land – especially the division of the land among the 12 tribes of Israel. If the people entered the land of Canaan circa. 1200 BCE, the initial composition is thought to be sometime between the fall of the 10 northern tribes (722 BCE) and the fall of Jerusalem (587 BCE) – some 500+ years later. The Book of Joshua should be read not so much as imparting information about how Israel took over the land of Canaan as teaching a lesson about how Israel is to avoid losing the land. It should be remembered that by the time the book was written, the Canaanites were long gone.

A comparison of Joshua with the account of Israel’s early history found in the first chapter of the Book of Judges shows that Israel’s emergence as the dominant presence in the land was a slow and piecemeal affair, not achieved at one stroke and with great ease: the Book of Joshua, with its highly idealized depiction of the “conquest,” is a cautionary tale about what the people are to do and not do in order to avoid the fate of the Northern Kingdom in losing the land.

The folks at the Bible Project have produced a nice video overview of the Book of Joshua and offers insight as to the violence described in the book.

As always, I encourage you to support the not-for-profit work of The Bible Project.