(Acts 4:8-12;   Ps.118:1,8-9,21-23,26,28-29;   1Jn.3:1-2;   Jn.10:11-18) “There is no salvation through anyone else.” Do not “trust in princes” or in any man; it is by Jesus alone “we are to be saved.”  Though “the builders rejected” Him, though the princes of this age saw fit to crucify the Lord – yet “God raised [Him] from the dead” and exalted Him above every power on earth and in heaven.  And so He is indeed now the foundation of our salvation, the only shepherd who will lead us to the Father… the one who “lays down His life for the sheep.” Many wolv ..read more

(Acts 4:32-35;   Ps.118:1-4,16-18,22-24;   1Jn.5:1-6;   Jn.20:19-31) “His mercy endures forever.” Our psalmist “was hard pressed and was falling, but the Lord helped” him.  The disciples were locked in their rooms for fear, but “Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, ‘Peace be with you.’”  Thomas was hardened in unbelief, but His God appeared to him and said, “Bring your hand and put it into my side.”  We are all sinners, but to us each, Christ offers mercy. From that side into which Thomas placed his hand “blood and water” poured for ..read more

(Jer.31:31-34;   Ps.51:3-4,12-15;   Heb.5:7-9;   Jn.12:20-33) “Father, glorify your name.” Jesus cries out in supplication to Him who is “able to save Him from death,” but He prays not to be saved from death, not to be saved from the sacrifice He must make, but only that in His death the Father might glorify His name.  His “hour has come,” He knows.  He hears from His apostles of the Greeks who seek Him, and He knows it is now time for Him to return to the Father and for His apostles to take over the work He has begun – to carry His salvation to the nati ..read more

(2Chr.36:14-16,19-23;   Ps.137:1-6;   Eph.2:4-10;   Jn.3:14-21)  “By the streams of Babylon we sat and wept.” For “practicing all the abominations of the nations and polluting the Lord’s temple,” the people of God “were carried captive to Babylon.”  For all their “infidelity” they were forced to watch as “their enemies burnt the house of God [and] tore down the walls of Jerusalem.”  And so did their “tongue[s] cleave to [their] palate[s]” in a foreign land; so they “hung up [their] harps”; so their “right hand[s] [were] forgotten”…  They could ..read more

(Gn.22:1-2,9-13,15-18;   Ps.116:10,15-19;   Rom.8:31-34;   Mk.9:2-10) “You shall offer him up as a holocaust on a height that I will point out to you.” “Take your son Isaac, your only one, whom you love,” the Lord instructs Abraham, calling him to sacrifice even as an animal his beloved child, upon whom God’s promise rests.  To a mountain he is led, with his son carrying wood in tow. And arriving at the place God had told him to go, “Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it… and took the knife to slaughter his son.”  The angel comes to st ..read more

(Jas.1:12-18;   Ps.94:12-15,18-19;   Mk.8:14-21)  “He wills to bring us to birth with a word spoken in truth.” But how deaf we are to His speaking. The disciples exhibit a remarkable degree of ignorance in our gospel today.  It would be comical were it not so usual, were it not such a defining trait of us humans.  Preoccupied with their forgetfulness to bring bread for their journey, when the Lord mentions the word “yeast” in a chastising instruction, their minds go immediately to the bread they now lack by their negligence.  Able to go no deeper than th ..read more

(Jas.1:1-11;   Ps.119:67-68,71-72,75-77;   Mk.8:11-13)  “Count it pure joy when you are involved in every sort of trial.” How well James explicates the wisdom of the cross.  First he encourages us to “realize that when [our] faith is tested this makes for endurance,” and then to “let endurance come to its perfection so that [we] may be fully mature and lacking in nothing.”  This is the wisdom of our suffering on earth; this is the blessing of the cross. It is the same wisdom our psalmist propounds when he sings, “It is good for me that I have been afflicted ..read more

(Lv.13:1-2,44-46;   Ps.32:1-2,5,7,11;   1Cor.10:31-11:1;   Mk.1:40-45)  “I said, ‘I confess my faults to the Lord,’ and you took away the guilt of my sin.”  The leper in our gospel confesses his faults to the Lord when he says, “If you wish, you can make me clean,” for by these words he recognizes that “he is in fact unclean” – that he is a sick man in need of a physician.  And Jesus takes away the guilt of his sin when He responds, “I do will it.  Be made clean.”  For by a mere word from His mouth we are purged. That the sinner should cry ..read more

(1Kgs.12:26-32,13:33-34;   Ps.106:4,6-7,19-22;   Mk.8:1-10) “Whoever desired it was consecrated and became a priest of the high places.” For this sin “the house of Jeroboam… was to be cut off and destroyed from the earth.”  Not only will their king be so punished, but the whole Israelite nation will find the wrath of the Lord for such idolatrous action.  Not learning from their forefathers, whom the Lord had a mind to wipe entirely from His book of life and the promise He had given Abraham, again “they exchanged their glory for the image of a grass-eating bullock ..read more

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