Month: February 2021

Abraham fell facedown; he laughed and said to himself, “Will a son be born to a man a hundred years old? Will Sarah bear a child at the age of ninety?” And Abraham said to God, “If only Ishmael might live under your blessing!” [Genesis 17:17-18, the verses that follow the Old Testament reading for the Second Sunday in Lent, Year B, RCL, NIV]. Abram was 75 years old when Yahweh told him that from him would spring forth a great nation that would bless all the peoples on earth [Genesis 12:1-3]. Of course, that seemed absolutely impossible to Abram. While he and his wife, Sarai, almost ten years Abram’s…

And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him [Mark 1:12-13, a portion of the Gospel reading for the First Sunday in Lent, Year B, RCL, NRSV]. Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. We begin our Lenten Sunday readings in just a few days. While the reading appointed in the Lectionary for the First Sunday in Lent rotates each year among the three Synoptic gospels, the story line is always the same: Following Jesus’ baptism in the River Jordan, he is filled with the…

Then a cloud appeared and covered them, and a voice came from the cloud: “This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him” [Mark 9:7, NIV]. We’re approaching the tenth anniversary of the untimely death of the Reverend Dr. Peter Gomes, a distinguished preacher and Harvard Divinity School professor, and a former visiting professor at our own Duke Divinity School. Only 68 when he died on February 28, 2011, Gomes had, for a number of years, participated in an unusual annual “pulpit swap.” One Sunday each year, Gomes would come to Duke to preach in the Chapel. Will Willimon, then Dean of Duke Chapel, would travel to Cambridge to…

“To whom will you compare me? Or who is my equal?” says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? [Isaiah 40:25-26, NRSV]. In the text that begins with the 40th chapter of Isaiah, the prophet has been commissioned to perform a difficult task. Yahweh has called upon him to proclaim hope to a people who only know despair. Yahweh charges Isaiah to tell the exiles in Babylon that Yahweh is going to deliver them from their captivity. He doesn’t say how, and He doesn’t say when. Isaiah’s task is problematic because his message must be delivered to the captives at a…