Author: trob

Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us” [John 14:8, NIV]. Generally, on Pentecost Sunday, one is drawn to the traditional first lesson offered by the Lectionary committee: Acts 2:1-21. After all, a significant portion of the contemporary church marks the Day of Pentecost as the moment of the church’s birth, with its rushing, powerful wind, its tongues of fire, not to mention the wonderfully strange phenomenon of the disciples’ sermons and presentations being uttered in their own native Galilean tongue yet heard and understood by “devout Jews from every nation under heaven” [Acts 2:5] in their own native languages. As important as the…

The jailer called for lights, and rushing in, he fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them outside and said, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" They answered, "Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household." [Acts 16:29-31, NRSV]. In The Acts of the Apostles, Luke’s sacred historical and theological account of the early church, we encounter three miracle prison escape stories. In the first, [Acts 5:17-21], the apostles are arrested and locked in the public prison after performing many miracles of healing. Yet, during their first night of confinement, an angel of the Lord opens the prison doors,…

But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you [John 14:26]. You might think it a bit odd, but sometimes when I read a pericope of Holy Scripture, my mind jumps back to a situation or to an event decades long gone. It isn’t so much that the verses themselves cause me mentally to recall the long-passed event. Rather, it’s in what I can only describe as the movement of the Holy Spirit—as presumptuous as that might sound—that my heart is “reminded” of the special moment in my past. That…

The Spirit told me to go with them and not to make a distinction between them and us [Acts 11:12a, NRSV]. There was an elephant in the living room, and it simply couldn’t be ignored. It had been some time since the authorities at First Church (Jerusalem) had heard from Peter. Everyone knew that he was impetuous, sometimes reacting without thinking, but reliable word had come back to James and the others in leadership positions within the Jerusalem church that Peter had overstepped his authority, that while he was out in the field, so to speak, he had baptized a few Gentiles and worse, he had entered several Gentile households…

Peter put all of them outside, and then he knelt down and prayed. He turned to the body and said, “Tabitha, get up.” Then she opened her eyes, and seeing Peter, she sat up. He gave her his hand and helped her up. Then calling the saints and widows, he showed her to be alive. This became known throughout Joppa, and many believed in the Lord [Acts 9:40-42]. I’ve shared some poignant, pensive, and even painful stories with some of you concerning the slow demise of our dad, who died November 22, 2014. During the last half decade of his life, he suffered from dementia. The illness took a bit…

Now as he was going along and approaching Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” He asked, “Who are you, Lord?” The reply came, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But get up and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do” [Acts 9:3-6]. Just outside Bab Kisan (i.e., “Kisan Gate”), one of the seven ancient city-gates of Damascus, Syria, there is a statue of the apostle Paul being thrown from his horse as he approaches the city on the fateful day of…

But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe” [John 20:24-25]. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, Jane and I spent almost two weeks in March lounging and talking with a small group of college friends at two separate idyllic spots on the South Carolina coast. Virtually all of us are the same…

For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating; for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight [Isaiah 65:17-18]. Sorry to start my Holy Week meditation on a downer, but as I began to write this week’s piece on Tuesday evening, I heard—through the magic of my Phonak hearing aids—snippets of an evening news story regarding the Brooklyn subway incident, in which 10 or more people were shot by an assailant, posing as a workman. During Palm…

As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, “if you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side [Luke 19:41-43]. Today, for the first time in the more than two years that I’ve been writing these Wednesday meditations, the Lectionary text that I’ve chosen as the basis for this piece [Luke 19:28-40 Passion/Palm Sunday, RCL, Year C] serves as an overlay for the text we discussed this…

But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray him, objected, “Why wasn’t this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year’s wages….” [John 12:4-5]. As we move toward the Gospel reading for this upcoming Sunday, John 12:1-8 [the Fifth Sunday in Lent, RCL, Year C], we take note that Death is in the air. It has been perhaps a week or so—the Gospel writer gives no specific time frame—since Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead [see John 11:44]. John, the Gospel writer, makes it clear: the raising of the dead man, Lazarus, was one sign too many for the Pharisees.…