Baptism of Jesus: What does Your Baptism Mean?

Genesis 1:1-5 Mark 1:4-11

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

 And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light ‘day’, and the darkness he called ‘night’. And there was evening, and there was morning – the first day.

One of the first things we hear about what I will call pre-creation is that the writer of Genesis describes there being waters: surface of the deep and hovering over the waters. 

The Christmas Season: Stars to Steer By

This is the next in my series of blogs in which I am reviewing Joan Chittister's The Liturgical Year.

[Order it here and read my earlier reviews of her book here.]

Thus far we have looked at Advent; now we move to the Christmas season, which includes Christmas Day and the season of Epiphany.

Crawl, Walk, Run, Fly

Isaiah 40:21-31 & Mark 1:29-39

Hear the Gospel according to Isaiah:

The Lord is the everlasting God, 

    the Creator of the ends of the earth.

He will not grow tired or weary,

    and his understanding no one can fathom.

He gives strength to the weary

    and increases the power of the weak.

Even youths grow tired and weary,

    and young men stumble and fall;

but those who hope in the Lord

    will renew their strength.

They will soar on wings like eagles;

    they will run and not grow weary,

    they will walk and not be faint.

How do you feel today...flying, running, walking...perhaps you'd like to add one...crawling.

What is the Gospel and did Jesus preach it?

and did Jesus preach it ?

Jonah 3:1-5, 10

Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time: ‘Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.’

Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very large city; it took three days to go through it. Jonah began by going a day’s journey into the city, proclaiming, ‘Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.’ The Ninevites believed God. A fast was proclaimed, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth......When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened.

This week's texts exemplify Epiphany, the season after Christmas which began with the visit of the Wise Men, the season where our focus is on Jesus, light to all people.  The story of Jonah is relatively well known, even to people who no longer or never have had an interest in the Scriptures. In the week ahead, I invite you to read all of Jonah's 48 verses without being swallowed up by the tale's fishiness. Instead, focus on God's abundant love for all people.

When God calls

image sourced here

Here are the lectionary readings for this Sunday 18 Jan. My focus will be on Samuel and John, delving into the call of God: