St. John the Divine Anglican Church

Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia! Tonight we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ from death and grave to eternal life. But, for many people, Easter means so much more. As I was watching television earlier today, I saw an ad for a Golden Easter Bunny made of chocolate. The tag line was something about the Magic of Easter. It occurs to me that

Tonight we celebrate the events of the Last Supper in the upper room, where Christ gave his disciples instructions to be carried out in his name. The name Maundy came from the Latin word Maundatum, meaning commandment. The commandment we focus on today is the one Christ gave, “do this in remembrance of me.” St. Justin the Martyr, who was born in about 100 AD, was one of the first

Today is Palm Sunday, but you will notice in your bulletin it has two names. “The Sunday of the Passion: Palm Sunday” This because there are two distinct parts to our celebration today. The first being a commemoration of the entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem. We read from the Gospel according to St. Matthew about this event. “Go into the village opposite you, and immediately you will find an ass

“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” From St. Paul’s letter to the Romans. St. Paul’s letter to the Romans is considered one of the greatest books in the Bible. Martin Luther described it as “the chief book in the New Testament and the purest gospel.” John Knox, a modern American professor, says that it is

The day’s theme comes from the entrance antiphon reflecting on Isaiah 66:10-11: “Rejoice with Jerusalem, and be glad for her, all you who love her; rejoice with her in joy, all you who mourn over her; that you may nurse and be satisfied from her consoling breast; that you may drink deeply with delight from her glorious abundance.” That motherly theme reminds us that the New Jerusalem, the Church of

The Woman at the Well Water is something we take for granted here. We turn the little handle and the water flows. In many parts of the world, water is a precious resource that is not easy to come by. Water is life. When I was in Malawi, I saw women carrying buckets of water on their heads. Each day they walk to the local well, fill up their buckets,

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life,” from the Gospel according to St. John. These words from the Gospel according to St. John are among the most well known in the Bible. They are filled with hope and love, and reassurance that God loves us, and wants us to live eternally; however, these

“After Jesus was baptized, he was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.” From the Gospel according to St. Matthew. On Wednesday, we began our annual Lenten season of prayer and fasting in which we participate in the 40 days journey in the wilderness with Jesus. I did not say that we will commemorate this event. Rather, we are called to participate in

“Six days after Peter had acknowledged Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the Living God, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, apart.” (Matthew 17:1-9) Whenever Jesus wanted to teach his disciples, he went up on a mountain, according to Matthew. Remember that Moses went up on a mountain to hear the Lord’s commandments. And so we see

The Gospel reading this week is about Jesus teaching about the Law of Moses. The Pharisees were very strict about the Law, and they wanted everyone else to follow it, too. But Jesus saw something in the Pharisees that they couldn’t see. The Law that they loved so much had become more about legalism, and less about God’s purpose for his people. The Pharisees put the Law above our Lord