Ephesians 1:15-22 – Ascension In his Epistle to the Ephesians, St. Paul prays “that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope…
John 16:23-33 In today’s Gospel from St. John, Jesus says: “Most assuredly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you. Until now you have asked nothing in My name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.” This is one of many passages in…
James 1:16-21 If you want to spend the whole day outside, but if you also want to be in the shade all day long, you will probably not be able to stay in one place. Throughout the day, as the sun continually moves across the sky, the shadow that it casts is also going to…
1 John 3:1-3 “The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know Him.” With these words, the apostle John, in today’s lesson from his First Epistle, describes the situation in which Christians find themselves in this world. Now, when John speaks of the “world” in this sense, he’s not talking…
Easter 2 – John 20:19-31 Many people today believe in life after death and in ghosts. The increasing number of popular ghost-story and ghost-hunting shows on television testifies to this – as does the common notion that the souls of dead loved ones remain with their family members, and watch over them. Many people find…
Acts 10:38-43 Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Today is the high festival of the Resurrection of Our Lord. It is indeed the highest day, which shines the heavenly light of God’s salvation in Christ onto every other day. If the resurrection of Jesus had not taken place, nothing else would matter. And because…
Easter Matins Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Atheists and agnostics commonly launch a wide array of criticisms in the direction of the Christian religion, disparaging Christianity as the source of all evil in human history. An exception, however, was Antony Flew, a British philosopher and student of science. He started out as a…
Good Friday The crucifixion of Jesus Christ was one event in a sequence of saving events that needed to occur during the Lord’s last week of earthly life. He ate the Last Supper with his disciples. He was arrested and tried. He was crucified. And on the third day, he was resurrected. All of these…
Maundy Thursday – Luke 22:7-20 “Do this in remembrance of me.” Jesus gave this directive to his disciples on the occasion of his institution of the Sacrament of the Altar. His giving of his body and blood to them, for the forgiveness of their sins, was not going to be a one-time occurrence. This giving…