One of Jesus’ more famous sayings is also problematic for many people. “I am the way,the truth, and the life,” Jesus says in John 14:6, “No one comes to the Father except through me.” Let’s look at the problems caused by common interpretations of that verse and how Jesus might actually be pointing in a different direction.
You can perhaps see from this 1990 photo of me with my own (freshly shorn) sheep, how much I love them, and I can’t pass up the opportunity the lectionary has given me to talk about them. What the picture doesn’t quite capture is the fact that sheep are dumb as rocks or a lot of other things about sheep that can help us understand the many, many metaphors in the Bible that refer to sheep and shepherds.
– Pastor Anne
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One of the odd pieces in the stories of Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances is that even those very close to Jesus often fail to recognize him. I think that weird detail has something to teach us as we struggle to find Jesus in our lives today.
– Pastor Anne
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On Easter Sunday, our scripture lesson is the resurrection story from Luke, who reported that when the women who went to the tomb ran back to tell the disciples that Jesus was risen, their story was received as merely “an idle tale.” Some things never change.
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On Palm Sunday, we descended the Mount of Olives with the joyful procession leading Jesus into Jerusalem. Just four days later, we find Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, which lies at the base of the Mount of Olives, sweating blood in prayer. How did we get here?
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If you climb a mountain, you also have to descend a mountain. On Palm Sunday Jesus embodies that descent, both literally and figuratively, as he descends the Mount of Olives on a donkey to the gates of Jerusalem, thronged by his followers. Then on Maundy Thursday, we meet Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, at the base of the Mount of Olives before he ascends the hill called Mt. Calvary, bearing a heavy cross.
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