Psalm 51 has been the psalm for the first day of Lent, Ash Wednesday, since the church’s beginnings. It is a prayer of deep repentance, when we find ourselves able to...

Adam and Eve do not passively listen to the snake’s temptation. It is clear from Eve’s response to him that she has been thinking about this all along. The snake says,...

This week we enter Lent, a time of preparation in the early church for those being baptized at Easter. On Easter those being baptized learn that though caught in the death...

Today we celebrate the event of the Transfiguration—an event of central importance in Jesus’ life, as well as the lives of his three intimate companions. The event looks backward and forward,...

Biblical prophets are less interested in predicting the future as in declaring the word of God. Elijah, who engaged in dialogue with Jesus and Moses on the Mount of Transfiguration, embodies...

The reading from Second Peter anticipates the story of the Transfiguration that we will celebrate this coming Sunday. Peter alludes to that event by quoting God’s statement concerning Jesus, “This is...

These verses mention three of Israel’s noted intercessors: Moses, Aaron, and Samuel. They cried out, and God answered! Our God of justice hears the cries of the needy and acknowledges the...

Earthquakes occur in the Holy Land. When the psalmist sings “let the peoples tremble” and “the earth quake,” he is reflecting on a familiar experience. He uses this image to underscore...

The term majestic comes to mind whenever we think about mountains, those towering features of the earth’s landscape that are both beautiful and mysterious. Whether it is Everest or Kilimanjaro, Ararat...

On May 29, 1993, I made my first climb up Mount Chiremba above Old Mutare in Zimbabwe. Just about a hundred years earlier Joseph Crane Hartzell, the newly elected bishop for...