Luke 24:13-35 Dear Partner in Preaching, Notice that it’s a road. Not an upper room or garden or mountain top or any of the other places we expect revelation to take place. It’s a road. And it’s not a pronouncement or discourse, but a conversation. I think these details are important. Sometimes, it’s enough just to see Jesus, or to hear of his resurrection, or to be promised his presence. And sometimes it’s not. Sometimes it takes longer. Sometimes the move from doubt, fear, and grief to faith, hope, and love takes both the time it takes to walk from one town to another and the opportunity for an open and honest conversation. Can...

Matthew 11:2-11 Dear Partner in Preaching, It’s quite a change, isn’t it? I mean, last Sunday’s gospel reading all but brimmed over with John the Baptist’s confidence and his clear and compelling call for repentance. Yet John’s tune changes markedly in the reading we will be preaching this Sunday. Now, sitting alone in a dark and dank cell, John questions his earlier confidence and perhaps his very mission and identity, and so sends a disciple to go and ask Jesus a poignant, even heartbreaking question: are you really the one who is to come, or should we look for another? The movement from last week’s reading to this one is both...