Luke 4:14-21 Dear Partner in Preaching, This week’s passage is only part-one in a two-part drama or, really, tragedy. The larger story presages the Passion, I think, as the crowds who are first so impressed by, and excited to hear, Jesus preach (this week), quickly turn on him and threaten to throw him off a cliff (next week). Chapters later, crowds will welcome him with equal measures of acclamation, admiration, and anticipation when Jesus enters Jerusalem, only to call for his execution days later. Which makes it a bit hard to preach this week’s story, as we know it’s only the first half of a larger narrative and that the...

Dear Partner in Preaching, There are so many themes worth exploring in the Prologue to the Gospel of John that it can be difficult to decide just where to land for a sermon. Do we make the connection between the first verse of John and that of Genesis, calling attention to John’s audacious claim to be writing a new Genesis? Do we let our gaze settle instead on the fourteenth verse, John’s Christmas story and the heart of the doctrine of the Incarnation? Either of these elements of John’s magnificent “hymn to the Word” would make for a fine sermon on this second Sunday of Christmas. But I’m going to suggest two other verses, not...