Mark 9:2-9 Dear Partner in Preaching, Of late, I’ve been thinking about the creeds. Actually more than just thinking; in fact, of late I have been somewhat preoccupied with the creeds. Don’t worry, I know why. It’s because I am teaching confirmation and we are exploring the creed and what it means today. Which is of course the problem, because sometimes it’s hard to make sense of the creeds, and that’s particularly true of the Nicene Creed. Fourth-century language and philosophy applied to making sense to one of the central mysteries of the Christian faith: how can Jesus be both divine and human, two natures in one person, let...

Dear Partner in Preaching, Oddly enough, there’s a scene from AMC’s record-breaking TV program The Walking Dead that popped into my head when reading this passage. No, no one turns brilliantly white. And there are no offers to build three booths. Rather, it’s a simple exchange between Rick Grimes, the sheriff who leads a band of survivors through a zombie-infested landscape and Herschel Greene, an older man who functions as something of a father-figure and mentor to Rick. They are discussing the horrors of their post-apocalyptic world when Herschel affirms that he still believes there is a plan to all this, that God has something in...