Sermon preached on Sunday April 2, 2026 before the sacrament of Baptism.

            Today we continue our considerations on the book of 1 Peter. And as we think about 1 Peter, we have a great joy to place before these words about sheep and our shepherd: the sacrament of Baptism—which is the place and moment where our union with Christ is celebrated and honored.  

            As I think about the sacrament, and I know that you will have your own stories about the actual physical experience baptism, or the witnessing of it in your life, I am often reminded of something I read in the book Travelling Mercies. 

            In that book you could read this: 

            “Christianity is about water: ‘Everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters.’ [Those words are] about baptism. . . It’s about falling into something elemental and wet. Most of what we do in [our] worldly life is geared toward staying dry, looking good, not going under. But in baptism, in lakes and rivers, tanks and fonts, you agree to do something that’s a little sloppy because at the same time it’s holy. . . [and extravagant]. 

It’s about surrender, giving in to all those things we can’t control; it a willingness to let go of balance and decorum and get drenched. . . It’s tender partly because it harkens back to infancy, to your mother [or father] washing you face with love and lots of water, tending to you, making you clean all over again. 

And in the Christian experience of baptism. . . the hope, the belief, is that a new day is upon you now. A day when you are emboldened to take God at His word about cleanness and protection.”[1] And ultimately union. 

            And in those words, we hear echoes, of the shepherd who cares for us—his sheep. 

Move 1- the gate

            Our first reading started with the familiar words of John 10. 

After Easter we always read John 10 in worship. This is the chapter where Jesus identifies himself in three ways: as the gate, the gatekeeper, and the shepherd. All three images are important; all three are worthy of our meditation and reflection. They each define an important characteristic of who Jesus is for us and how Jesus chooses to reveal himself to the Church. 

John 10 occurs immediately after the story of the man born blind whose eyesight was returned because Jesus spits and makes mud for him. John 10 is a further reflection on ‘seeing’ for if the people in chapter 9 knew who was with them before, think of what might have occurred. Now in chapter 10, the Church is challenged to see Jesus, experience Jesus differently. Can we see him in these three images. 

            The image that I want to focus on as we prepare for the sacrament of baptism relates directly with the 1 Peter passage: Jesus as the gate. Jesus as the one who brings us in. The one who brings us in while we affirm the struggles of our day which are real and concrete and challenging individually and corporately. Jesus the one who understands the uniqueness of each challenge and none of them are too big. He opens the way for us the Father.  

            The sheep pen is a place of safety. A place of rest. It is the place where the Great Shepherd knows our name and we are affirmed for who we are and our value to God is highlighted. While others will attempt to gain access through a different way, Jesus welcomes us in through the main entrance.  

            Yet ordinarily gates can be seen as something that separates things. 

How many of you have a gate, or grew up with a gate, on your property? Those gates kept things in or kept them out. The gates and the pen kept animals from running (or walking off). They also keep people from doing the same. 

Gates often define boundaries. This is where my possession or my property begins and where yours end. 

And in a more negative sense—this is where the welcome starts and where it stops. And I know that you have felt the welcome, and lack of welcome, from a gate.  

            While there is a temptation to see “Jesus as the gate” as a form of us/them distinction, this is not what Jesus is saying in this text. Rather when Jesus speaks about himself as the gate of the sheep pen, the place of rest, healing, and safety, the Messiah tells us that He is bringing us, he is ushering us into a place of communion with God the Father. Jesus the shepherd, the gate to continue the metaphor, brings us into a communal relationship and place with Himself and with God, His Father. 

            This gate, this Savior, welcomes us into a new place together, and extravagant new place with God. The safety of the sheep pen that Jesus will elaborate upon in the remainder of John 10. It the place, the welcomed place, where the blind man in chapter 9, is now living. 

Move 2- Sheep

            As the Gate of the sheep pen, Jesus welcomes us for we are first, and most importantly, and always, His beloved Sheep. This is the most important aspect of our two texts as they come together and as we pivot into 1 Peter. 

            In a community where competing voice promise to be the ‘gate’ for us culturally at every turn. The One true voice reminds us how cherished we are in God’s eyes. This is in contrast to how cherished we are not too many things in our culture.

The One true voice, the one that loves His sheep, reminds us, that when we are bruised, and beaten, and feel harmed out in our world, Jesus as the Gate of the Sheep Pen, calls us to listen and remember that our God, as 1 Peter reminds us, is the Guardian of our Souls (verse 25). 

            For just as 1 Peter says, as God’s sheep, we will struggle a great deal, both justly and unjustly. 1 Peter tells us that we are unified to One who knows our name and loves us deeply. He is the one who willing suffered for us; the one whose struggle is referred to in verse 24 of our second reading. 

            As sheep we will go astray and we do go astray. Yet by the words of the one who calls us, the one who seeks us, the one who welcomes us into God’s presence, we find union with God available—a union that nothing outside of God can offer. For outside of Christ all other things will pass away and fall short. 

Conclusion

            And this is why I began with those words from Travelling Mercies today. For in baptism, we are reminded of the holiness of God. The extravagance of God willingly choosing union with us when we would not make the same choice. In baptism we are offered the hope and assurance that Jesus will call each, sheep, by name and usher us into that safe place of union with our Heavenly Father. 

            So as Chase and his family come forward soon, and as you pay witness to this sacrament yourselves, I hope you will bring to mind a time when you felt the Lord call you by name and brought you out of a place of suffering and into the place of healing. 

 

 

DM

---

[1] Anne Lamott, Travelling Mercies: 

Let's Walk--1 Peter 1:17-23. Sermon preached on April 19, 2026

            What tethers us to each other? And more than just tethering us to each other, which is important, we need something that will link us to God. Something that holds us to God when we struggle; when the vocalization of our faith feels like it is not enough to confront the challenges of the day.

            Perhaps you might find these two readings offer a way to answer these questions. 

            Following the resurrection of Jesus, the two unnamed men heading away of Jerusalem have experienced a lot. We can infer that they were familiar with the events of Jesus’ death. His suffering. Perhaps they even heard some of the first reports of the empty tomb. 

And after listening to these first reports of Jesus’ resurrection and seeing so much in the eyes of the disciples, one thing was clear: it was time to go. That should surprise us. And in their haste, I wonder if we find something that we could identify with in our walks as Christians. Now neither Cleopas, nor his travelling companion, express it directly, but something is off. 

            Today I want to consider with you what might be going on in their hearts. 

Move 1- exiles

            In both Luke’s famous “Walk to Emmaus,” and in 1 Peter 1, we have concept presented us that is similar. 

            But before we get to Emmaus, let’s focus in 1 Peter 1:17. . . and specifically the last half of that verse. It says, “live in reverent fear during the time of your exile.” Now at first glance these words fit nicely into the lives of 1 Peter’s audience. 

            As I said last week, 1 Peter was written to the church of Asia Minor; to people who defined themselves as living under persecution and oppression regardless of how these terms are defined. Be it physical or spiritual, 1 Peter makes no distinction. He knows his hearers struggle—just as you might as we listen and think about these words following the Easter miracle. 

            So, let’s first look at verse 17 in more detail. 

            “Reverent fear.” Before I define the term with you, I wonder when was the last time that you could say that you felt some sense of reverent fear? 

Peter starts this clause with this one Greek word. It is a word whose context determines its application. For the context determines whether this fear which we are feeling, even if we do not speak about it, honors God or if fear, our anxiety, cripples the faith of the person experiencing it. One commentator I read even wondered if the faithful members of the church would benefit from an alternative translation of the word as: holy awe. So, we could start this section by saying, “Christian, live in holy awe.”

            But the second, and final, half of the verse is where the meat of this passage is found. This is also where our intersection point with Luke, and Cleopas and his friend, begins as well. This is where we read the word Exiles. 

            Now every Hebrew, and every church member, might find their mind drawn back through the history of the church when they hear the word exile. 

The word exile causes our minds drift around to stories that speak about the exiled state that we have been taught. We think of Egyptian slaves struggling to make bricks and living as nomads in the desert. Perhaps you also remember the Hebrew people living far from him in Babylon and fearing the invasion of Assyria before that. We hear the prophets of the Lord talking about an unfaithful people living outside of the Holy Lan because of the sins of their ancestors. And those words from God’s prophets call us to change our ways before we too become exiles. 

In the New Testament, post-resurrection world, this term reaches back in the mind and memory also. It reminds God’s people that they have always lived in a state of transit. These people have always dwelt away from their home—regardless of how home could be defined in any specific moment. 

But… exile is far more than a matter of geography.

            This word that Peter writes occurs only in 2 places in the New Testament. 

            The first is in Acts 13:17. In that text, Paul and Barnabas are preaching in the Gentile world and as they preach, they remind the Church that detours can also be stages in the salvation history of God’s people. These stages forge a new identify and new dependence upon God for His children. If God’s children are not going to be tied to one geographic place, then they must trust in the relationship that they have with God. For although we could be tempted to think that we are exiled from God, our relationship to God, and with God, says that this is not so. 

            The second occurrence, of course, is here. And as Peter uses the term for exiles, he uses it to encourage the church to live in holy, reverent, fear of God (back to that first idea). He tells them (us) to be Holy as Jesus is Holy and because of what Jesus does on Easter. 

            This work then brings a question to my mind, and I wonder if it does to yours? 

Move 2- The walk to Emmaus.

            If exile is more than about geography, and if we are to live holy lives in response to what we deal with each day, then why did these two men retreat those seven miles toward Emmaus? Why did they not stay with the disciples and the remainder of followers of Jesus who had the testimony of the empty tomb, Mary’s tears on Easter morning? 

            More poignantly why did they leave?  

These two followers of Jesus must truly have felt like they were exiles… and again an exiled state is more than a state of living away from one place or longing to return to another. It is not about geography. 

Why not stay together when you need each other the most?

This feeling would be part of the struggle that Thomas felt last week also. He was not there when Jesus appeared behind that locked door the first time and so he missed something and I believe that presented to him with the choice to consider himself an exile. 

            I believe that these two sojourners on the Road to Emmaus were worried and they were anxious about the future following Jesus’ death. Like you, I know my world history, and I know of the brutality of the Roman Empire. Yes, the Roman authority, and with the Hebrew High Priest’s blessing in hand, executed Jesus, but where is the faith that the Resurrection which Jesus foretold, would be enough for these two people? Where is the faith in the gospel that Jesus taught?

When you are anxious, when the tension in your life rises, our first response is often to accept, our exiled state rather than confess and remain close to where Jesus is revealed to us. 

Too often our response when things get hard as the Body of Christ, and our faith is being stretched is to start walking towards our own Emmaus and accept that things, as good as they were before, they are done. That chapter is over and there is nothing more to see or to learn.

Move 3- Jesus comes alongside.

            This is the point where Jesus arrives in Luke 24. Perhaps he was there all the time, as he was with Mary in the garden on that first morning as she wept. Luke does not give us this detail and so we are left to wonder and consider. 

            But whatever the case may be, these two individuals have an encounter with Jesus on this road in their exiled state. It is an encounter that Jesus initiates himself. He chooses to reveal himself. He chooses to walk with them and not away from them.

            And while we often rush to the revelation of Jesus around the communion table after supper where their hearts are strangely burning because Jesus taught them the scriptures of the Old Testament on the road and helped re-learn something foundational that they would carry with them from that point onward. 

Notice some of those little details, as I mentioned on Easter. For those details help to bring color and shape to what Jesus does and wants from each of us.

            The evening is growing close, and Luke says in verse 29 that they ‘urged him strongly’ to come with them. The road is not safe after dark and Jesus seems to be going on to another stop. For when we feel exiled away from Jesus, it is then most necessary that we return to the Lord and keep hold of what is transformational for us.

            Even if, like these two disciples, we are not totally sure what makes it transformational in the moment. They wanted him to stay. They wanted him to help. 

Conclusion

            And so, when you find yourself feeling exiled, just as our friends on the road did, on wherever your faith journey takes you, and remembering that this is not a matter of geography, what choices do you make to ask Jesus to remain close at hand? How might you live in a reverent fear with God and help others when they find themselves in that same place of exile? 

             

 

DM

 

Doxology--1 Peter 1. Sermon preached on March 12, 2026

            At Christmas time you are familiar with the practice of leaving up your decorations. For the 12 days immediately following Christmas, tradition tells us to keep turning on the Christmas tree. We only sing certain carols—like Joy to the World—after Christmas and not before. Just because December 24^th (and 25^th) come and go, does not mean that the season ends. But right through the New Year our houses demonstrate that the "Christmas Spirit” lives with us. 

            Sadly, this conclusion, or this practice, is often not appliable for Easter. 

On Easter Monday, the candy was mostly consumed, and the decorations were likely gone from our homes. Almost as soon as the benediction was pronounced here in worship, and the Easter meal was spread before us on the table, the season was complete. I know that I sighed as I drove back home in the rain noting that things were coming to their end for another Lenten season.

            And because the season is complete, a new challenge takes shape. It starts to step out from the shadows and into the light; a sense of now what? Because Advent and Lent are so closely tied together, both in proximity on the calendar, and theologically in the church, the sense of “Now What” is quite real.

            While the timing of post-Christmas offers us some time to think about the miracle of the Jesus’ incarnation, the lack of time after Easter does not afford us as much space to think about how we are going to take the miracle of the Empty Tomb, or your reflection on Mary’s tears, and do anything with them. 

            Today we read about Thomas and his, hesitation, to express his belief in Jesus’ resurrection. Those doubts when held up next to our text from 1 Peter, offers us a challenge. For we all face hardships, personal opportunities to doubt, to hesitate, to privately question, to stop listening to what God is doing around us. It is in the face of those moments that we can also choose to: praise God.  

Move 1- not easy

            Just because you are a follower of Jesus, and simply because of have the word of God in your lap today, or because you were in Sunday School earlier today, or even attended Bible study recently, that does not mean that you understand Jesus’ teachings. Or what Jesus did.

            Last week we read both Matthew 28 and John 20. Those texts contain the accounts of His resurrection. And while there are details that are different in both stories, the message is the same. Death could not hold the Jesus; he is resurrected for us. We know this. 

            On a more mirco level, Thomas had plenty of evidence to believe what Jesus taught. He had enough communal evidence and he also had a week’s worth of testimony from the disciples as it is written in John 20. And yet his story is famously taught and labelled in a negative tone. 

This is the man would not believe in the resurrection unless he touched the open wounds of Jesus. This is the man who would not accept the testimony of his 10 other brothers in Christ who walked beside him as Jesus taught for 3.5 years throughout Israel and Galilee. This is the same man who likely heard of Mary’s tears that first Easter morning and yet none of that moved him enough to wonder. 

            And so, my first question is: I wonder when the last time was that your faith practices mirrored Thomas’. 

You knew what you were confessing, but still the full revelation of God did not take root enough that faith grew and the hesitation (the doubts) were silenced?

            You grew in your faith as Thomas grew walking with Jesus and learning from the Messiah. Learning. Listening. Experiencing all that Jesus is and would become. You saw things that spoke loudly about God at work throughout His creation.

            And yet when your moment came to take your own step of faith, when the moment came to invite someone to join you in worship, the lesson from Jesus might not have been enough to cause praise to come forth for the true miracle of faith that took place in your life. 

            Perhaps we are more like Thomas then we would like to think. 

Move 2- 

            This is where 1 Peter comes into focus. For there are always hardships when it comes to believing what God is doing in our life, our community, our church. It is far easier to say that God is not at work around us, God is not moving in that situation, in that person’s life, that God does not want me to testify to the good things that are happening . . . and thereby I find no reason to experience the joy in the miracle of new birth—regardless of how new birth takes shape. 

And when I find no joy, no space for a miracle, no reason to testify then there is also no room to continue to praise God both individually and communally. If there is no blessing around me, no place of wonderment, then why should I seek to praise God more and more? 

            Our 1 Peter text begins and ends with the choice to praise. That’s an important way to begin reading and thinking about 1 Peter. 

This book was written to the Christians living in Asia Minor. This was not a region that was not hospitable to the Church. Of course, the early church knew of persecution and oppression; this is the Roman world. But they also knew the feeling, and the reality, of seeing their neighbors not really ‘buy in’ or accept what they/we believe as a fundamental truth claim—like the resurrection. 

Imagine that for a moment, knowing something so deeply in your heart, having a personal experience with it, and yet trying to share that experience with someone only to have them smile and politely nod their head in a placating way. All the while, in your heart you know, that person does not believe a word of what you are saying. . . for example, ‘Seriously Thomas, we saw him appear behind this very locked door after he came from the tomb. Mary heard him call her name and she saw those two angels. Didn’t you, Mary.” 

And yet there is still hesitation. 

            While Peter’s words are not shy about affirming to us that after we praise God, Peter knows that we will also suffer (verse 6). And yet 1 Peter also does not tell us how we will suffer. Defining suffering would make this whole idea of addressing the pain easier, I think. If God told us how we will suffer, we could prepare ourselves for it. We could try and steel ourselves against it or for it. Instead, it just happens.

            Again, I wonder how it would feel to stand before someone you love, someone you trust and pour out your heart to them about the gospel, and the richness of your experience with God, only to have them balk at the last step of faith as you share the truth of how Jesus transformed your life. 

            That is a whole different level of suffering. A suffering of the mind and heart. A suffering of isolation, of not being believed.  

            This is the suffering Mary knew about when she wept before the tomb as well. A 1 Peter tells us that this will happen to us as we follow Jesus. 

Yet there is also good news also. 

            For as Peter does affirm in this text, joy and suffering go together. This is a lesson that seems to be missing from Thomas’ story following the Resurrection. His story seems to hint that he wants only the positive lessons of the faith without the reality that Jesus taught—namely that there are times when we struggle. There will be times when it is hard to muster our faith. And, in those moments, in the moments when faith can be hard to muster, and those around us seek more proof than we can offer, we have to lean in all the more to God and praise Him. 

Move 3- depth of faith.

            For the genuineness of our faith, verse 7, is expressed, as we show our true depth of relationship with the Lord honestly before others. For, as verse 4 states, we have an inheritance that is undefiled, protected by God. That inheritance is based upon our relationship and our faith with the resurrected Lord. Jesus is right there by our side not condemning us for our hesitation, as Thomas doubted and hesitated. But Jesus is still there as reminder of the solidarity that our relationship always offers. 

            This is an interesting detail because of Thomas’ doubt Jesus could have remained a bit distanced from him. But instead, the Lord seems to stay closers and offers Thomas the exact proof that Thomas wants. And yet at the end even Thomas finds his way back to praise God amidst a mindset that seems to doubt. He confesses in words of praise: “My Lord and my God.” 

            Thomas, as we know, will take the gospel further geographically than any of the other disciples making it as far as present-day India. Strong faith would be needed to walk that far teaching and preaching about the Savior who did not reject him when he doubted and hesitated. And we can believe as well that Thomas would find people along his missional path who doubted and hesitated, just as easily as he would find people of suffered. So Thomas’ life-lesson of praising God would be helpful for them. 

            Like Thomas we show that we do know something about suffering and the true reality of it while also affirming the necessity of joy of praise in these moments. For in Christ, and with Christ, both concepts are reality. 

Conclusion 

            And so, as Lent has come to its conclusion, and we move into the season of Eastertide, and the next phase of our faith journey begins, we are confronted with both the suffering of each day… and the opportunity to praise God. 

            When doubts and hesitations come, and I know that come for each of us, I wonder how might God be asking you to find your way to praise him? 

 

DM

Why are you crying, Mary--John 20:11-18. Sermon preached on Easter morning 2026

            There are times that a story becomes so familiar, so well-known, that we stop thinking about, or meditation upon, what read. I do not mean that we question the story or the validity of it, but instead, I wonder when was the last time that you sat and truly pondered the Resurrection of Jesus and considered truly how transformational it is? When was the last time that you actually noticed the details of what took place? 

            Today before we come to the Table of the Lord together, we are going to do just that with one of the more important details of our story. 

            The detail in question is relevant to the entire story, and it is found in verse 11. Let me read it again for you, “But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb.” 

            I wonder what you think about Mary’s tears. . . What do they mean to you? 

Move 1- Part 1

            Well to think about Mary’s tears we first must notice the beginning of the story, the part that I read first earlier in our serve. Verse 1-10. 

In that part of the story, Mary has arrived at the garden tomb of Jesus, and according to John, she is alone. It is dark. While the other gospels associate her with travelling companions, only John the beloved has Mary Magdalene arriving here by herself. That detail paints an important picture that beings to foreshadow and shape Mary’s tear. 

            Not only is dark outside, but I bet the darkness outside provided very little light inside the Tomb should Mary have stopped down to look inside Jesus’ final human resting place. 

And that is one of those details that I suggested already that gets overlooked. In verse 1-10 there is no indication that Mary has looked into the Tomb yet. Upon seeing the stone rolled away, Mary immediately turns and runs. She seeks out the disciples and finds Peter and the remaining followers of Jesus. Upon finding them, it is that moment where Mary confesses that, “They have taken the Lord out of the Tomb” but how did she come to this conclusion? 

            And please do not tell me this is inferred. Details in God’s word matter for they always matter in the Bible. 

If God marked out the exact dimensions of Noah’s Ark, the dimensions of Tabernacle that Moses was to build, the Great Temple that Solomon build, the Great Ark of the Covenant, and how many times the people are to walk around Jericho, then I suspect that a tiny detail about where the body of the crucified and Risen Lord would be an important detail to hold onto. 

            But back to the story, the great race begins back to the Tomb. The end of the race is where the two disciples discover in verses 6 and 7 that the Tomb is empty because Peter and John looked. They leave without another word. Apparently, they have nothing to say. 

            The word I would offer for their response on Easter morning is: perplexed. Maybe awe-struck. I wonder if you would have a different word for how Peter and John respond. 

            But this message, and the overall story, is not about them. Remember it’s about Mary and her tears… Mary finally arrives on scene. 

Move 2- Part 2

            She is crying in verse 11. And as she weeps, she bends down and see what no one else notices. Again, I remind you that details in God’s word matter. 

She sees angels, a pair of these heavenly messengers. More than just seeing them, these two heavenly messengers, speak to her. They ask her a question.  

            Yet she is still crying. The Bible does not say, “immediately Mary ceases crying and begins to rejoice.’ Instead, she doubles down on her query. “They have taken my Lord, and I do not know where they have put him.”

In that moment, I wonder if we are finally catching a glimpse of why Mary cries. For she remembers in great, vivid, passionate, detail all of it. I believe that they crash down upon her. The horror of his arrest in the garden as he is betrayed by a kiss. 

His beating. His ridiculous crown. His cross being carried first by himself and then by another. His blood. His anguish. All of it. 

She recalls, I suspect the rushed work of preparing his body for the ground for the sabbath was hurrying this important work—after all that is why she came that morning to finish what she started. She remembers, the sadness of placing him there and perhaps having to say good-bye to the One who she knew deep down is the Son of God and yet why is this happening. 

She cries, I think because she is having her own experience of what it feels like to be alone without the presence of Jesus in her life—a small example of what God the Father must feel like to not have His Son with him on those 3 days when Jesus descended to the dead as the creed so clearly states. 

            She cries because of all the unmet expectations that she was dealing with—this was not supposed to happen. And in that feeling, you and I know something I bet about those feelings and those tears. 

            In those tears she remembers it all. The disciples running away. The cruelty of priests, the guards, the crowds shouting, Pilate, everyone who said they loved him not loving him any longer. 

            Mary’s tears remind me that at the end of Holy Week, as we sing before the Table of the Lord, that God has cried with me, with you, and with her. Mary’s tears say so much, if we are willing to notice. 

Move 3- The gardener.

            But as Mary cries, and remembers through those tears, as the angels I think listen to her, she is not alone in that garden. For someone is also there. For one last time this morning let me say that details matter in God’s word. Someone else was in that garden the whole time. 

But in the haste to run faster, further, prove ourselves, do our tasks, be better that the person next to us, no one on that first Easter morning noticed him—not even John who wrote the story down for us. 

            But Mary, who stands there and cries. . . she does. For in the midst of her tears someone asks the only question that matters when our hearts break. “Woman, why are you crying?” 

            It is an honest question. 

            We do not know if Mary would actually be able to carry Jesus’ body some place but bless her for wanting to act. Bless her for wanting to preserve some sense of dignity for the Savoir who she misses and loves so deeply. And in that moment, the Gardner, Jesus, calls her name and without marginalizing what makes weep, he brings healing to her simply by calling her name. 

Conclusion

            Church family why do you cry today? 

            Sometimes the answer is because you are in pain and that is far. 

Sometimes the answer is because you feel joy because it is Easter. 

Either way, the good news is that someone is in the garden for you who will let you cry, He will let you be honest, and He wants you to remember that He has been there the entire time. 

            The times when your actions did not measure up to the faith you professed and the times when you cried out to Him because you loved him so deeply that the only prayer you could offer was one of tears. Words failed in that moment, but God never has. 

 

Dm