Advent 1 • 1 Corinthians 1:3–9 • November 30, 2014


Advent 1 • 1 Corinthians 1:3–9 • November 30, 2014

By David A. Johnson The church journeys into Advent, anticipating renewal in the vital proclamation of Jesus’s incarnation—embodied grace in the embryo of a woman’s womb. The church becomes that vessel of incarnate grace where we are saturated in baptismal living waters that have claimed, redeemed, and forgiven us. The Church remains an eternal community gathered around the table of ..


All Saints’ Day • Revelation 7:9–17 • November 2, 2014


All Saints’ Day • Revelation 7:9–17 • November 2, 2014

By Erik Herrmann The celebration of saints has a checkered history in the church: raucous festivals around martyrs’ graves, prayers to saints to escape various kinds of sufferings, fantastical stories of their lives, and even trust in their merits. The reformers in the sixteenth century were concerned about these abuses and how such focus on the saints could supplant preaching ..