John 20:19-31 Dear Partner in Preaching, Well, we made it. We made it through a very different Holy Week and Easter, normally one of the busiest times of the year, a time when our churches typically have more people in and out than during any other eight-day stretch, yet this year stood nearly empty. We made it. And now we’re wondering when things will get back to normal. At least I am. In Minnesota, we’re two weeks into a five-week shelter-in-place situation and I keep finding myself thinking ahead to when this is over and we can get back to normal. Wondering if maybe we’ll be able to gather for worship sometime in May,...

John 20:19-31 Dear Partner in Preaching, My apologies for the lateness of this post. This week totally got away from me! So I’ll keep it short. Two brief ideas that perhaps fall together and complement each other. Thought # 1: What an assortment of people and emotions in the two upper-room gatherings John narrates! There are folks who deserted Jesus, denied him, watched him die at a distance, and at least one up close. There are folks who saw the empty tomb, one believed (though what he believed, exactly, we don’t know) and one was confused by what he witnessed. Fear abounds, and doors are for that reason locked fast. After Jesus appears...

John 20:19-31 Dear Partner in Preaching, Have you ever noticed how long it takes John to get around to telling us what he’s up to? John the Fourth Evangelist, that is. Twenty-some chapters and finally he comes clean. Sort of. So here’s what I mean. There are two elements of this week’s very familiar story – one of the few in Scripture that is read in each cycle of our lectionary – that grabbed my attention. The first is what I’d call the culmination and climax of the “plot dynamic” of John; that is, how John arranges the scenes of the story he tells together and to what end. In short, after introducing us to Jesus...