Category: Mary Alice Birdwhistell

Luke 1:26-38

This text is used for the Lectionary Year B on December 21, 2014.

When the angel Gabriel appears to Mary to tell her that she will have a son who will be the Son of God, her response is, “How can this be?” (Luke 1:34). It’s a fair question! In this passage, Luke shows us that God is about to do something completely new – something that’s never been done before. But in order to understand more fully the extent of what God is about to do, we first need to read this text in light of other call narratives throughout the Bible. Continue reading

John 1:6-8, 19-28

This text is used for the Lectionary Year B on December 14, 2014.

As we continue in this season of Advent, we are watching and waiting and hoping for Christ’s presence to break into our world and into our lives. But will we know Christ when we see him? What if we’re looking for Christ in all the wrong places, or missing him in all the right ones? In today’s text, John says to the priests and the Levites, “Among you stands one whom you do not know, the one who is coming after me; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandal” (John 1:26-27). Everything I’m doing is to point toward this person who is standing right next to you, he says, yet you don’t even recognize him. Continue reading

Mark 1:1-8

This text is used for the Lectionary Year B on December 7, 2014.

We as preachers have an incredible task before us this Advent.  We are challenged with the opportunity to preach the message of “the good news of Jesus Christ” (Mark 1:1) in a way that it has never been preached before.  Of course, this task presents us with quite the challenge: How do we present the “good news” in a fresh, new way to a congregation full of many, if not most, if not all of the same folks who heard it last week, and the week before that?  Continue reading

Mark 13:24-37

This text is used for the Lectionary Year B on November 30, 2014.

December the 25th comes each and every year, without exception.  Although children sometimes have a hard time believing that Christmas will ever come again, we as adults know that it will.  Christmas decorations have been displayed in stores since July, inching their way closer and closer to the front of the store with each coming month.  Christmas music started playing on the radio in early November.  Our calendars are over-flowing with Christmas parties and concerts and festivities, not to mention the every-increasing shopping lists.  We all know that Christmas is coming- it’s no surprise!  Continue reading