Husband. Father. Anglican Priest.
March 25 is the Feast of the Annunciation — nine months before Christmas. Today we celebrate the moment the eternal Word became flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary. An angel’s message. A young woman’s humble yes.
Fifth Sunday in Lent (Passion Sunday): A sealed tomb, dry bones, and the long ache of unanswered prayer. But the God who delayed for Lazarus, who spoke life into a graveyard, is still here. He weeps at the grave. He still acts. And the stone will not stay in place.
The Fifth Sunday in Lent. Passion Sunday. The collect does not ask for feelings appropriate to Holy Week. It asks that the heart would be fixed where true joys are to be found amid the swift and varied changes of this world. The cross is one week from Palm Sunday. Lent is sharpening.
March 19 is the feast of Joseph, Guardian of Jesus. He never speaks in any Gospel. His entire portrait is obedience: he named the child, fled to Egypt, returned, searched three days in Jerusalem. Upright and obedient — the collect asks us to imitate exactly that.
Fourth Sunday in Lent: A man born blind. A shepherd boy nobody sent for. Both overlooked. Both found. Jesus still walks into the places where the cast-out sit and asks the only question that matters: "Do you believe in the Son of Man?”
Third Sunday in Lent: At Jacob's well, Jesus crosses every boundary to sit with a woman the world had passed by and offers living water that never runs dry. He sees the full ledger of her life and still he offers. Not for those who have cleaned themselves up. For anyone still thirsty, still hoping.