St. John’s Lutheran ChurchAlbany, New York20 April 2025 + Resurrection of Our LordLuke 24:1-12The Rev. Josh Evans Maybe you remember my Christmas Eve sermon,which I began by quoting Madeleine L’Engle’s well-known poem,“The Risk of Birth.” “This is no time for a child to be born…” she begins. Four months and three liturgical seasons later,I’m stuck …
St. John’s Lutheran ChurchAlbany, New York21 July 2024 + Mary Magdalene, ApostleJohn 20:1-2, 11-18Rev. Josh Evans If Jesus is “the reason for the [Christmas] season,”then Mary Magdalene is the reason for the Easter season. Mary Magdalene,witness to the resurrection,apostle to the apostles –without whom no good news would have been proclaimed. “Woman, weeping in the …
St. John’s Lutheran ChurchAlbany, New York12 May 2024 + Seventh Sunday of EasterJohn 17:6-19Rev. Josh Evans After attending the final funeral together, Carolyn Goodman, Fannie Lee Chaney, and Anne Schwerner stand alone in a New York City apartment. Inspired by a photograph captured of the three women in August of 1964, playwright Ajene D. Washington …
St. John’s Lutheran ChurchAlbany, New York28 April 2024 + Fifth Sunday of EasterActs 8:26-40; John 15:1-8Rev. Josh Evans He doesn’t even get a name, and yet he gives us one of the most profound stories of belonging in all of Scripture. “As they were going along the road, they came to some water; and the …
St. John’s Lutheran ChurchAlbany, New York21 April 2024 + Fourth Sunday of EasterJohn 10:11-18Rev. Josh Evans Here are two words I never thought I’d hear together: “Swift scholar.” As in: a scholar – not of 18th century Anglo-Irish priest and satire author Jonathan Swift – but of 21st century singer-songwriter Taylor Swift … … who, …
St. John’s Lutheran ChurchAlbany, New York7 April 2024 + Second Sunday of EasterJohn 20:19-31Rev. Josh Evans If the villains of Holy Week are Judas and Peter, then the villain of Eastertide is Thomas. Doubting. Thomas. Who earns his infamous title not even for anything particularly egregious that he does … but solely for being absent …
St. John’s Lutheran Church31 March 2024 + Resurrection of Our LordMark 16:1-8Rev. Josh Evans “They said nothing to anyone.” Okay. Time to wrap it up, and we can all head to Easter brunch early. See you next Sunday! *** Okay, maybe not quite yet … y’all did come all this way… *** Remember how it …
St. John’s Lutheran Church26 November 2023 + Christ the KingLast Sunday before AdventMatthew 25:31-46Rev. Josh Evans INTRODUCTION: Keeping Time We keep time in different ways. Most of us keep time according to the calendar year, January through December. Anyone connected to academia keeps time according to the school year, roughly Labor Day through Memorial Day. …
Continue reading (Church) Year in Review: A Sermon-Hymn Sing for Christ the King
St. John’s Lutheran Church21 May 2023 + Easter 7aJohn 17.1-11; Acts 1.6-14Rev. Josh Evans It’s been said that our Lutheran faith is one of paradox: sinner and saint, law and gospel, death and resurrection. True to such paradoxical roots, appropriately enough, our Easter season has been drawing to an end where it began – or …
St. John’s Lutheran Church14 May 2023 + Easter 6aJohn 14.15-21; Acts 17.22-31Rev. Josh Evans “Our great father, God almighty, who is Being, knew and loved us from before the beginning of time. And from his knowledge, in his marvelously deep love and through the eternal foreseeing counsel of the whole blessed Trinity, he wanted the …
Pastor Josh Evans 