St. John’s Lutheran Church28 May 2023 + Day of PentecostActs 2.1-21Rev. Josh Evans (Video unavailable this week.) It was hands-down one of my favorite classes in seminary: Christian Mission and World Religions. Together we took field trips to an Islamic mosque in the suburbs of Chicago and a Buddhist temple in the heart of the …
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 …
St. John’s Lutheran Church7 May 2023 + Easter 5aJohn 14.1-14Rev. Josh Evans “Moving is so much fun!” … said no one, ever. It is, however, much, much easier when you have professionals doing the moving (thank you, St. John’s!). Moving with cats, on the other hand, is an exercise in patience. As we bounced between …
Continue reading An Exercise in Patience (and God’s Abiding Love)
St. John’s Lutheran Church23 April 2023 + Easter 3aLuke 24.13-35Rev. Josh Evans They could not have been a more different or mismatched pair. One was a socially awkward, insecure loner and compulsive liar, desperate to make a best friend. The other: a devout, eager, and ambitious, if not a tad pompous, self-imagined prodigy, ready to …
St. John’s Lutheran Church16 April 2023 + Easter 2aJohn 20.19-31Rev. Josh Evans Unbelievable. A word which, by definition, implies something too improbable to be believed, something extraordinary, outside the bounds of what we expect to be true. It can be exclaimed in complete and utter amazement after witnessing something truly spectacular … Unbelievable! Or in …
St. John’s Lutheran Church9 April 2023 + Resurrection of Our LordMatthew 28.1-10Rev. Josh Evans The possibilities are endless:Happy birthday!Congratulations!Thank you!Even “Just because!” It looks like a harmless enough greeting card, but after you sign it, close it, and pull a little tab out of the side, the recipient will be greeted not just with your …
St. John’s Lutheran Church6 April 2023 + Maundy ThursdayJohn 13.1-17, 31b-35Rev. Josh Evans This sermon begins with a story. It’s a story about saying goodbye. Tonight, we remember the story of the last meal that Jesus shared with his friends. They were probably sad, and maybe a little afraid. They didn’t know when, or even …
St. John’s Lutheran Church2 April 2023 + Sunday of the PassionMatthew 21.1-11; 26.14-27.66Rev. Josh Evans Paradox abounds in our liturgy today. We began with a festive palm procession, commemorating Jesus’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem. With the crowds we shout, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of …
St. John’s Lutheran Church26 March 2023 + Lent 5aJohn 11.1-45; Ezekiel 37.1-14Rev. Josh Evans It’s probably the most famous prophecy in the book of Ezekiel: the valley of “dem dry bones.” Truthfully, it’s a bit of a terrifying vision: for these dry bones to suddenly shake and rattle and come together, with sinews and flesh …
Pastor Josh Evans 