Tag: herod

  • Preaching Paths 14 December 2025 Advent 3 Year A

    Sally A Brown, Professor Emerita, Princeton Theological Seminary The gospel reading for this third Sunday in Advent, Year A, Mt 11:2-11, can be jarring for preachers, to say nothing of their prospective listeners. What merit is there in forcing ourselves to grapple with the consternation of John the Baptist, locked and silenced in Herod’s prison,…

  • Preaching Paths 16 March 2025 Lent 2 Yr C

    Sally A. Brown, Professor Emerita, Princeton Theological Seminary Today’s text, Luke 13:31-35, presents preachers with interpretative challenges. Luke joins two short scenes, each of them surprising. First, sympathetic (?) Pharisees warn Jesus that Herod plans to kill him; Jesus responds. Luke follows this scene with Jesus’ lament over Jerusalem, which in Matthew occurs much later,…

  • Preaching Paths 12 January 2025  Baptism of Our Lord

    Sally A. Brown, Professor Emerita, Princeton Theological Seminary It can be daunting to preach from Luke’s account of Jesus’ baptism: how does one find traction in something so succinct and unadorned? Luke 3:15-17, 21-22 presents two simple scenes. First, John faces the crowds who hope he is the longed-for Messiah; he points away to “one…