The Lord of life and death called my grandmother home to heaven four years ago. I’ll admit that I was not very pleased with the Catholic priest’s homily at my grandmother’s funeral. He said lots of pleasant things about my grandmother in his homily – how she was the mother of seven children and married to a World War II hero. He told nice stories and then one of my relatives read a sappy poem.

The one thing that was missing in the priest’s homily was Jesus. He did not mention Jesus at all in his homily. Not once.

A recent study, conducted by Welch’s juice company, revealed that the average daily start time for a mom is 6:23 am – much earlier than when most people start their working day. Whether she works a full-time job or is a full-time stay-at-home mom, she ends her work day at 8:31 pm.

There aren’t too many jobs that require a 14-hour work day – and most moms do this every day of the week.

In total, that makes a mother working a monumental 98 hours a week – or 2 ½ times the average job.

For the past ten years, there has been an influx of Marvel movies. Heroes taking on bad guys. Iron Man vs. Iron Monger. Captain America vs. Red Skull. Dr. Strange vs. Dormammu. Thor vs. Loki. Black Panther vs. Erik Killmonger.

Then the heroes team up against bigger and badder villains. The Avengers vs. Ultron. The Guardians of the Galaxy vs. Ego, the Living Planet.

If some of you don’t know any of this stuff, that’s OK. Obviously, I’m geeky enough for all of you.

Pruning is good for roses, vines, and fruit trees. But, most people I know don’t like to be pruned.

Mary was in legal trouble. She had run up some gambling debts and then borrowed from the place where she worked. “Borrowed” – that’s what she called it. The company caught her, and although it didn’t take her to court, it fired her and escorted her to her car.

Recently, I have enjoyed illustrating my sermons with famous works of art. But, I can think of no better image to illustrate Jesus as the Good Shepherd, than our own Good Shepherd window. This window was created for the building of our new church in 1927. It cost a mind-blowing $250 91 years ago. I cannot begin to imagine how expensive it would be to replace that window today.

One of the blessings of being a pastor is being at the bedside of an elderly saint and ushering that Christian brother or sister home to heaven with the resurrection comfort of God’s Word. My first year at Epiphany, I was blessed to conduct fifteen funerals. I had conducted only two funerals during my previous eight years in Kentucky.

I showed the painting of the Incredulity of Saint Thomas by Caravaggio to my 7th grade Catechism class. After reading John 20:19-31 about Jesus appearing to the disciples in the locked room, I asked them what they noticed about the painting. They remembered that the room was full of disciples, yet the artist only focused on Jesus, Thomas, and two other disciples.

Dr. Jonathan Weber, Harvard professor and biblical scholar, on an archeological dig in Israel discovers a previously unknown tomb in Rama. As he starts his excavations, he is shocked to discover that there is writing on the tomb declaring this to be the sepulcher of Yeshua ben Jossaf – Jesus, son of Joseph.

Dr. Weber believes that he has discovered the burial tomb with Jesus’ bones in it!

On Christmas Eve, 2012, a black Angora goat named Curly went on the lam from a live nativity scene. The goat was supposed to have a supporting role at Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Fergus Falls, Minnesota.

According to the Fergus Falls Journal, tracking the goat was difficult because of a lack of snow. Curly was spotted several times since his escape, prompting phone calls to the police and an interactive map of his whereabouts posted on the Journal’s website. The goat was missing for 25 days, before a farmer in southwest Fergus Falls noticed an extra goat among his count.

Thousands upon thousands of lambs — buckets upon buckets of blood — this is the history of the Passover. Long ago, in the land of Egypt, in a land of exile, in a land of slavery, the Israelites suffered under the iron fist of Pharaoh. This line of pharaohs had forgotten the saving work of Joseph and how he had delivered Egypt from the devastating famine. So, they had enslaved the Hebrew people to do the pharaohs’ manual labor — to build their cities and erect their monuments. Terrible hardships, brutal labor, and despair were the lot of the Hebrew people.