Pastor Scamman

In the last week, there have been frequent comparisons between the emerging coronavirus crisis and outbreaks of plague in previous centuries: the Spanish Influenza of 1918, which infected a quarter of the world’s people, or the Black Death, which is estimated to have killed half of the population of…

In this last week, there has been an outbreak of panic across the world because of the corona virus. Now, there is cause for serious concern. The mortality rate sits at 3.4%. But concern often gives way to irrational hysteria, and we have seen much of that in recent days. Bottles of hand sanitizer and…

Jesus says, “when you fast”, not “if you fast.” When he spoke these words to his disciples, he assumed that they would fast. Jesus never said, “Don’t fast!” He said, “Don’t fast like the hypocrites, who do it only to get attention and be seen. They walk around with pained expressions on their faces;…

There are two parts to our Gospel text. In the first, Jesus tells his disciples of the suffering and death that awaits him in Jerusalem. In the second, Bartimaeus, the blind beggar obtains his sight from Jesus. In the first part, we see the lack of faith in the disciples, who are unable to understand…

We often use the phrase “mountaintop experience” to describe some sort of spiritual encounter, a time of awakening and clarity, a moment of epiphany. So it is fitting that the final Sunday in the season of Epiphany is the greatest mountaintop experience of all time. Of course, we know that climbing to…

John the Baptist was baptizing sinners into the forgiveness of sins. So when Jesus also came to be baptized, John would have prevented him. Why? Because John knew that Jesus was the only person on earth who did not need to be baptized. You need baptism. You’re a sinner. I need baptism. I’m a sinner.…

We would love to know more about the early life of Jesus on earth, but God has caused only one story of Jesus’ childhood to be recorded: the time when Joseph and Mary lost Jesus for three days. Imagine that. Every parent knows the terror that we experience when you turn around and discover that your…

Every page of the Old Testament is about Jesus. That might sound like a strange thing to say, since the birth of Jesus doesn’t happen until the New Testament. But from the third chapter of Genesis, where the first promise of the Savior is given, to the last prophet, Malachi, the central theme of the…

The Law of Moses prescribed that forty days after the birth of a firstborn son, the mother and son would go to the temple for the rite of cleansing and purification. Joseph and Mary, who were devout followers of God, did as the Law required. They brought Jesus to the temple and offered the necessary…

I believe in Jesus Christ, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary. If you are a Christian, you confess these words from the Apostles’ Creed. Every conception and birth is a miracle, but there is always a human mother and father. In the long history of the world, how…