Pastor Scamman

There is no question that the celebration of Easter is a joyous occasion for the church. Ascension, however, might present a bit of a puzzle. Why would we celebrate the day that our Lord leaves us? Is this a joyful thing? Is this a good thing? Might it not have been better if Jesus had stayed on earth,…

The last thing Jesus did as He died, before He said, “It is finished,” was to institute His Church by giving Mary and John to each other. The first thing Jesus did when He appeared to His disciples after the Resurrection was to give His Church the authority to forgive sins. Jesus said to [the disciples],…

Mark’s account of the Resurrection sometimes seems like an odd choice for the Gospel reading for Easter morning, because it doesn’t actually recount the Resurrection itself. Instead, it tells us what some of Jesus’ followers, namely three women, were up on to that morning. If you’ve lived through a tragic…

Of the Seven Words of Jesus upon the cross, three are recorded in the Gospel of John. When Jesus therefore saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing by, He said to His mother, “Woman, behold your son!” Then He said to the disciple, “Behold your mother!” And from that hour that disciple…

Near the end of Jesus’ earthly ministry, as the time of His great sacrifice drew near, the unbelieving Jews and chief priests gathered together against Him. The conversation recorded in John chapter 8, though not the last time that Jesus would engage the Jewish leaders, is something of a last chance…

The Jews were not wrong when they supposed that the Messiah would be a great king and rule the world. But their ideas about Christ’s kingdom were all wrong. If only their ideas had disappeared with their times. Sadly, they have not. Most Christians today have the same Jewish ideas of the kingdom of God.…

The saints of old were accustomed to the idea of wresting with God, but this concept is foreign to our modern ears. Why should I wrestle with God? Doesn’t He already want to give me every good thing? It’s easy enough to think of Lent as a time of wrestling against the desires of the flesh. But why, on…

The scribes and Pharisees came to Jesus demanding to see a sign. Is this an honest request? Not at all. Only a few verses earlier Jesus had amazed the multitudes by healing a demon-possessed man who was also blind and mute. The Pharisees were being wicked and deceptive, pretending that God had not spoken…

From ancient times the people of God have observed the season of Lent as a time for repentance accompanied by bodily fasting. It is fitting that repentance and fasting would go hand in hand, since the fall into sin involved a failure to fast from the forbidden fruit. Denying the wants of the physical…

Today marks seventy days until the great festival of Easter. From ancient times the Church has anticipated the season of Easter with a period of mourning and repentance from sin. I’m sure you’re familiar with the forty days of Lent, a time of fasting and repentance that corresponds with the forty days…