On Maundy Thursday, the Rev. Javier Almendárez Bautista reflects on John 13:1-17, 31b-35: “This moment feels like the eye of the storm. Jesus, the great teacher and wonderworker, stops for just a moment before the culminating act of his earthly ministry and simply shares a meal with his closest friends.”
On Palm Sunday, the Rev. Javier Almendárez Bautista discusses Mark 14:1-15:47 (The Passion): “It’s all too easy to draw abstract conclusions about the meaning of Jesus’s crucifixion, all too tempting to simply see it as a God who desires punishment… but that is to miss the drama of the story, to miss the fact that before theologians tried to make sense of Jesus’s sacrifice, the disciples found it important to tell and retell and write down the story as they best remembered it.”
The Rev. Javier Almendárez Bautista discusses Genesis 9:8-17 and the story of Noah: “I wonder what it would look like for us to reimagine God back into the picture, to see God as one who is fully invested in the lives of God’s creatures, caring, grieving, remembering, to see God get down and work with us in the dirt, concerned with how our actions impact the world around us.”
Rev. Javier Almendárez Bautista discusses Matthew 6:1-6,16-21. “The Christian faith is full of symbols that you can touch, feel, smell, and taste. The waters of Baptism, that first moment when people are welcomed into our community: they welcome us in, they are the sustaining force of life….”
The Rev. Javier Almendárez Bautista considers the prophet Jonah: “We are, by nature, picky about our heroes. We tend to have a selective memory of their ascendance and acceptance… It’s much harder for us to imagine what it might look like not simply to acknowledge the prophets who look the part but to hear the people who don’t quite make the cut.”
On the Fourth Sunday of Advent, the Rev. Javier Almendárez Bautista reflects on the Annunciation (Luke 1:26-38): “The way may not open for you and I by way of a burning bush or a pillar of cloud and fire. It may be that your call, much like Mary’s call, will come in the ordinary events of life.”
The Rev. Javier Almendárez Bautista contemplates the beginning of Advent: “The early Christian community had a tradition of observing the Lord’s day on Sunday, the day of Christ’s resurrection, instead of the last day of the week, the Sabbath. They used to call this the eighth day. The cycle of 7 days of creation, broken as it is, redeemed as the inbreaking of a new day shines forth every time we gather together. The eighth day of creation, when things will be made new.”
The Rev. Javier Almendárez Bautista reflects on Matthew 25:1-13 as we approach the end of the liturgical year: “Every ending is a kind of new beginning, my friends. Every ending demands us to look deep within and find the light of Christ burning forth, even in the darkest night.”
The Basilica of the Annunciation is a church that is found in Nazareth near the site of the story we often tell around Advent, where the Angel Gabriel shows up and interrupts the young girl’s life. “Greetings, favored one. The Lord is with you.” The church itself is grander than many others, maybe not quite true to the Virgin’s humble origins. (Exodus 32:1-14, Matthew 22:1-14)
I heard a story recently about a taxi driver, a Somalian immigrant, riding around New York in his cab. He had one cassette with him, in the old tape deck of the cab. For those of you on the younger side, cassettes are the things where music was stored, and yu put them in a tape deck. And in that tape was his wife’s voice. She is a singer, still back in his home country. (Philippians 2:1-13)