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Preaching, to me, is the work of building bridges.
A bridge doesn’t erase distance—it spans it. In the same way, every sermon seeks to connect two worlds: the ancient, living story of Scripture and the complex, searching world we inhabit today. The task isn’t simply to explain the text, but to faithfully carry its voice across the gap—so that what God has spoken then can be clearly heard now.
That gap is real. It stretches across centuries of culture, language, and lived experience. But it is not unbridgeable. Through thoughtful, practical preaching, I aim to help others walk that span—to see how the truth of Scripture still speaks, still challenges, and still transforms.
So together, we build and cross that bridge—discovering that the wisdom of the Bible is not distant or outdated, but present, personal, and powerfully relevant for our lives today.
I currently serve as Rector of Prince of Peace Anglican Church in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, within the Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh (ADP) and the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA).
Episodes
Sunday Dec 17, 2023
Sunday Dec 17, 2023
Read John 1:19-34
John the Baptist appears at the beginning of John’s Gospel (and the other Gospels) and then falls into the background because he is a link or a bridge between the Old Testament and the New Testament. He is prominent at the beginning of the Gospel because he is part of its roots. The roots of Jesus go back to eternity (John 1:1), and his roots go back to the Old Testament. John is like one of those great tree roots that protrude above the ground a few feet out from the tree trunk.
Over and over, we will see in this Gospel that John the writer explains Jesus in terms of the Old Testament. Jesus doesn’t appear on the scene of history without historical preparation. God had been at work in Israel for two thousand years, and even before that, putting in place a historical backdrop that would make Jesus’ life and ministry more intelligible.
John the Baptist is a root partly underground in the Old Testament and partially exposed in the New Testament. He has a foot in both worlds—a prophet something like Elijah (but not Elijah reincarnate 1:21) and a voice crying that the long-expected Messiah has come.
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