Podcast
Hope Springs Eternal
Hosted by Alan Bentrup · EN
Sermons from the Rev. Alan D. Bentrup, rector of St. Martin-in-the-Fields Episcopal Church in Keller, Texas.
15episodes
Episodes
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We Have to Hear This Before Easter Comes
Apr 400:09:26Tap to summarizeYou know this sound.The hammer comes down. The nail bites in. The sound is blunt and final and it does not apologize for itself.In this Good Friday sermon from St. Martin's Episcopal Church in Keller, Texas, Fr. Alan sits with that sound and refuses to move past it too quickly. Because before we get to Easter, we have to hear what love actually sounds like when it goes all the way.It was not only the soldiers swinging the hammer. It was our failures, our denials, our wounds carried and wounds caused, that drew Jesus to the cross. Not to crush us with guilt. But to show us the length he was willing to go.For us. Because of us. All the way to this.The silence after the hammer is real. We do not explain it away. We do not rush past it. We just hold, quietly, the possibility that it does not have the last word.Tomorrow is silence. Sunday is coming.St. Martin's Episcopal Church | Keller, TexasScripture: John 18:1–19:42
Transcribe →Love That Doesn't Stop | Fr. Alan on Maundy Thursday
Apr 300:07:14Tap to summarizeOn the night before his crucifixion, Jesus picked up a basin and poured water.In this Maundy Thursday sermon from St. Martin's Episcopal Church in Keller, Texas, Fr. Alan explores the soundscape of the upper room: the water poured out, Peter's protest, the silence of sleeping disciples, and the kiss of a friend who had already decided to betray him.All of it. And still the water kept pouring.This is not a lesson in servant leadership. It is the sound of a love that does not wait for you to deserve it, does not pause when you resist it, and does not stop when you betray it.St. Martin's Episcopal Church | Keller, TexasScripture: John 13:1–17, 31b–35
Transcribe →What Happens When You're Left All Alone
Mar 1500:09:16Tap to summarizeThe healing in John 9 is not the good news. Not for this man.The moment he receives his sight, everything else starts falling apart. His neighbors don’t recognize him. The Pharisees interrogate him twice. His own parents hand him over in the middle of his trial to protect themselves. And by the end of the chapter, he has been thrown out of his community, his synagogue, and every structure that was supposed to hold him.He did nothing wrong. And he ends up completely alone.But then verse 35 arrives, quiet and easy to miss: Jesus heard that they had cast him out. And Jesus goes looking for him.That is the good news of John 9. Not the healing. The finding. Jesus moving deliberately toward the one that everything else moved away from.This sermon is part of our Lenten series Listen to Jesus, preaching through the Gospel of John.📖 John 9:1-41🕊️ Preached at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church | Keller, Texas📅 Lent 4
Transcribe →What Happens When You Are Truly Seen?
Mar 900:12:50Tap to summarizeShe didn’t come to the well at noon by accident. She came because it was the only time no one else would be there. She had arranged her whole life around not being seen.And Jesus was already waiting.In John 4, Jesus crosses every boundary that should have kept him silent — and has the most theologically rich conversation in the Gospel with a Samaritan woman who has known grief, loss, and the weight of surviving in a world that didn’t give her many choices. He sees all of it. He names it. And he doesn’t look away.This is what Lent is actually about. Not sin management. Not spiritual performance. Being seen — fully, honestly, completely — and discovering that grace meets us there.This is the third sermon in our Lenten series Listen to Jesus, preaching through the Gospel of John. If you’re exploring faith, returning to church, or just trying to make it through the week, this one is for you.
Transcribe →Does God Really Love?
Mar 100:14:09Tap to summarizeIn this sermon from St. Martin's Episcopal Church in Keller, Texas, Father Alan explores one of the most honest questions people ask in the dark: Does God really love? Drawing from John 3:1–17 and the story of Nicodemus, this message unpacks the radical scope of John 3:16, what it means that God loved the world, and why that changes everything.This sermon is part of the Lent series Listen to Jesus at St. Martin's Episcopal Church.
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