At the new pastor’s first day in the parish, he arranged for a visitor to be at the church. He asked a friend, unknown to the people, to dress as a homeless person and come to service. The church was largely older folks, senior citizens and the new pastor would use this as a teaching […]
When Jesus went to His “Father’s House” to “prepare a place for us” He was not simply going there to dust the furniture and change the sheets. He had come to earth to make sinners fit for Heaven. He has returned there to get Heaven ready to receive sinners, to receive us…
Hopelessness is sticky. It is a deadend, a trap, a pit of quicksand. Hunger bears the impulse to eat. Thirst, bears the impulse to drink. Hopelessness has no such advantage. When we despair, the presence of hope makes us feel only more hopeless. We are confronted by what seems like another impossibility. The only thing […]
For all the times Jesus was accused of working on the Sabbath on the one in which He seemed to be resting, He was doing His greatest work of all. As He lay in the tomb, no one accused Him of healing on the Sabbath, though even then, He was giving us the one healing […]
Whether we hear the cry from the lips of David or from the dying Savior “My God, Why hast thou forsaken me?” the cry makes little sense from either. These are two people with a sense of the LORD’s presence and intimacy and yet the draw from the well of the deepest human pain, alienation. […]
Whether you are passing through rejection, sorrow, sickness, injury, God in Christ not only meets you in it, but helps you to carry it.
In the midst of a global pandemic and during the week that started the trial of the man who killed George Floyd, one might well ask, “how are some ancient laws from the Bible relevant and aren’t other things more pressing?” Well, yes and no. Had we been mindful of the thoughts we have raised […]
Growing up, I learned that Hanukkah, Passover, and Purim spoke of the need, motive, and way of social justice. Keeping the feasts and telling the stories kept us focused on the need to see and lift the oppression of others. We were moved to do so because we ourselves had suffered. We were compelled to […]
There is something about a broken seal, a rolled away stone, courageous women, terrified soldiers, and a risen Lord that speaks to our hearts about truth, vindication and hope the way nothing else has or will. It took a rolled away stone to right this world and and empty tomb to make it new because […]
The Angel’s announcement is Heaven meddling in earth’s affairs. We silence the oppressed, honor the strong, and bury the dead. We carry on our tacit agreement with politics, custom, and death itself, but Christ’s resurrection means earth’s charade is as empty as the tomb itself. With three words, business as usual has been shaken to […]
