The alligator--the chaos, the storm, the danger, the divorce, the illness, the crisis--and the human response--what you and I do in the midst of chaos--and the presence of God in chaos--these are profound issues of faith. And the stories about chaos and God and us are...
The human race is, was, and probably always will be deeply unwilling to accept a human messiah. We don't want to be saved in our humanity; we want to be fished out of it. We crucified Jesus, not because he was God, but because he blasphemed: He claimed to be God and...
The truth that the cross of Christ embodies about us is certainly that we are loved by God, but that we are loved as prodigals, as problematic creatures, as beings whose alienation from God, from one another, from ourselves, and from the inarticulate creation is so...
The metaphor of rebirth, being born of the Spirit, is an image of radical transformation. An old life has been left behind, and a new life has begun. It has a number of metaphorical equivalents in the New Testament. In Paul, dying and rising with Christ, being...
By all appearances, it is a Good Friday world. But by the light of Easter, through the thick darkness covering the nations, we can dimly discern a "Yes, but" kind of message. Yes, fear and self-righteousness, indifference and sentimentality kill; but love never dies,...
When you remember me, it means that you have carried something of who I am with you, that I have left some mark of who I am on who you are. It means that you can summon me back to your mind even though countless years and miles may stand between us. It means that if...
When you feel miserable inside, look at the cross and you’ll know what is happening. Suffering, pain, humiliation and feelings of loneliness are nothing but the kiss of Jesus; a sign that you have come so close that he can kiss you. Never put on a long face. Suffering...
Christianity is…a religion of resistance and a religion of hope. The point of the cross is not finally suffering and death; it is, rather, that a relationship holds. There is a love stronger than death, that can withstand whatever the forces of evil do against it, and...
Worship dare not be glib or superficial, ought not to dispense false assurances or manipulate emotions. Instead, genuine worship always offers the true hope of the Gospel—neither entertainment nor escapism, neither diversion nor another sort of consumerism, but the...
Worship is right because God is worthy of it; it is the best of all antidotes to our own self-centeredness, the most effective way to “disinfect us of egotism,” as one writer put it long ago. In true worship we turn the searchlight of our mind and heart upon God and...