The crowd at Jesus’ crucifixion challenged him to prove himself by climbing down from the cross, but not one person thought of what actually would happen: that he would die and then come back. …The style fit God’s pattern and character. God has always chosen the slow...
00662 – Jesus’ Scars
Why did Jesus keep the scars from his crucifixion? …The scars are, to him, an emblem of life on our planet, a permanent reminder of those days of confinement and suffering. …I take hope in Jesus’ scars. …They represent the most horrible event that has ever happened....
00661 – What is Your Jerusalem?
The story is about Jesus but is also about each of us. Palm Sunday asks what Jerusalem is for you and me. What in your life and mine is the walled city where we must ultimately go if we are to find life? What is the Jerusalem that awaits our arrival, where we will...
00657 – The Grace of the Season of Lent
To keep Lent is to discover and remember who in heaven’s name we are, as person and community. We pray against all confusers and confusions for our true identity and vocation. We know that means standing before the cross and making some choices. The grace of this...
00656 – Christ is Risen Indeed!
…because of the narrative we know best,we discover that in the rock where you had nestled us,You have blown the rock open from the inside.You have rolled the stone away,You have surged out of a tomb-like womb, a womb-like tomb,And are back surging in the world, to...
00649 – Mary Told to Spread the News of Resurrection
Mary is exhorted to spread the news of the resurrection and ascension and of the new life with God and one another that is now available to all. Those who follow Jesus have become members of the family of God and Jesus. from “Gospel of John” from Women’s Bible...
00648 – Competition: Eternal Life, not Morality
It wasn’t the morality of the Sermon on the Mount which enabled Christianity to conquer Roman paganism, but the belief that Jesus had been raised from the dead. In an age when Roman senators vied to see who could get the most blood of a steer on their togas—thinking...
00647 – Resurrection: Mary Magdalene, the First to Believe
Sometimes the course of one’s entire life is determined by a solitary incident—some kind of defining moment that changes everything. Mary’s decision to anoint Jesus’ body for burial on the third day after his death was just such a moment. When she arrived, she found...
00646 – The Resurrection Sets Jesus Apart from Other Leaders
Apart from the resurrection, Jesus has no more claim upon us than Socrates, Abraham Lincoln, Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., or Anwar Sadat: He was simply one among many good leaders who managed to meet an unjust death. from Calendar: Christ’s Time for the...
00645 – Cross: Victory Over Fear
Jesus was this kind of giver. He is the greatest sign to us that life need not be dreary, need not be saved, but can be, must be, entirely spent. It is fear that makes us hold on to life or to what represents life’s meaning for us. The cross marked the place in...