Jesus knows what will happen. We need not attribute this to supernatural foreknowledge. Jesus must have known that the noose was tightening, that the cross was approaching. He could not have been oblivious to the hostility of the authorities, and he may well have...
When the ground crumbled beneath him, when the desperation screamed inside him, when the darkness blanketed around him Jesus stumbled with tortured sound. Laborious sweat dripped off his brow. Blinding tears streaked from his eyes. The weight of his fate shuddered him...
I couldn’t pray. I didn’t dare to. In the most secret place of my soul I wanted to beg the Lord to reveal himself in power. I wanted to tell him that it was time for his coming. If there was anything at all to what he had promised, why didn’t he come in glory with...
For at least some of the followers of Jesus, maybe the worst day was the third one, Sunday, which for the Jews was like our Monday, with everything around them returning so completely to normal that it was impossible to believe that either his life or his death was...
First, the point of Jesus’ meals—from the loaves-and-fishes ones to the bread-and-wine one—is to insist on shared meals as the mandate of divine justice in a world not our own. If, as God asserts in Leviticus 25:23, “The land is mine; with me you are but aliens and...
So there is a powerful personal meaning to Good Friday and Easter. The followers of Jesus are invited into the journey that leads through death to new life. Personal transformation is utterly important. Without it, we remain within the world of our socialization, a...
The season of Lent beckons us to see what we are clinging to. The imagery of this season, therefore, is frequently stark. These days draw us into a wilderness in which we can more readily see what we have shaped our daily lives around: habits, practices, possessions,...
This crowd of thousands was not the hard core of tested disciples but the first wave of inquirers coming to see if this kingdom which the twelve had been announcing was for real. As the devil had said it would, the distribution of bread moved the crowd to acclaim...
The feeble gospel goes back to Jesus as our model, our example, and is much concerned with moral injunctions. It sees his teaching as a fine set of ideals at which to aim. It may not do much harm but it has no power to change your life: it is a faith built in sand...
Resurrection means God’s way prevails. When Jesus died, most thought his teachings died with him, overpowered and silenced by the might of “the system.” The power of entrenched interests seemed triumphant. We understand. Experience teaches us large systems and even...