The person to whom we pray, the man we hope to follow, the one who is risen from the dead, understands us--because he lived a human life, and one that, particularly in his final week, was filled with suffering. from Seven Last Words: An Invitation to a Deeper...
I am sometimes amazed, even alarmed, at the extent to which people judge ministers by their preaching, and preaching by its rhetoric. To do so is to make the entirely spurious but nearly universal assumption that God is better served by a poet than by an accountant....
It is something we all have experience with--the dust of our lives. We miss the mark of God's best for us when we believe the illusion that our dustiness is only in part of us. Our lives are not...as shiny clean as we like to think they are. Our lives are not free of...
The inherent legalism of the Western Church trains our eyes on Jesus' suffering as the judgment of God upon our sin & virtually blinds us to the more obvious point that Jesus suffered from the wickedness of humanity. It was the human race, not the Father, who...
You are risen in power and wonder;You are risen out of the shambles of death and terror and doubt and fear;You are risen to turn the world to peace and justice and freedom and well-being;You are risen with healing wings to cure our diseased hurts and our public...
The stories of the Resurrection, as hard as they are for modern ears to comprehend, mean that the life Jesus lived and the project he pursued (the Kingdom of God) did not perish at the crucifixion, but continued in the lives of those who carried on what he had begun....
Jesus' procession deliberately countered what was happening on the other side of the city. Pilate's procession embodied the power, glory, and violence of the empire that ruled the world. Jesus' procession embodied an alternative vision, the kingdom of God. This...
In the world order we know, there is no place for peace and justice, for equal distribution of material and cultural goods, and for the dignity of every human being. Jesus took a stance for those values and was cynically disposed of as a rabble-rouser. The worst part...
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 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...