Resurrection means the life we know is not all there is to life. God may introduce surprises to all unfolding stories. Face it. We often feel bound by history, both corporate and personal. Most of us seldom use the term “fate",” but we act as if our lives are already...
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...
People today sometimes talk about Easter as if the great message is that there really is life after death after all. That’s a very modern perception, which would occur only to somebody who had been brought up with the secularist denials of life after death. If that’s...
It is extremely strange, and extremely interesting, that the stories of Jesus’ resurrection never mention the future hope of the Christian… Instead, we find a commission within the present world: “Jesus is risen, therefore you have work ahead of you.” The stories are...
Seems to me that many churches today are looking more for the hype and less for the depth…are looking to “beat” their competition and keep their “consumers” satisfied…are much ado about “the show” and their “ratings.” Seems to me, that is a mistake! Jesus on the Cross...
When Jesus told Peter to put his sword away and then faced his accusers and confronted death without violence, Jesus was living out the way that the reign of God confronts evil. The resurrection of Jesus, God’s act in history to overcome the ultimate enemy—death—puts...
Christ is Risen - He is risen indeed! We are baffled by the very Easter claim we voice. Your new life fits none of our categories. We wonder and stew and argue, and add clarifying adjectives like “spiritual” and “physical.” But we remain baffled, seeking clarity and...
For generations the church has been polarized between those who see the main task being the saving of souls for heaven and the nurturing of those souls through the valley of this dark world, on the one hand, and on the other hand those who see the task of improving...
As someone has put it, the biblical understanding of human beings is not that they have bodies, but that they are bodies… Those who believe in the immortality of the soul believe that life after death is as natural a human function as waking after sleep. The Bible...
Lent has begun, and we need to live in this dark place between the ashes and the bread and wine, between the declaration of our mortality and the declaration of Christ’s redeeming work. Lent is a time to reckon with the reality of the darkness. We do so with hope,...