Drew Downs

Make a New Normal

  • The Trouble with Easter

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    2 min read

    THE TROUBLE WITH EASTER You have to admit that Easter kind of sucks. Don’t get me wrong, the resurrection is great and everything and I love those cream eggs but next to Lent, this season is all treble and no bass. We spent 40+ days holding back praying and abstaining contemplating the persistent darkness and…

  • Beyond Guns

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    17 min read

    Mike Pesca seems to think Charles C. W. Cooke would make an honest argument against gun reform. Here’s why I don’t. I’ve gotten pretty tired of arguing about guns. Not because I don’t like arguing or that I don’t have any good ideas, but it’s more that I don’t think we’re having an honest conversation.…

  • The Tale of Two Easters

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    7 min read

    In our readings from Acts and John, we get two very different stories of the apostles responding to the risen Christ. But they both actually point to the same teaching. Luke and John reveal a false choiceEaster 2B  | Acts 4:32-35, John 20:19-31 In Holy Week, we traced the last week of Jesus with the…

  • So This is Where We Are

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    2 min read

    SO THIS IS WHERE WE ARE Teenage survivors speak out. The media follows the story. Some grown-ups pass pictures of the teens with targets on their chests. An adult talk show host teases a teen for not getting into all the schools. Calls come for advertisers to pull ads from her show. Some don’t. One…

  • Before Christ is Risen

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    6 min read

    For Christians, the empty tomb is a strange image for Easter — we struggle with what God is actually giving us: the need to wrestle with Jesus’s absence before we can find him present. Mary confronts death before seeing new life Easter  | John 20:1-18 There is more to say than “Christ is Risen!” Not…

  • How to Love Change

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    7 min read

    The empty tomb is the great symbol of change. To proclaim the good news, we have to confront the truth. That we don’t hate change, we’re afraid of something else. Why we need the empty tomb The Great Vigil of Easter  |  Mark 16:1-8 “I hate change!” That’s what people tell me. Every day I…