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We are Witnesses
From the tomb to our lives Easter 3B | Luke 24:36b-48 The Physical Resurrection This moment we receive here in this third Sunday of Easter is another gospel treatment of the resurrection. At the vigil, we had Mark’s empty tomb, then on Sunday we had John’s empty tomb. Last week we had Jesus’s appearance to…
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I’m Reevaluating the Cross
After listening to Tony Jones speak about his new book, Did God Kill Jesus on Homebrewed Christianity, I found myself being pushed into new territory in my faith. Partly because I probably am one of those progressive Christians who wants to sanitize the faith and take the blood out of it. I think there’s more…
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Jesus is risen! Now what?
As the candles are snuffed from our Easter liturgy and the only reminders of our celebration are the mountain of candy wrappers and plastic strips approximating grass, we go back to our lives as a return to normal, as if nothing is different. And the irony is lost on us all. We go about our…
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Sabbath: Holy Saturday
“The Sabbath” Read the Text: Mark 15:42-16:1 OK, I cheated. There is no text for Holy Saturday. It goes from the evening before the Sabbath to the day after. No Sabbath. Writers and theologians have been searching for the missing day for centuries. One of my favorite apocryphal stories comes from Piers Plowman, a medieval poem that…
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Those Women, That Morning: Friday of Holy Week
“As soon as it was morning” Read the Text: Mark 15:1-41 There is a startling character to the Passion story. The Jewish authorities are bloodthirsty. Pilate, speaking for Rome, is strangely indifferent. The soldiers humiliate Jesus. The disciples have deserted Jesus entirely. And the women, many women who followed Him, watch from a distance. I’m struck by…
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Keeping it 100
When Jesus gathers his disciples for the Passover, Jesus does this one most radical act. No, not the Last Supper or the footwashing. What he does is treat Judas like one of the team. Like he isn’t about the betray him. The message, if we can hear it, is not only get together and eat,…
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In the Morning: Tuesday of Holy Week
The Jesus Movement is actually all about authority. If we recognize how Jesus challenged their understanding of authority on Sunday and again on Monday and then witness the fig tree “withered away to its roots” we may see that we, as the disciples, are the witnesses.
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The Following Day: Monday of Holy Week
“On the following day” Read the text: Mark 11:12-19 There are so few opportunities to see the anger of Jesus. We get so lulled by the images of the sweet Jesus, the stained-glass stick figure or the imagined bearded Caucasian with the sheep on his back and the children at his feet, that the Jesus with…