Part of learning how to drive involves recognizing blind spots. You need to know where they are and when you need to check them to avoid a collision with a car you simply can’t see within your normal range of vision.
We have spiritual blind spots, too, and failure…..
Though it amazes us when God spins the straw of sin into the gold of redemption, we have to guard against this point getting twisted. On the one hand, Paul reminds us: “Some people are actually trying to put such words in our mouths, claiming that we go around saying, ‘The more evil we do, the more good God…..
At times, people have asked me, “Why would anyone found a religion on someone’s especially gruesome murder? If Jesus were really God’s Son, why would God force Him to face and suffer such a painful, ignominious death – especially if He always had the power to avoid it?” This reality was dire…..
We all know the headline of Easter: Christ is risen! I wonder if people who show up in church just for Easter are looking simply to be reminded of the good news that we can go to heaven when we die.
But the message of Easter is more nuanced than that. When someone you love…..
Last week I posed the question: Why do people come to church for Easter and then not return?
I noted Easter represents a complicated story – not one you can fully appreciate from the scripture reading or sermon you’d hear in a single Easter worship service. But the story itself…..
I’m betting your church, like mine, was full this past Sunday. I’m sure the music was amazing and your pastor/priest gave a stirring sermon/homily specially designed to reach the people who were there only because it was Easter.
You’ve heard of “C & E” Christians – those who only come…..
An imagining of Anna on Easter, with inspiration from Luke 24
This morning we’ve awakened to the most amazing news. Some of the women who went to Jesus’ tomb saw him alive! The news is spreading like wildfire and everyone has an opinion. I pointed out that we know Jesus can bring people back…..
An imagining of Anna on Good Friday
They’ve crucified him! Abba says it’s true. None of us could believe it when the word came this morning that he’d been taken to the Romans. We knew the Temple priests had it in for Jesus, but selling him out to the Romans?
The Romans…..
A further imagining of Anna’s time in Jerusalem
Something is wrong.
We’ve been in Jerusalem since last week, making it just in time to celebrate the last Sabbath in the Temple before the Passover.
Jesus only came the next day. It was glorious the day he arrived. He came into the city on a…..
An imagining based on Luke 8:40-56
We leave tomorrow morning at dawn. I’ve never been so excited to go to Jerusalem before, even though I’ve gone at least twelve times. I guess maybe even more, since some years we’ve gone for all three holidays. Abba tries to set a good…..