I’m on the edge of glory And I’m hanging on a moment of truth Out on the edge of glory And I’m hanging on a moment with you – Edge of Glory, Lady Gaga In the fourth chapter of First Samuel Israel suffers a major defeat at the hands of the Philistines. Thousands are slaughtered. Israel is crippled. And the Ark of the Covenant, which had been carried onto the field of battle, was captured. […]
Jesus promises to prepare a place in His Father's house for us. And that's where this passage strikes me in the gut: In God's House, where His Name is worshiped, and where He dwells...I have a place. A spot. I am invited in. You're invited in. We're invited in.
This little allegory that Jesus gives in the opening verses of the tenth chapter of John is actually an account of the meaning of the Incarnation: Jesus enters the world to lead us out.
In the story of the journey to Emmaus there’s something going on. Yes, the disciples, like Mary Magdalene in John’s account of the Resurrection, were in Jesus’ presence and didn’t know he was there. That says something about the Resurrected life: it’s the same life, the same person – but there’s also something profoundly different. The previous life is blurred, at first unrecognizable. But, I think there’s also more here. Here in the later chapters […]
For several years now I’ve been intrigued by the hypothesis of Dr. Elaine Pagels that the Gospel of John was written as a critique of the Gospel of Thomas. In many of her works, but especially in “Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas” she paints the picture of two rival Christian communities; Christian believers who rallied around the apostle Thomas, and another group of Christian believers who rallied around the apostle John. Looking at […]
I’ve recently been re-reading sections of N. T. Wright’s “Surprised by Hope,” in search of some Easter-homily inspiration. One of the points which he makes early on in the book is that in none of the accounts of the Resurrection in the gospels is there a single mention of what it means for us. There is no meta-analysis. No commentary. There’s no “Jesus is Risen…and so we shall be raised too.” No, “Jesus lives…and just […]
The event is so wrenching that even the creation experiences the pain, as rocks are split, the earth shakes, and the sun darkens. It's so terrible that the barrier in the Holy of Holies in the Temple is torn in two. It's so wrenching to the sacred order of the world that tombs open up and the dead walk out.
Here we find that Sacred Confluence of humanity and divinity commingling in our world and waking a dear friend from the deep sleep of death.
I don’t know why, but human nature is consumed with building ourselves up and tearing others down. Part of the reason why Christianity, as Jesus taught it, is so at-odds with the world is that Jesus was all about building the ‘other’ up, and willing to be torn-down himself. That’s the Way of Christ. It’s the Way of the Cross. It’s the Way of Lent. It absolutely startles me that when the disciples see a […]
John, the author of the fourth Gospel, is being anything but subtle in the beginning of the fifth chapter. Jesus came near the plot of land that JACOB had given to Joseph. A well, was there – JACOB’s well. The woman who meets him there asks him if he thinks he’s greater than JACOB. Oh, and did I mention a well? Like the well where JACOB met his wife Rachel? The mother of Joseph. To […]