Remember “Sleepless in Seattle?” It’s a story of romance – romance that didn’t begin over Facebook or Social Media – but over the radio. Jonah was wasn’t just dealing with his mother’s death, but his father’s depression. He wanted him to find someone…though he had to approve of her. He calls a radio show and spills his dad’s beans all over the country. One listener to the show, Annie, not only gets drawn in, but […]
The Akedah is one of those chapters of the Bible which reminds us all too well that we don't have a neat and tidy little religion that is country-club respectable in all ways at all times. Sometimes the story comes off the tracks. But, the story somehow finds it's way back onto the tracks. There is always the possibility of redemption.
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. […]
The Grand Story of God is the beautiful story of a God who not only created us out of the dust of the ground, made us in His holy image, and breathed his life into us - but it's also the story of a God who has pursued us to the ends of the earth from the beginning.
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.
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 […]
The version of the Creation in Genesis chapter 1, as we know, shows a remarkably ordered world, with an unfolding plan of creation that springs forth from the words of our Creator God. There is a place for everything, and everything is in it’s place. The creation story in Genesis chapters 2 and 3 is a little different. God is still creator, but he’s hands-on, digging in the earth and collaborating with others in the […]
“Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven has come near.” I’m indebted to preacher and pastor Rob Bell for a fuller understanding of the meaning of “repent.” For a few decades now we’ve all been trying to rescue this word from it’s typical meanings of ‘feel bad, very, very bad,’ and bring it back it’s historical and etymological meaning of ‘turn around.’ Rob Bell has in various places taken the time to put this word in, […]
Our nation mourns those who died today, and we pray for those who are wounded. Jesus went to the Jordan to be baptized because the Jordan was a powerful symbold and reminder of the freedom and life that God gives, and because that freedom and life was about to get much fuller in the life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus. It was at the River Jordan that his ministry began. Jesus went to the […]
“Have you accepted Emmanuel as your Lord and Savior?” “I’ve given my heart to Emmanuel.” “I pray in Emmanuel’s name.” When’s the last time you heard one of these statements? Yeah, me neither. If you told someone that you oriented your life to follow the teachings of Emmanuel, and worshipped Emmanuel every weekend – wouldn’t most people assume that you were part of some weird, fringe religion? Who? And yet, “Emmanuel” is indeed a secondary […]