Posts with the category “easter-2023”

It’s dark... Looming in blackness is the sting of a bitter loss that only darkness understands. As she approaches the tomb the cool air sends goosebumps down her body, and the chilling reality of a lost hope causes her to shiver. There is a knot at the bottom of her soul as she prepares her heart for what she might find in the tomb.Nothing….Awaits her there. She arrived, afraid, cold, and full of ...  Read More

This Changes Everything “The afterlife, whether it is a Darwinian determinism which leads to a tragic pessimism, the strange mix of New Age religion and postmodern pop-psychology that fills daytime television, the philosophical nihilism that advocates unbridled hedonism as life’s only purpose, the Marxist or materialist vision that says the best we can hope for is an economic utopia, or even the c...  Read More

Good Friday. I have always thought that this is just the worst name for this day. It seems to me like there was very little good that really happened on that day. In fact, it was actually known by many other names; Holy Friday, Great Friday, Great and Holy Friday, and Black Friday. Obviously, landing on the nomenclature of Good Friday has taken a while.But we do know why it was good. It led to the...  Read More

Jesus was harsh.  There’re no other words to describe his response to the scribes and Pharisees that had been hounding him for the last three years. Every now and then, they would set some traps for him, asking some difficult questions hoping that he would answer something that would compromise him.  They were good at it.  Keen experts in legal wrangling and in nuanced arguments. Now that Jesus is...  Read More

On Tuesday morning, Jesus returned to the Temple to teach the gathered crowd.  The religious teachers, priests, elders, Sadducees, and Pharisees were plotting and scheming to trap Jesus into breaking religious laws.  They were openly challenging His authority.  We see Jesus answering their leading questions with more questions, telling stories to illustrate and lay bare their treachery, and openly...  Read More

As we approach the final days of Jesus life we need to pause and go back to the first day of Jesus’ life on earth. Shepherds are gathered around their sheep when the angel hosts show up and announce something very important.I always thought that the angel’s sang their announcement--something akin to the Halleluiah Chorus from Handel’s Messiah. But a closer examination of the ancient text in Luke c...  Read More

Jesus knew exactly what he was doing.  It was the Passover, and as more than 100,000 Jews made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem to celebrate, Jesus and his disciples were among them. Jesus, however, knew what was coming. He knew the leaders were ready to put him to death in order to preserve their way of life and their understanding of the Scriptures.But instead of hiding, Jesus did the exact opposite....  Read More

Easter is an important time in the Christian year - but it is so much more than a date on a calendar...   Read More