Our reflective Lenten journey is complete and our celebrative journey into Eastertide has begun. But before we leave Holy Week too quickly, there are a few takeaways from the stories we encountered we need to bookmark, a few lessons for…
Let’s consider the moral courage it takes for some to reconnect with church after the pandemic
Moral: the right thing to do, although it doesn’t feel right. Courage: doing the right thing anyway. This week, especially this week, there are people of faith in your community who are trying to work up the courage to reconnect…
Memory and mandate: A meditation on Maundy Thursday
Under the sway of Easter bunnies, chocolate binges and spring fashion sales, Holy Week and Resurrection Morning observances have shed almost all connections to the volatile political events in Jerusalem leading up to Jesus’ “triumphal entry” into the city. The…
COVID, Holy Week and God’s consolations
I lost a friend I highly respected to COVID. Our church family has prayed through the illnesses of members, friends and family, observed deaths and then, of course, there were the illnesses and losses due to complications of COVID never…
Untamed: The meaning of Jesus in these odd times finale
“We don’t live in Ukraine, but we do,” said our minister, Glenn Pettiford, as he began a pastoral prayer on a recent Lenten Sunday morning. His words have stayed in my head on the way to Gethsemane and Golgotha 2022,…
From Calvary to Dollar Tree
Stopping into one of the dollar stores this week, I couldn’t help but notice the display of reduced Easter memorabilia prominently arranged on a counter near the front doors. Alongside the plush toy bunnies, brightly colored plastic eggs, assorted dye…
Consider the trees: A Holy Week reflection on looking up
I sat on my front porch as the cool morning breeze gently lifted the leaves from the grasp of the trees and carried them to their death. Winter was coming. Seasons would change, and new life would be born again…
Why I’ll remember 2021 as ‘The Year with Two Easters’
I may refer to 2020 as “The Year Without an Easter.” That is certainly how it felt to me, at least. I had been serving as pastor of Ardmore Baptist Church for less than seven months before the global pandemic…
Holy Week 2021: Justice, gospel and cups of cold water
On Good Friday, April 12, 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested in Birmingham, Ala., for leading an “unlawful” protest in the city. That same day, a group of eight clergymen including five bishops (Catholic, Episcopal, Methodist), a Presbyterian, a…