In the 13th century, the Muslim poet Rumi had an interesting way of describing our need for resurrection: “The mystics are gathering in the street. Come out!” “Leave me alone. I’m sick.” “I don’t care if you’re dead! Jesus is…
Crucifixion and coronavirus: a Holy Week unlike any other
David declared that even though he walked through the valley of the shadow of death, goodness and mercy would follow him always and that God would be with him forever. This year, this Holy Week, we have to find a way to believe that.
Contrary to the view of Triumphant Christianity, Easter is for failures
A Christianity that brings newness to deadness, even if the newness was something we would never have chosen for ourselves, is the sort of thing that just might blow the doors off the universe if we’ll let it. At the least, I know this kind of Christianity manages to empty my tomb year after year after year.
Doubt is a part of faith — especially in uncertain times like these
Take a few hundred Nazis and Klansmen marching openly in Charlottesville, add three fatalities and a wink from the White House, and many people are apt to wonder if God is really out there.
What does it mean to be resurrection people?
La versión en español está disponible aquí. Even though resurrection Sunday was some weeks ago, the liturgical calendar continues marking that Christians are in the season of Easter (Eastertide). For Christians like me, who were taught to celebrate the resurrection…
Works — the fitting response to God’s lavish grace
Have you considered what you want on your tombstone? The husband of a close friend said she would have these words, “I am fine, really!” Mine will probably be inscribed with a limerick: Here lies the theologian named Molly T.,…
‘Do you want to see?’
To see or not to see. Perhaps that is the question on this side of Easter. When the women came to the empty tomb in the garden, they saw a missing body, not resurrection — until two men in dazzling…
Engaging Easter’s light after Holy Week’s darkness
You know what they say on Easter afternoon in my line of work: “Christ is risen; the pastor is dead.” It sounds funny and perhaps it was, 19 years ago when I was first ordained. It might be age that…
And the women were there
In her memoir Mighty Be Our Powers, the Liberian grassroots activist and 2011 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Leymah Gbowee said: Modern war stories often resemble each other, male commanders are quoted offering predictions of swift victory, male diplomats make serious…