This image has nothing to do with politics, ethnicity, or “culture wars,” it has to do with a staggeringly piteous image that has truly rent my heart over the last 24 hours and the genuine agony of soul it depicts…Last month, Iryna Zaruska was stabbed during a transit ride. That is horrific. But, after the […]
A Prayer for Iryna Read More »
Song of Songs 6:3, “I am my Beloved’s and my Beloved is mine…” Where is the Lover of your soul? Where is the crown’ed King? We saw Him sealed ‘neath silent stone We heard Him cease to sing. Yea, truly have your eyes beheld For truly He has come Down to the depths of deepest
Holy Saturday – Song of Songs 6:3 Read More »
John 1:14, “The Word became Flesh…” O, Word high-throned eternally, O, Word beneath the world, O, Word, Great Cosmic liturgy, O, Name of God unfurled. O, Name of God! O, Name of God! Now sounding in our Flesh! Now running red through mortal sod, Down from your pierce’ed Breast. Down from that riven veil, your
Good Friday 2025 – John 1:14 Read More »
Romans 8:38-39, ‘For I am sure that neither death nor life…will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.’ Death is an enemy; the ‘Last Enemy’ that will be finally destroyed by the unfolding of Christ’s work on the cross at the return of the Lord (1 Cor.15:26).
Paschal Trilogy – 2024: Holy Saturday Genesis 2:3, ‘So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it, God rested from all His work that He had done in creation.’ In context, these words refer to YHWH’s creation of the cosmos in six days and His ‘rest’ on the seventh. However, read
Holy Saturday 2024 – Genesis 2:3 Read More »
John 11:21, ‘If you had been here…’ ‘If you had…’ — With these words, Martha’s imagination conjures a state of affairs that she believes would have been better than what has, in fact, happened…If Jesus had been here, Lazarus would not have died, she and her sister would have been spared the pain of loss,
The Paschal Trilogy – Part II/III – Holy Saturday Matthew 26:20, ‘When it was evening, He reclined at table…’ Considering Jesus’ final meal with His disciples, Irenaeus of Lyons makes the beautiful observation that ‘[Jesus] administered food to [His disciples] in a recumbent posture, indicating that those who were lying in the earth were they
Holy Saturday (2022) 2 Read More »
Matthew 13:44, ‘The Kingdom of Heaven is like treasure hidden in a field…’ In this picture, I wanted to focus on the ‘hiddenness’ of the Kingdom. The Kingdom of God—the reign of the risen King—is a treasure, to be sure; it is a treasure worth all that we are and have. And yet, it is
Colossians 2:23, ‘These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.’ What is the ‘indulgence of the flesh’? Certainly something like lust, illicit sexuality, drunkenness, and various forms of addiction come to mind.
Ps 90:12, ‘…teach us to number our days, that we may get a heart of wisdom.’ Much of our culture is designed to prevent us from numbering our days, to prevent us from looking steadily at the absolute reality of our own mortality and the unshakable certainty of our own death. But this is
Hebrews 9:27, “It is appointed unto for man to die once, and after that comes judgment…” At any given moment, the veil that separates us from the unmediated face of the risen Jesus Christ is as thin as a single heartbeat. As long as the muscle in our chest continues to pulse, a thin—yet,
Psalm 104:30, “When you send forth your Spirit [or “breath’], they are created…” John 19:30, “He bowed His head and handed over the spirit [or “breath”].” As you may know, the same word is used both for “Spirit” and “Breath” in Hebrew as well as in Greek. This is a fruitful ambiguity. Biblical authors
Psalm 104:30; John 19:30 Read More »
Matthew 8:17, “…He took our illnesses and bore our diseases. On the cross, Jesus bears the fullness of sin and its effects in the place of any and all who will hope in Him. This means not only that He bears His people’s sin and the hell it is due, but also that He
This animation is the second in an “Easter Trilogy” trilogy considering Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Resurrection Sunday (the animation dealing with Good Friday is here.). In “Holy Saturday,” I try to help us spend some time contemplating the strange and beautiful truth that, in Jesus, YHWH is “God With Us” even in the grave….and
Holy Saturday – An Animation Read More »
Psalm 116:3,6, “The snares of death encompassed me; the pangs of Sheol laid hold on me; I suffered distress and anguish…YHWH preserves the simple; when I was brought low, He saved me.” /// When sinking down, in chaos bound And ‘compassed round with fear To Him I look, who chaos took And so, in
Matt 9:24-25, “‘…the girl is not dead, but sleeping’…He went in and took her by the hand, and the girl arose.” Jesus does not merely turn back death in this text, He redefines death. When He says, “the girl is not dead, but sleeping,” He—as the Creative Word of God incarnate—names death anew. In
Hebrews 2:9, “…so that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone.” The idea for today’s verse picture was planted as I listened last week to a talk by poet/philosopher/priest Malcom Guite. During his presentation, he mentioned that he already knew what his death would be like because he’d seen it happen
Genesis 2:3, “So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all His work that He had done in creation.” So too after the great work that would achieve New Creation, God the Son rested from His labors on the Sabbath.
Song of Songs 8:6, “…love is strong as death, jealousy is fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, the very flame of the LORD.” During the “poetry” section of my morning readings, I’m working through Song of Solomon (or Song of Songs, which I like better). There’s long been debate on
Revelation 12:11, “And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.” The enemy is overcome as we trust in and hold fast to the person and work of the Lamb, even pouring out our lives in love as
