The devil sought to divert Jesus from his mission in three different ways. Walking Christ’s cruciform way, we face the same temptations.
The transfiguration reveals the implicit grammar of Jesus’ politics and political identity. This identity did not require a retreat to heaven, but confrontation and crucifixion in Jerusalem.
When we are tempted to anxiety in the face of the success of the wicked, the psalmist reorients us to the Lord.
Luke makes it clear that it is God, and God alone, who can best align our lives and realities, to make us whole and healthy, and to give us a life worth living, a life most “human.”
Isaiah’s call to prophesy judgment against Israel challenges us to remember God’s sovereignty over all political systems, even those that are disastrous in our eyes. Could God’s judgment be the decisive turning point toward healing?
God’s prophets are those who call us to recognize our limitations before the sovereignty of God. Indeed, Jeremiah reminds us of the relativity of human politics and that in God alone does the individual and human society find meaning and security.
Nehemiah 8 reminds us that hearing the word of God is an occasion for joy, not sorrow and regret.
Psalm 36 reminds us that hope is grounded in God’s very nature, that it rests in the hesed of the LORD. Today, despite the fact that the work we undertake remains unfinished, we can rest in God’s hesed.
Bookended by the call to ascribe glory and strength to the Lord, and the answering request that the Lord give strength and blessing to his people, Psalm 29 offers us a vision of good rule.
The season of epiphany moves us from a season of indulgence, to a season marked by gift giving that honors God. What kinds of gifts do we give? And how do these gifts honor God by honoring the dignity and agency all of God’s children?
Where do we place ourselves in these narratives? What is our posture toward the prophets among us? Are we the prophetic children, the parents who tentatively support yet fear their calling, or the status quo that they oppose?
The Mary that we discover in Luke’s gospel may not be the sentimentalized and domesticated Mary of the Christian imagination.