Jesus’ opponents “were searching for a way to arrest Jesus and kill him” (CEB). You suspected that the authorities would eventually put an end to the Jesus commotion. What you didn’t...

It’s hard enough to understand that in Christ, God “emptied,” took the form of a “slave,” became “like human beings,” and obeyed “to the point of death, even death on a...

Heroic martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer said that to pray a psalm is praying along with Jesus. “Have mercy on me, Lord . . . I’m depressed . . . My life is...

Anxious? Stressed? Fearful? Jesus can fix that. Problems? Jesus will deliver you. Where does it hurt? Jesus will heal. While gladly received by a therapeutic, self-help culture, this message makes the...

Jesus told his friends, “We are going up to Jerusalem” (Mark 10:33). Surely his disciples knew he was leading them into the storm. Their journey with Jesus was about to become...

Perhaps the greatest gift teachers can offer their students is their own love for the subject they aim to teach. Details matter, and there are pedagogical devices that set some teachers...

For Florence Jordan, a White woman who grew up in early 20th-century Kentucky, Jesus was someone she learned about in Sunday School—the Son of God whom everyone she knew honored. But...

John’s Gospel opens with a proclamation that would have shocked any of its original audience: “We have seen [God’s] glory,” John says (1:14). But this is impossible! No one can see...

Lent’s practices of penance have parallels in the monastic vocation. Fasting, prayer, and almsgiving are ways of practicing the poverty, chastity, and obedience that monks and nuns take on as a...

The work of repentance can seem burdensome, but its true aim is joy. Martin Luther King, Jr. did not go to Montgomery, Alabama, to lead the civil rights movement. A graduate...