All tagged resurrection
There is the reality that the dying process may be painful, both emotionally and physically. Sometimes death is sudden, due to accidents, heart attacks, or even violence. But the day is coming when death will be no more. That is the promise of Revelation 21:4. No more death. No more mourning. No more pain.
Christ’s life becomes our life. Christ’s death becomes our death. And Christ’s resurrection will become our resurrection. Because in Christ, and through Christ, and with Christ, we are drawn out of the river of sin and death that all started at a town called Adam.
The sneaky thing about renewal is that it is not up to us—it is up to God. God cannot do the work God desires to do when communities of faith assume that they are the center of things.
The mission of God is not something we have to do; we receive it. We share it and spread it around like maple butter on Holy Saturday French toast, savoring the Savior.
As spiritual leaders … we are expected to have words that matter as we speak into the lives of those in pain.
As the created world hosts humanity, we have much to learn from the soil, from the seeds. Stretching toward the light, cultivated hearts propagate God’s mission.
Gratitude, simplicity, taking time. How difficult it can be to digest our own advice; how often we remain shielded from the perspectives of others. Pause; breathe.
Like my brothers in the prison, suddenly we are all hoping that death won’t have the last word.
When the sting of death and pandemic turns into a dull denial and numb reality, where do we find hope?
What will follow this season remains to be seen, but it will certainly alter what church looks like and how we practice the way of Jesus. What should leaders do as we enter into this uncertain and challenging time?
Even as some churches are dying, the kin-dom of God is not dying. We are not powerful enough to kill the redemptive movement of bringing humanity into fuller relationship with God.
The same power that raised Jesus from the dead has raised us to new life. And we are changing, becoming righteous by that power.
At the core of our preaching is actually an empty tomb. An absence. Something we cannot see.
I wonder what Jesus’s followers did in the long hours between the death and resurrection. It was only a couple of days, but it likely felt like an eternity.
I think the church could and should offer a different kind of space: a space that welcomes authentic selves, wounds and all.
The subject of vampirism is a current rage. Where did the idea of a vampire arise? More to our point, do they have anything to say about our own beliefs in God?
I learned about Easter as I watched people emerge from the shadows of the darkest nights of their lives, into another day.
