First Sunday of Advent (Year 1, NL)

In Matthew, Jesus’ identity as king is the major source of conflict.

When does compromise descend into treason or apostasy?

Pontius Pilate shows us what happens when the historical and the eternal intersect.

Judas is hardly the only one who lets Jesus down.

Isaiah 50:4-9a; Matthew 26:14–27:66; Philippians 2:5–11

During Holy Week, it's common for worship leaders to ask people to consider their place in the drama of Jesus' final days. To what extent do we betray him, deny him, insult him, crucify him? When do we, like the crowds, find ourselves gawking at suffering with prurient glee? When do we, like the thieves, alternately ridicule the truth, then believe in it? When do we, like the centurion, make our confession--though perhaps a moment too late?

How does a crowd turn from shouts of joy to cries of murder in such a short span?

Some people conflate the two words; others see them as an oxymoron. Since leaving the army, I've found that they're both right in some ways and wrong in others.

Our texts du jour include passages from Lamentations and Habakkuk that lament or anticipate the desolation of Jerusalem by the Babylonians. What’s it like when calamity or God’s judgment leaves the land, the houses or the people desolate?

At one end of Matthew, Jesus goes free. At the other, cruel, ritualized slaughter befalls him.

Maybe the real reason we show betrayers so little compassion is that we’re afraid there is some Judas chromosome within all of us.

The passion narrative is the story of a series of violations. Is it good for us to find our identity in it?