Luke 21

No, everything is not fine. But we can help each other envision a better way.

No, everything is not fine. But we can help each other envision a better way.

Given time, things can grow back.

Advent must respond in some consequential way to the widening uncertainty of the living of our days.

What if Jesus is snatching us out of our desire for another world?

Unlike Hillary Clinton’s defeat in 2016, Warren’s defeat came at the hands of her own party.

Jesus’ hearers are well-acquainted with calamity and crisis.

In Luke’s postresurrection appearances, the disciples have to reckon with the traumatic somatic.

Trust your hearers. Trust the Spirit.

Climate science is apocalyptic: it reveals fundamental truths.

What will it take to break through our numbness?

I'd left the practice of testimony in my childhood church. Then I learned why Luke suggests it when your world is falling apart.

To hear Andy Williams tell it, right now is the most wonderful time of year. It is also the most frantic and maddening time of year. We've commenced our shopping, decorating, and planning for the "best Christmas ever." Or maybe we're completely stressed and wringing our hands because we have no idea how we'll pull it off this year.

Church leaders aren't exempt from the frenetic pace by any means, because we've had Advent on our brains for some time already.

Advent stands at odds with the tranquility our culture hopes for this time of year. The coming of the Son of Man will yank us off the hamster wheel of life.

As the first Advent candle is lit, world leaders will be making their way to Paris to try to create a climate treaty.

The unnamed disciple in Mark 13:1 would have been impressed not only by the temple’s splendor, but by what it represented: God’s presence with Israel. Jesus’ reply must have astounded him.

My grandfather was at his 60th class reunion. During a round of golf with three classmates, one of his friends teed off. After hitting the ball, with his club still in the air, the man said, “Gentlemen, you’ll have to excuse me.” Then he fell to the ground, dead.

My grandfather recounted this, adding, “And it was a nice shot.” 

Advent’s scripture passages are about genuine rescue. But I wonder whether we’re sometimes embarrassed to preach about genuine rescue because we are embarrassed to admit we’re having a genuine emergency.

It was the spring of 1963 in Birmingham, and it looked as if the civil rights movement would suffer yet another defeat. The powers that be had more jail space than the civil rights workers had people. But then one Sunday, reports historian Taylor Branch, 2,000 young people came out of worship at the New Pilgrim Baptist Church and prepared to march.