Word of Life Church Podcast

A Good Friday meditation on Jesus' trials, crucifixion, and burial -- a contemplative journey from Caiaphas' dungeon to Pilate's court, from Golgotha to the garden tomb.

The king approaches on Palm Sunday Forsaking the glorious war horse To ride a ridiculous peace donkey Gentle as the wings of a dove Inaugurating the reign of love Conquerors come with hubris, blood, and violence Riding stallions of famine, war, and pestilence (They tell me Genghis Khan murdered all of ten million) The Prince of Peace comes without breaking a bruised reed Swords are now for plowing...

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the source of much of animosity and fear in our world. Forming a Christian response requires much knowledge of the current complexities and history of that region. In the end, this highly political situation is about people, Israeli people and Palestinian people and as Christians we are not called to take Israel’s side, but to imitate Israel’s Messiah.

Since the foundation of the world (by which we mean the beginning of human civilization) there’s been something fundamentally and tragically wrong with the world. But we mostly accept it as normal because to us it’s just the way the world is. (Only the prophets offer a minority report.) The basic arrangement of the world is this: The strong dominate the weak. In the domination system, economic pow...

Beware of simplistic and formulaic explanations of the Cross. We cannot easily know the mystery of how the crucifixion of Jesus Christ saves the world. We readily confess it, but that does not mean we can glibly "explain" it. The Bible does not give us a simple, formulaic explanation of the Cross. What the Bible does do is give us a myriad of metaphors about the Cross. One of the most mysterious m...

Friedrich Nietzsche said, "a long obedience in the same direction" is what makes "life worth living." And as was so often the case, Nietzsche was right (even if he was wrong on the most important questions). If it's true that it's a long obedience in the same direction that makes life worth living, there's no better example of this than the life of Jesus. Jesus' life can quite accuarately be descr...

What Jesus did in the Temple the day after his arrival in Jerusalem during the Feast was not a “cleansing” of the Temple, but a prophetic protest of the Temple. It was creative and dangerous prophetic theater—not a sudden loss of temper. Jesus wasn’t cleansing the temple for it’s continued use, Jesus was protesting Temple corruption and predicting its destruction. This is why following his protest...

The hope for the world that I see is where lust for dominance is replaced by love and where lust for vengeance is replaced by forgiveness. The hope for the world that I see is the Jesus way of choosing the cross by refusing the deathtrap of recycled revenge. The hope for the world that I see is where the rage of Achilles is neither glorified as heroic, nor satisfied in retaliation. The hope for th...

When Jesus first foretold his death, Peter rebuked him saying, "This will never happen to you." Jesus retorted with, "Get behind me, Satan!" Jesus then went on to teach his followers about the necessity of cross-bearing in discipleship. This is one of Jesus' most important teachings. Now imagine this: The Apostle Peter imprisoned in Rome in AD 64 on the eve of his crucifixion. What might Peter say...

Lent is a time for us to revisit, retell, and relive Jesus' journey to Jerusalem, suffering, and death. As we recall the crucifixion we cannot help but ask, "Where is God?" It is this question that seems to haunt us, especially in times of suffering. Could it be that in these moments when God feels so far way, he is actually closer than ever? Could it be that when we are at the end of our rope, we...

As we journey through the Christian calendar—through Advent to the Christmas Incarnation, through Lent to the Good Friday Crucifixion and the Easter Resurrection—we need to take the humanity of Jesus seriously. For if we fail to do so, if we allow the deity of Christ to eclipse the real humanity of Jesus, the whole gospel story collapses into kitsch and becomes a sentimental caricature lacking in...

Is sin more like a speeding ticket or suffering from the flu? If we treat sin merely as an infraction of a law, and forgiveness as a legal pardon of that infraction, people tend to continue in sin. Jesus reveals sin as deeper than mere acts of moral infractions. Sin is a sickness and it has corrupted and infected everything. Jesus saves us from our sin, both personal sin and systems of sin, by hea...

Jesus is the true and living Word of God. Jesus is what the Law and Prophets point toward and bow to. Jesus is what the Old Testament was trying to say, but could never fully articulate. Jesus is the perfect Word of God in the form of a human life. God couldn’t say all that he wanted to say in the form of a book, so God said it in the form of Jesus. Jesus is what God has to say! The Law and the Pr...

What is light? God’s love in the form of photons. What is water? A liquid expression of God’s love. What is a mountain? God’s love in granite, so much older than human sorrow. What is a tree? God’s love growing up from the ground. What is a bull moose? God’s love sporting spectacular antlers. What is a whale? Fifty tons of God’s love swimming in the ocean. Why is there light and oceans and trees a...

Faith Life Weekend Session 5 Seven centuries before Christ the poet-prophet Isaiah spoke of a day when God will do something wonderful for all nations on Mount Zion. (Isaiah 25:6–7) God will turn the universal burial shroud into a universal table cloth—funerals will be turned into feasts. God will swallow up death forever—the end of that dark specter that threatens to make life meaningless. God wi...

Faith Life Weekend 2015 Session 4 The earliest Christian communal meals (the center of church life) were patterned after the Roman banquet, and were thus familiar to everyone. But the Christian banquet differed from the Roman banquet in four very significant ways… 1. Who was honored. (Not Jupiter, not Caesar, but Jesus Christ.) 2. What kingdom was celebrated. (Not the Roman Empire, but the Kingdom...

Faith Life Weekend 2015 Session 2 As a child Mephibosheth was let down by a loved one; as a result he was crippled for life. But the story finds beauty when Mephibosheth was called out of the wastelands and seated at the king's table. Have you ever been let down by a loved one and it left its mark on you? Have you ever been hurt by those who were supposed to help you? Did it crippled you? Do you l...

Faith Life Weekend 2015 Session 3 A Moveable Feast is best known as the memoir by Ernest Hemingway. But the term actually comes from the liturgical calendar. A moveable feast is a feast day without a fixed date, like Easter. In this sermon A Moveable Feast is used to describe the ministry of Jesus. In the Gospels Jesus moves from meal to meal, feast to feast, announcing and enacting the kingdom of...

Session 1 of Faith Life Weekend 2015 The Jewish Passover and Christian Communion are both feasts of liberation. The Jewish Passover and Christian Communion are both meals of memory. At both meals—Passover and Communion—a story is told. Exodus and Good Friday. We are the stories we tell. We are what we remember. Our feasts shape our identity. To be Jewish is to remember the Exodus. To be Christian...

In the New Testament we’re not given just one Gospel witness to Jesus, but four. Each of the four Gospels introduce Jesus’ public ministry in a different way and from a different location. Matthew: Reissuing the Torah as the Sermon on the Mount. Mark: Casting out a demon in the synagogue in Capernaum. Luke: Announcing the Lord’s favor in the synagogue in Nazareth. John: Turning water to wine at th...

Jesus’ whole ministry consisted in announcing and enacting the kingdom of God. In his three year ministry Jesus never said or did anything that was not toward the end of announcing and enacting the kingdom of God. He did this by preaching, giving parables, healing the sick, casting out demons, forgiving sinners, and by performing a table practice of radical hospitality. During these three years Je...

We are hurled into life without warning. First we are not...then suddenly we are! Waiting in the wings a script is thrust into our hands and we're shoved onto the stage of life. It's a script of family, nation, language, culture, and religion. We have no say in the matter. We are simply handed the script. In our fourscore sojourn we are expected to stick to the script...and then die. But there is...

We speak of Peter as making the first formal confession that Jesus is the Messiah, and it’s appropriate that we do so; it’s our tradition and Peter was pre-eminent among the disciples. But… A year and a half before Peter’s confession (and upon just meeting Jesus) Nathanael calls Jesus the “Son of God” and the “King of Israel." Both are titles for Messiah. And Nathanael does this all because Jesus...

We all want to be loved and feel like we belong. This is a common human experience. Those who experience love and belonging are those with a sense of worthiness which is connected to how a person responds to the love of God. If we respond to the love of God with open-armed acceptance, we experience the life of God. If we respond to the love of God with rejection, we experience what could be called...