Word of Life Church Podcast

Once a symbol of imperial terror, the cross has become the eternal symbol of divine love. When we look upon the cross today, we don’t see an instrument of torture and death; we see the supreme demonstration of God’s love. We see the lengths to which God will go to save the world.

Brian Zahnd, Cole Novak, and Derek Vreeland explore the paradox of God revealed in the crucifixion of Christ on the cross. This conversation continues to explore themes from Brian's new book The Wood Between The Worlds: A Poetic Theology of the Cross. Follow for more episodes each Thursday in Lent.

The cross of Christ is the wood between the worlds. There is the world that was and the world to come, and in between those two worlds, is the wood upon which the Son of God was hung.

It's nearly impossible to comprehend how shocking Jesus' call to "take up your cross and follow me" was to a first century audience. It would not have been heard as a call to a pious spirituality. It could only be understood as a call to martyrdom. And what could be more shocking than that?

The Uncreated Light of Tabor illuminates the Old Testament. The Light brighter than the sun that shines from the face of the Transfigured Christ turns the Old Testament into a brand-new text. At the Transfiguration we learn that Jesus is the telos of the Old Testament.

Everyone is searching. Everyone who hasn't given up and succumbed to despair and surrendered to nihilism is searching for something. And ultimately, whether they know it or not, they're searching for Jesus.

The fame of Jesus spread throughout Galilee, then Judea, then the Roman Empire, and then throughout the whole world, so that Jesus of Nazareth is far and away the most famous person in history. Fame is connected with fascination. We're fascinated by famous people—we want to know more about them. And fascination with Jesus Christ is the essential thing. But wherein lies the fame of Jesus? What is J...

To follow Jesus is to embark upon the risk of becoming—it’s the lifelong journey of becoming who you are meant to be. And this journey is always a risky adventure. There are gains and losses, successes and failures, victories and defeats. Sometimes you walk on water for ten seconds—and the next moment you're crying out, “Lord, save me!” And in that moment of risk Jesus does save you. But the great...

The story of Jacob's Ladder in Genesis has a powerful influence upon our theological imagination: It speaks to us of the reality of another world called heaven. It speaks to us of another order of being called angels. It speaks to us of the possibility of a ladder of interaction between these two worlds.

One of the reasons that after nearly fifty years of following Jesus and after over forty years of full-time ministry that I’m not bored, burned out, jaded or cynical, is that many times and in many ways—including by dreams—I’ve been warned and wooed by the Holy Spirit to travel by another road.

Ours is an age of acute empirical perception that affords spectacular scientific and technological developments, but our age is also an epoch of dire spiritual dullness leading to a deep poverty of the soul. This lack of spiritual perceptivity engenders a profound sense of emptiness and meaninglessness. To recover meaning we need to rediscover the paths of unseen existences.

Monsters Dave Matthews Band Broke old toy soldiers lined up one, two, three Little kid and everything I did just to save my paper queen 'Cause love won't let me go Yeah, no army's gonna save my soul 'Cause love won't let me go Nothing in the closet Nothing underneath the bed Just the monsters in your head I hear strange voices at every step I take No, you can't cross the ocean if you can't get pas...

The Holy Trinity is a sanctuary of perfect love where there is never any fear, discord, or sorrow. It is from this sanctuary that the the Holy Spirit is sent as the Paraclete—the one who comes alongside to help us.

John the Evangelist originally concluded his Gospel with chapter twenty. But sometime later, perhaps to affirm the leadership of Peter and to dispel a rumor about himself, John wrote and additional chapter -- a chapter that can be described as a lovely coda.

On the first Sunday in Lent the lectionary takes us to the wilderness temptation of Christ. As Jesus prayed and fasted forty days in preparation to launch his ministry—a ministry that would announce and enact the arrival of the kingdom of God— he was beset with three satanic temptations. The first two temptations involved misuse of miraculous powers. But it was the final temptation that was the mo...

Jesus knows that all forms of spirituality built on legalistic, rule-based religion focused on behavior modification is a dead-end road. It cannot produce life. Inward transformation, a change of the heart and the formation of character, becomes the foundation for real life in the kingdom of God. Jesus warns us of the judgment that is to come if we allow anger to become angry words that seek to hu...

When Isaiah penned his “Rivers In the Desert” poem, Judah was in a bad way—internally Judah was corrupt and externally it was under threat of foreign invasion. But the poet of audacious hope does not despair; instead he proclaims that God will come, and in that day it will be said, “Here is your God!”

Paul says that Christ has abolished death and brought immortality to light, and he says this is the gospel. And it is! But it’s not the gospel we’re accustomed to hearing. Over time the gospel has been reduced to be almost exclusively about forgiveness. Of course forgiveness is a beautiful component of the gospel, but that’s not all there is. The gospel in its fullest and most grand presentation i...

Where there is no war, is in heaven above, where Christ reigns supreme. In the world above, the world to come, the war is already won. The devil has been cast down and no longer has any place in heaven above. Heaven is the place where there is no war, so keep your head in heaven above.

This sermon is an exploration of the fundamental truth that many of us know, but most of us find hard to believe. 1 John 4 lays out the extraordinary claim that God is love. The implications for our lives and the world we live in are profound and unlimited in the light of this reality - if only we can come to know and believe that it is true. May we let go of our false self and let our true self b...

After the ancient people of God crossed the Jordan River and entered into the Promised Land, they stacked 12 stones to serve as a memorial that God indeed had remained faithful to God’s people. The resurrection of Jesus is our memorial stone as the renewed people of God. Jesus’ resurrection was not a collection of stones stacked by human beings, but a single stone that God rolled away when life tr...

The Gospel of John decidedly and deliberately differs from Matthew, Mark, and Luke. John the Evangelist wants to give us a theological Gospel containing the highest possible Christology. In his opening sentence John tells us that this one who is the Word of God is fully divine. While the other Gospels give genealogies and tell us that Jesus comes from Bethlehem and Nazareth, John is not interested...