Humans seem to be an inherently religious species. No human culture has ever existed without some form of religious expression. And yet it's difficult to define what exactly the word 'religion' means; it's one of those words whose meaning seems to be best thought of as "I know it when I see it." Of the … Continue reading Jesus and the End of Religion
Yesterday, I wrote about how Jesus' cleansing of the Temple and, more importantly, his interpretation of it, marks in a sense the 'end of religion'. He had come up against the limitations of the sacrificial and ritual system of his people and offered a new expression of what it means to be faithful. What is … Continue reading Religion is Dead! Long Live Religion.
So far our Lenten Sunday readings have been giving us a crash course in temptation. Last week's Gospel reading told the story of Jesus' temptation in the desert. Today we have the story of Peter rebuking Jesus for saying he would be rejected and put to death. Here we see temptation in a subtler, but … Continue reading Get Behind Me, Satan!
Immediately after the powerful, transformative, theophanic moment of his baptism, Jesus is sent by the Holy Spirit into to the desert. There he is tempted for forty days — tempted with ease, with entitlement, and with earthly power. Ever since, the desert has held an odd place in the Christian imagination. On the one hand, … Continue reading Forty Days in the Desert: A Reflection on Mark 1.9-15
Today, Ash Wednesday 2021, marks a strange anniversary for me. For it was one (liturgical) year ago that I first wrote here about 2020 shaping up to be a brutal year. And so to me at least, it genuinely feels like a marker of one year of this collective experience of struggle. As I reflected … Continue reading Into the Depths: A Reflection for Ash Wednesday, 2021
Matthew Root 