Advent is a great season of the Church year, but, with all the distractions of the holiday season and planning for the new year, it's a hard season to keep well. But in those years when I do manage to 'keep it well', I find that it operates as a kind of month-long examination of … Continue reading A Glimpse of Kingdom Life: An Advent Reflection on Philippians 1.3-11
As I was brainstorming ideas for how I wanted to approach Advent this year, I stumbled across a question that stopped me in my tracks, on the late (and sorely missed) Christian writer Rachel Held-Evans' blog: When I wake up on Christmas morning, how will I be different? As Christians we believe that what we … Continue reading Signs of the Times: The Christmas Difference
There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will … Continue reading Signs of the Times: An Advent Reflection on Luke 21.25-36
Today is the last Sunday of the liturgical year, a day known as 'Reign of Christ' or 'Christ the King' Sunday. In light of my ongoing series on different images the Scriptures use for sin and salvation, today's theme offers an opportunity to remind ourselves of one of the most common images for salvation in … Continue reading A Kingdom Not of This World: A Reflection on Sin, Salvation, and John 18.33-37
My midweek post this week introduced the complicated issue of sacrifice in Christianity, focusing especially on the substitutionary models of Christ's death that have dominated Western Christian theology for the past millennium. These models assume that Jesus was punished for our sins, in order to assuage God's anger and thereby fulfill the Jewish sacrificial system. … Continue reading Defilement and Purification: A Reflection on Sin and Salvation and Hebrews 10.11-25
