Wednesday, January 27, 2016

Jesus and Bungee-Jumping

A friend of mine posted on Facebook this morning, "If you want to be anxious today, pretend you're in control" quoting Michael Reeves. Pretending, of course, we never were in control and we never will be -- but we'll be miserable if we try. This reminds me of one of the points underneath the scripture I read this morning, Luke 4:9-12.  In this small segment, the devil takes Jesus to the pinnacle of the temple in Jerusalem, and tempts him to throw himself off, knowing that God must and will rescue him. Jesus responds rightly, "The Scriptures also say, ‘You must not test the Lord your God.’" So what's behind this?  Is Jesus outlawing bungee-jumping,

Wednesday, January 20, 2016

Making Rough Places Smooth

Just about everybody has heard about John the Baptizer, the one who showed up out of the wilderness to start baptizing people in the Jordan river. John announced the

Wednesday, January 13, 2016

More Epiphanies

The season of Epiphany stretches, officially, from January 6 to February 7 this year. It celebrates the "appearing" or "presentation" of Jesus to the public in different ways in his early life. One is at the Temple in Jerusalem (Luke 2), another to the Gentile wise men, or Magi (Matthew 2), still another at his baptism (covered in all four gospels in different ways) and the

Wednesday, January 6, 2016

Epiphany and Risk

Today, January 6, is the celebration of "Epiphany" on the Christian calendar, and it's celebrating something awesome: the first 'public appearance' of the baby Jesus, the Son of God now in human form. What's that about? And what