Read John 20:11-29 I was recently building a snowman with a 3 year old. It was an interesting dance of helping and not helping. She is at the stage where she “wants to do everything by herself.” In one moment, she would announce, “I can do it myself,” but in the next breath she would…
Read John 18:28 – 19:16 The tension of this passage is as old as time – who holds power and how will it be used? In the case of Jesus, the religious leaders have found him guilty of blasphemy, but lack the authority to take his life. The Roman government has the authority to execute…
Read John 18:1-14 The Washington Post published a story that occurred on the streets of London in the wake of George Floyd’s murder. Demonstrators clashed with far-right activists. A photographer in the crowd heard, “That’s not what we do!” At that moment, black demonstrator Patrick Hutchinson emerged carrying a white man over his shoulder. Hutchinson…
Read John 17:2-26 We are a beleaguered people. A pandemic has frayed our social fabric; political discourse devolves into pejoratives that further polarize; natural disasters batter communities; the world over, citizens take to the streets over failures of leadership and social injustice; negotiated truces seem a meager match for historic hostilities. When one looks upon…
Read John 15:1-18 We are human beings, not human doings. —Attribution varies I don’t know about you, but I like to go. I like to do. Checklists abound in my life, and I always have a new way to fill any downtime. I’m not good at taking time to pause and reflect. I get so…
Read John 14:1-14 One beautiful fall day, I went for a walk with my then 5-year-old daughter. We skipped along a path in the woods behind our condo, scampered over large rocks and crunched the fallen leaves that blanketed the ground. Eventually, we exited the other side of the woods, looping back on a road…
Read John 13:18-38 At some point, we’ve all felt betrayed. It could be a big friendship falling out, or a breach of trust on a smaller scale. In my life, I can think of a few times this has happened and I’ll be honest: I never saw it coming. I was blindsided by the comment…
Read John 12:1-8 Mary of Bethany lived near Jerusalem with her siblings Martha and Lazarus. She is likely single in a culture where women’s lives were perilous without a husband, brother, or father. Jesus welcomed Mary – an apparently average woman – as a disciple, even as it defied social expectation. (Luke 10) We next…
