holy ⁽³⁰⁰⁾

Isaiah 42:1–9; Psalm 36:5–11; Hebrews 9:11–15; John 12:1–11 Yesterday, we celebrated Palm Sunday. The Messiah, no, the King, no, God (!) entered Jerusalem! At churches around the world, children paraded waving palm branches. The triumphant entry is a big thing! I remember being part of…

Jeremiah 31:31–34; Psalm 51:1–12; Psalm 119:9–16; Hebrews 5:5–10; John 12:20–33 In Christian circles and theology, we talk about the New Covenant. When we read about the New Covenant from Jeremiah, the honest person might question which New Covenant Jeremiah was talking about. “They will no longer need to…

Psalm 51:1–12; Exodus 30:1–10; Hebrews 4:14–5:4 Even if every single Israelite behaved completely within the bounds of Law, and thus no sin offerings were offered for an entire year…still Aaron would have to perform the ritual of reconciliation. No matter how perfect every Israelite was,…

Psalm 107:1–16; Isaiah 60:15–22; John 8:12–20 In the US, Christians as a whole (versus individually), are disliked (if not hated), forbidden (i.e., closed-minded, intolerant, bigoted, prejudiced, etc.), and culturally abandoned (granted, much of that is based upon Christians running for the “holy” hills and their…

Psalm 107:1–3, 17–22; Daniel 12:5–13; Ephesians 1:7–14 We love countdowns. Before church service starts, we have a countdown. Every sporting event has a countdown. Part of its attraction is the pressure. It moves us. Another attraction of a countdown is finitude. We know there is…