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Posts from the ‘Easter’ Category

Apr 21

14 Comments

An Act of (Active) Love

Something I’ve learned over a decade and a half of pastoral ministry, is that people interpret and cope with their suffering in very different and very personal ways. Some cannot tolerate the idea that God could play any causal role whatsoever in their pain. God is their co-sufferer, labouring to bring goodness out evil, redemption out of brokenness. God is the salve, not the source. Others, take refuge in a highly specific and highly personal conception of God’s role in orchestrating the events of this world. Their torments come directly from the hand of a meticulously sovereign God whose will, while sometimes inscrutable, is always done. And then there are others—most of us, I suspect—who find ourselves somewhere between these two poles. Read more

Apr 11

8 Comments

The Price of Purity

I’ve expressed admiration for the writing of Nick Cave over the last few months. His book Faith, Hope, and Carnage was among my favourites of 2022. A few people recently asked if I had listened to the interview with him on the UnHerd podcast. I had not. So, on a lovely spring-like Easter Monday morning I threw it on my phone and went for a long walk. Read more

Apr 5

5 Comments

Bleed into One

People sometimes ask me what I would have been if not a pastor. A number of options leap to mind, but I often joke that my first choice would have been “rock star.” I have always loved the energy and the emotion, the raw driving power of music, the euphoria of the crowd. It transports me. It always has. Alas, I have no real musical talent, which I’m guessing would have proved a difficult obstacle to overcome. I picked up the bass guitar a bit in my twenties and blundered uninspiringly along for a while, but that was the extent of it. Also, I probably would have needed hair to be a decent rock star. So, you know, the odds were always against me. Read more

Mar 29

6 Comments

Hang On, Judas

Judas was on the agenda at the jail this week. We’ve been working our way through John’s gospel over the past few months, paying special attention to Jesus’ encounters with real people. We’ve been trying to locate ourselves in these stories and to see what they might teach us about ourselves and about God. We’ve looked at Nicodemus, the Samaritan woman at the well, the woman caught in adultery, the blind beggar, Lazarus, etc. Good stories, each one, and not too difficult to locate ourselves in these characters. But Judas? Well, Judas is a different animal. Especially at the jail. Read more

May 3

6 Comments

Jesus Doesn’t Stop (Where We Wish He Would)

I’ve probably preached half a dozen sermons on “Doubting Thomas” over the last decade or so. Thomas and his doubt show up faithfully in the lectionary readings each year after Easter Sunday. Thomas and his stubborn needing to see to believe. Thomas and his demanding what his fellow disciples received as a gift and the surprise of a lifetime. Thomas, the recalcitrant empiricist. Read more

Apr 17

3 Comments

Man in the Middle

Each year, some part of the story of Holy Week grabs my attention in a new way. This year, it was the criminals on either side of Jesus’s cross. Matthew and Mark have the two criminals joining everyone else in heaping insults and scorn upon Jesus, adding to the general consensus that this is a very poorly performing Saviour. He saved others. Let him save himself. If you’re the Messiah, let’s see some action! Some “king.” Come down off that wretched cross if you are who you say you are. Read more

Apr 15

4 Comments

On Resonance: A Good Friday Reflection

I was not in the mood for an “I’m spiritual but not religious” conversation this week. I had just buried one of our church’s saints. I had been planning a vigil in honour of a young man who took his own life and processing it with those most affected by this. There was the usual fatigue of Holy Week with its multiple services to prepare. All in all, my appetite was very low for another critique of religion or the church from an earnest and painfully certain twenty-something. Read more

Apr 14

7 Comments

Final Exam

I often talk to people who feel like they’re failing. Failing God, failing their kids, failing their spouses, failing their church, failing their colleagues or shareholders, failing to realize their potential, failing to optimize, prioritize, maximize. Sometimes the people I talk to about all this failing are the voices in my own head. Life is conceived of as some kind of a test or a race or contest with winners and losers. It’s remarkable how frequently people who, by all outward appearances seem to be thriving, or at the very least keeping their heads above water, feel like they’re not measuring up. Read more

Apr 8

The Monstrosity of Easter

 

I remember a few years ago I was hunting around for some music to listen to while preparing my Easter sermon. It was Holy week, so I thought I should try to find something a bit more inspirational than my usual fare. Perhaps some classical music. I surveyed the options on my streaming service. I was presented with two choices for Holy Week. How delightful! I read the description of each.

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Apr 16

9 Comments

Why Pandemic?

Why COVID-19? What is the meaning of this global pandemic that we are all currently living through? This is a question that might sound nonsensical to many readers. It’s a rather embarrassing category confusion. Seeking to find “meaning” in something like a virus is silly, at best. Read more

Apr 14

17 Comments

Diary of a COVID Easter

I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve said (and heard) it over the past week or so, but truly this has been the strangest Holy Week and Easter weekend that I have ever experienced. This morning, I sat down to chronicle the weirdness, sorrow, and hope of the past week or so. Read more

Apr 12

4 Comments

Far More Can Be Mended

From Francis Spufford:

The friends creep out at dusk and ask for the body, promising anonymous burial and no fuss. They’re allowed to carry it away, wrapped in a tube of line that slowly stains from inside. Skull Hill sees lots of such corteges. There’s only time to stick what’s left of Yeshua hastily in the rock tomb by the highway. Washing the corpse properly and laying it out will have to wait; the holy Saturday is coming, and no one wants any confrontations. Read more

Apr 8

4 Comments

The Liturgically Awkward Hope of Resurrection

If you’re anything like me, time has taken on a bit of a funny feel during these days of pandemic. Everything seems somehow off kilter, stretched out, indeterminate. It’s easy to feel like you’ve lost your bearings. Last week, I encountered one of the endless memes floating around social media these days (COVID-19 is thus far at least proving to be a reliable generator of these!) that captured what many of us are feeling: “In case you lost track, today is March 98th!” Sounds about right. Read more

Apr 29

9 Comments

When the Women Showed Up

There were two mistakes made at the jail this morning. The first was that the security guard called the wrong unit to the chapel. So, instead of the one or two men who usually show up Monday mornings it was nearly twenty women. In most places, the error would be corrected, the wrong group sent back, the right group recalled. But nothing happens easily or quickly in the jail and we were already running late. So, we decided to just play the hand we were dealt. The circle was widened, more bibles were procured, more photocopies of lessons were made. The women had shown up and we couldn’t very well turn them away. Read more

Mar 5

2 Comments

Oh Boy, I Hope So!

I’ve mentioned (and quoted) Ben Myers’ fantastic little collection of line-by-line reflections on the Apostles’ Creed a few times over the last little while. I’ve been going through it again this morning as I reflect on the beginning of the season of Lent tomorrow and, ultimately, the staggering hope of Easter coming. There were a few passages I encountered today that I thought were too good and too profoundly hopeful not to share. Read more

Dec 18

8 Comments

A Body

There are days when the weight of human cruelty and carelessness seems almost too much to bear. I’m not speaking about the vicious climate of our political discourse or the endless shouting and posturing the dominates our news media—the wearisome, grinding tedium of left shouting at right and right shouting at left. This, too, is excruciating, but I’m thinking more prosaically today. I’m thinking of the middle school playground, or the creaking and groaning marriage, or the toxic workplace or the chaos and confusion of the dementia ward or the high school cafeteria. I’m thinking of the endless weaponizing of words, the myriad ways in which we are inhuman to one another in our everyday lives. Read more

Apr 10

11 Comments

For Those Who Want to Grieve in a Religious Way

I’m in Saskatchewan this week for a speaking engagement. Of course, no matter where I go, all anyone is talking about is last Friday’s horrific bus accident, which claimed the lives of fifteen members of the Humboldt Broncos junior hockey team. It is a story for which there are barely words. It’s made headlines around the globe. Read more

Mar 28

9 Comments

In Search of a Holy Week

Holy Week is upon us, and with it the usual wearisome parade of articles and blog posts and podcasts offering more palatable understandings of Christian faith and crosses and empty tombs than dreary orthodox fare. Rational people can obviously no longer be expected to believe the outdated and unbelievable story of miracles and dying for sins and actual coming-back-from-the-dead. But the narrative of Holy Week is still deemed to have a few residual nuggets of potential worth mining for our personal spiritual journeys. You’ll be relieved to know. Read more

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