Soul Sister Time

              Why didn’t Jesus choose John as the apostle upon whom to build His church?  John was the good guy; he didn’t betray, deny or reject Jesus in any way.  He had strong leadership skills and was one of the youngest of the disciples and, in fact, did live the longest.  It makes perfect sense to me to give the responsibility of building the church over to John, rather than Peter.               I’m not God, and thank God I am not, because handing over the leadership of the church to John may have looked promising from the foot of the cross, but Jesus knew that Peter was the best man to show Christians what their relationship with Him is all about.  Peter’s infamous denial of Jesus and Jesus’ ultimate forgiveness is an example to us all.  John had other responsibilities in God’s kingdom: protecting Mary, writing a theologic...

              St. John of the Cross drew a sketch of Jesus on the cross looking down from heaven—from Gods perspective.  Most renderings of the cross are straight on—like a photographer capturing a moment in time.  Rarely, you see a painting from the foot of the cross, but I cannot recall a sketch or a painting from the perspective of either one of the thieves who were literally hanging on their crosses to the left and to the right. Imagine how Jesus looked to them.  Was Jesus a complete stranger to them before that dreadful day?  Was what they knew about Jesus merely the jail gossip blabbered in the holding cell as they awaited their previously determined executions?  Were they inpatient about getting the miserable existences over with because some guy’s fate was being considered by Pilate himself?  The guy in questions hadn’t even done anything truly criminal they say, and seemed like a...

Here she stood at the foot of the cross, everything inside of her wished to be in a different place, anywhere but there.  Anyplace, yet nothing could keep her from being exactly where she stood.  Her feet set one beside the other, anchored to the earth as close as the executioners would permit her to stand.  She knew her place was there.  She had come to the moment in time that Simeon predicted the first time she came to Jerusalem with her infant son held safely in her arms. As he prophesied about His life, he prophesied about her too.  Luke 2:34-35 Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother: “This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too.” Knowing it would happen some day and experiencing are two very different realities.  As she stood at the foot of the cross forced to ...

              As we Journey from Ash Wednesday through Lent to Holy Week and land at our destination of Easter Sunday, let’s consider some of the people who were assigned to the space and time that these events took place and how their choices and experiences related to their experience of Jesus.  In our attempt to understand their statements and actions, we might see our own reaction to Jesus.               The first three were missing during Easter week.  It seems they may have gone into hiding while all of Jerusalem was in a frenzy about whom He was and where He went that week.  Yet, their significance to the Easter story cannot be forgotten.  Jesus Himself stated that every time the story of Easter is told, their story, especially Mary’s actions, should be recounted.           ...

            God wanted it to be completely clear that Jesus was placed on the cross in the middle of two criminals receiving their just punishment for how they had lived their lives.  Their crimes had brought them to Golgatha—the place of the skull.  It was the garbage heap of the town.  It was a place meant for those who lived their lives for themselves and ignored the laws of community.  Their deathbeds were crosses with no loved ones gathering around them.  Their personal choices in life had led them to the crosses on which they would die.  Both criminals found themselves nailed to crosses, experiencing one of the most excruciating deaths one could die.             Into their predicament came Jesus.  He was nailed to a cross just like them.  They knew Jesus was the reason all these extra crowds have come to their crucifixion sc...

                        I have been telling people for years that the cross has all the answers for any problem we face in life.  Jesus demonstrates how to walk through anything that we must face in life by the way He, Himself walked to the cross.                         Surviving, loneliness, hurt from your father, sexual abuse, mockery, bullying, abandonment, injustice, death, singleness, betrayal, denial, separation from God, and all the realities of sin have become part of our lives.  We can look to Jesus the author and finisher of our faith (Hebrews 12:2) to endure the crosses we each are asked to bear as a part of living in a sinful world.  Every answer to every problem is found in the cross.        ...

Every Easter season God shows me something personal and meaningful about the familiar story.  This year I was led to focus on the love of Easter.  In doing so I noticed more about the love that led Jesus to embrace His cross. Being egocentric and as vain as I am, I thought it was for me that He died.  While He was hanging there, He was thinking about how He couldn’t spend eternity without me.   Oh, yes, and I thought He had you on His mind, too.  I could understand the love He has for the whole world.  I knew it was love that held Him—nothing else could hold the One who created the Universe to a shameful cross. But John 14:31 shed more light on the love that fastened Jesus to the hard wood of the cross.  It was His love for His Father.  John writes :  But the world must learn that I love the Father and that I do exactly what my Father has commanded me.   Come now; let us leave .  That was that.  He left the upper...

                As Holy Week approaches, it seems a good time to think back on the past five weeks of Lent and consider the lessons we have learned.  We can take these lessons into Holy Week to help us connect more deeply to the familiar yet incomprehensible story that illuminates the reach of God’s love.                 We have considered the miracle, love, celebration and reality of forgiveness this Lenten season.  I'm grateful that I have taken on a Lenten fast and the instruction of the church fathers to reconsider my sinful state before a Holy God.  I'm so quick to ignore the sinfulness that I wake up to every day.  I grow accustomed to my patterns of sin and gloss over them to focus on more important things like other people’s sins, my problems, my dreams and more.  Even with all the sins I have...

                The fifty days following Easter are called Eastertide.   During these days Christians celebrate Easter.   One of the ways we do that is to keep our spirits connected to the joy of the resurrection.   It takes about fifty days to take in the wonder of God’s recreating work through the cross and the empty tomb of Christ.   Even though Easter was a little early this year, some of us still have definite glimpses of spring to brighten the season.   I was out of town for a couple of days, and it was as if spring fast- forwarded, transforming most of the trees to that brilliant poppy green.   Once barren trees first budded with flowers, and now leaves too numerous to count fill all the branches.   We are still in transition here in Dallas, but you can’t help but feel joy on a warm sunny spring day.           ...

              At the beginning of Holy Week I heard a familiar scripture in a new way.   When the reader recited Isaiah 42:1: Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon him;   he will bring forth justice to the nations, I thought about God’s soul for the first time.               Before really hearing that scripture, the words soul and delights seemed more applicable to describe something like dark chocolate candy.   Thinking of the pride God the Father takes in presenting to the world God His Son to fix up the problem of sin in the world leaves me in awe.   For the first time I let my mind conceive that God has a soul.   He has a soul like me (or the other way around, He saw fit to give me a soul like His).   His soul is capable of being delighted by Jesus!   His soul...