Three Glorious Days, Part III: Easter Sunday
Mark’s account of the resurrection is by far the most enigmatic of the gospel writers: When the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, [...]
Three Glorious Days, Part II: The Sabbath of Holy Saturday
Of Holy Saturday–the day between Good Friday and Easter Sunday–little is written. In Mark’s account of the Three Glorious Days, we only read that Friday had been the Day of Preparation for the Sabbath, and then the narrative jumps straightaway into Easter Sunday. We only get this passing comment concerning Holy Saturday: “When the Sabbath [...]
Three Glorious Days, Part I: The Day of Preparation
The day we call “Good Friday” was a Day of Preparation for the people of Jerusalem, where they were busying themselves to prepare for the rest of the Sabbath. This Day of Preparation, however, was special, because it fell during Passover, where they annually relived the eve of the exodus. God had caused his judgment [...]
Lamentations and Good Friday
Mark’s account of Jesus’ crucifixion deliberately alludes to book of Lamentations, which is a collection of poems (dirges, really) to “lament” and mourn the destruction of Jerusalem. Particularly, Mark draws from Lamentations 2:15-16 to influence Mark 15:29-32*: “And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads and saying,” (Mk. 15:29a) “All who pass by [...]
But perfect love casts out fear
More than any of us would ever care to admit, we make almost all of our decisions based on fear. A thousand terrifying questions plague our minds, and so we throw ourselves at whatever sliver of security seems to present itself to us. “Will I ever find love?” “Will we have enough money to survive?” [...]
Whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him
In 1 John 4:7-12, John laid out the obligation that we have as Christians to love one another: “Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another” (1 John 4:11). Based on the facts that God is the source of love, that God is Love Himself, and that God demonstrated his [...]
If God so loved us, we also ought to love one another
In the letter we call 1 John, the Apostle has spoken at length on three subjects: Our sinfulness, which has infinitely alienated us from our God who is light, and in whom there is no darkness whatsoever. Our salvation, which was purchased by Christ Jesus who is the eternal Son of God, yet who became [...]
Christian exegesis at its best
I cannot remember a time when I have relied as exclusively on a single commentary for a sermon I prepared as I did this week with Phillip Cary’s masterful work Jonah in the Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible series (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2008). In page after page of this book, Cary illuminated a [...]
God’s Stubborn Mission
When Jonah tried to flee God’s call to preach to Nineveh, God sent a storm to destroy his getaway ship. When the sailors threw him overboard in terror, God appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah up for three days. When Jonah prayed for deliverance, God caused the fish to vomit Jonah back onto dry [...]
God’s Stubborn Missionary
In Jonah 3, we find Jonah freshly vomited onto the beach by the great fish that had housed him for three days in its own belly. Some people think that there might be a significant amount of time between Jonah’s divinely ordained regurgitation and 3:1, when the word of the Yahweh returns to him a [...]
