John 18:1 - 19:42 (links validated 3/6/24)
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Good Friday (B)(2024)
And a Good Friday was had by all You men there, keep those women back and God Almighty he laid down on the crossed timber and old Silenus my offsider looked at me as if to say nice work for soldiers, your mind's not your own once you sign that dotted line Ave Caesar and all that malarkey Imperator Rex well this Nazarene didn't make it any easier really – not like the ones who kick up a fuss so you can do your block and take it out on them. Silenus held the spikes ready and I let fly with the sledge-‐hammer trying hard not to hear over the women's wailing the bones give way the iron shocking the dumb wood. Orders is orders, I said after it was over nothing personal you understand – we had a drill-‐sergeant once thought he was God but he wasn't a patch on you then we hauled on the ropes and he rose in the hot air like a diver just leaving the springboard, arms spread so it seemed over the whole damned creation over the big men who must have had it in for him and the curious ones who'll watch anything if its free with only the usual women caring anywhere and a blind man in tears.Good Friday (B)(2024)
Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly is an anti-slavery novel written by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe and published in 1852. Stowe, a Connecticut-born teacher at the Hartford Female Academy and an active Abolitionist, focused the novel on the character of Uncle Tom, a long-suffering, faithful black slave around whom the stories of other characters—both fellow slaves and slave owners—revolve. This sentimental novel depicts the cruel reality of slavery while also asserting that Christian love can overcome something as destructive as the enslavement of one’s fellow human beings...The story follows the fortunes of a slave, the dutiful Uncle Tom. He was a slave on the Shelby plantation in Kentucky. There he was loved by his owners, their son, and every slave on the property. He lived contentedly with his wife and children in their own cabin until Mr. Shelby decided to sell him and another slave to pay off debts to Augustine St. Clair in New Orleans. In the idealistic St. Clair’s household, the young daughter, Eva, became fond of Tom, and his life with his new master was relatively happy. However, following the deaths of the decent master St. Clair and the kindly Eva, Tom was sold again. His new master was Simon Legree, the owner of a cotton plantation. The embodiment of cruelty, Legree treated the good and loyal Tom so terribly that the slave died just before rescue arrived in the form of George Shelby, his first owner’s son. The novel ends describing George Shelby who returned to the Shelby plantations and set all his slaves free in order to perpetuate the memory of the sacrificial, loving and dedicated service of Uncle Tom. George freed his slaves with the advice, “Remember about your freedom when you look at the wooden cabin of our dear Uncle Tom. Remember that great man and his sacrificial suffering and heroic death which gave you your freedom.”– On Good Friday, our Mother the Church gives us her children a similar challenging reminder: “Look at this Holy Cross of Christ and learn to appreciate the great price Jesus paid for our freedom from sin’s enslavement by his suffering and death on the cross.”...Good Friday (B)(2024)
As any teenager will tell you, there is no more profound Good Friday penitential experience than tidying one’s room. It is a bit like an examination of conscience before going to confession, but just that little bit more painful, being external and objective. It is one thing to admit in confession to having been perhaps a little neglectful of some important relationships; something else entirely to be confronted with a pile of unanswered Christmas cards that has unaccountably taken up residence behind a radiator. It is one thing mentally to mourn those we have loved and lost; quite another to find their curling and discoloured photographs at the back of the bedside cabinet. One thing to lament your own materialism, another to find your unclosable wardrobe full of clothes you have not worn for years. One thing to foreswear excessive alcohol; quite another to count empty bottles in the side cabinet. And when it is all accomplished you will bow your head and say, well if not “Eloi, eloi, lama sabachthani?”, then at least, “Where in hell did all this stuff come from?” It is in these moments of cleaning house that we come upon all those things in ourselves that fall short of the persons we were each created to be; we fall short of the promises of our baptism; we fall short of the hopes of our confirmation; we fall short of the Kingdom with which we have Eucharistic communion. So, I say to all teenagers present (and of whatever age) “Go and tidy your room”...
Other New Resources
Good Friday (ABC)
Donna Haraway considers the significance of the “suffering servant” passages from Isaiah and John’s staging of the trial of Jesus. She sees behind the carefully crafted juxtapositions and tangled meanings of such key words as “king” that everything is reversed. The one who presumably has the authority, Pilate, has none really. The one on trial is the one whose questioning calls into judgement the whole religious and political establishment...
Recommended Resources
*Cool Hand Luke
("Cool Hand Luke is one of my favorite movies. Luke is an ex-military man caught cutting off the tops of meter posts. He's not much for authority. He had been a corporal in the army but was later busted. He was a good ole boy who respected honesty. In a Louisiana prison he offended the head prisoner, a tall, burly fellow called Dragline...")*Good Friday
For Chester Szuber, it was the gift of life. The cost, however, was so dear he almost didn't accept it. The youngest of his six children -- an exuberant 22-year-old nursing student -- had been killed in a car accident and it quickly became clear her heart could be transplanted into his chest. According to an Associated Press story, the family had little time to decide. Patti's death on a mountain road in Tennessee came while she was on a trip with a friend before her return to nursing school. The car she was riding in went off a curve in the road in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The car hit a rock wall, careened back onto the road and rolled several times. The driver was treated for minor injuries and charged with drunken driving. Patti Szuber, his passenger, was airlifted to a hospital in "extremely critical condition." Her family rushed to Tennessee from Michigan to sit by her side. From the minute Patti Szuber entered the hospital, her prognosis was very poor. By Sunday, she had been pronounced brain dead. Patti had indicated she wanted to donate her organs, and her family concurred in that decision. The family had two choices once they decided to donate: give the organs to society or specify an individual on the national waiting list whom they knew. Chester Szuber, Patti's father, had been on the heart transplant waiting list for nearly four years. He was suffering life-threatening heartbeat irregularities and had undergone three open-heart surgeries and two angioplasties in the past 20 years to clear blockages. Test were done that showed the father-daughter transplant was feasible. The decision was made. A team of surgeons flew to Tennessee to remove Patti Szuber's heart. Five hours and 51 minutes after it had stopped in Tennessee, it was beating in Chester Szuber's chest. Bob Szuber, Patti's brother, said the fact that his sister's heart gave their father new life is helping the family cope with the tragedy. Her liver and kidneys were donated to other recipients. "I'm sure down the road there will be some tough times," he said, but he said his sister is "the happiest little angel in heaven."...and other illustrations
And the Truth Shall Set You Free
("Homer and Langley Collier were the sons of a respected New York City doctor who had both graduated from Columbia University. Yet strangely they chose a life style that was totally inconsistent with their education and background. These two brothers purchased a large home on New York City's East Side and proceeded to board up every single window...")Our God Understands
C. S. Lewis wrote: 'God, who needs nothing, loves into existence wholly superfluous creatures in order that He may love and perfect them. He creates the universe, already foreseeing - or should we say "seeing"?, since there are no tenses in God - the buzzing cloud of flies about the cross, the flayed back pressed against the uneven stake, the nails driven through the mesial nerves.Illustrations, Quotes and Lectionary Reflections (Christ the King)(B)
Louis Evans was the pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Hollywood -- a large, dynamic congregation. One of his church members was a surgeon who experienced a call to the mission field. After struggling with his decision, he resigned his practice and went to Korea to establish a medical clinic there. In those days, Korea was still quite a primitive place, so it was a considerable sacrifice. When Pastor Evans was traveling in the Far East, he stopped to visit his surgeon friend. He observed as the good doctor prepared to operate on a little girl. After three hours in the makeshift operating room, the surgeon stepped out and announced that the little girl would be OK. Pastor Evans asked, "How much would you have received for that operation back in the States?" The surgeon answered, "Oh, $500 to $750 is the going rate, I guess." Keep in mind that this was many years ago, when most people would have considered $500 a good monthly wage. Pastor Evans asked, "How much for this one?" The surgeon answered, "Oh, a few cents-a few cents and the smile of God." And then he put his hand on Pastor Evans' shoulder and added, "But man, this is living!" When you make Christ the King of your life, he won't promise to make you rich -- but he will give you a life worth living. Amen...*Illustrations, Quotes and Lectionary Reflections (Good Friday)
("One of the heroes of World War I was Frank Luke Jr. He was an American fighter pilot from Phoenix, Arizona. In September 1917, at age twenty, Frank joined the army air corps and was accepted into flight training. After several months of training, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant and granted a fourteen-day leave. He went to Phoenix to be with his family one last time before going off to war...")
Narrative Sermons
A Wreath of Thorns
I wove a wreath of thorns one day for some poor, ruined prisoner whose name I don't recall and cannot say. We got a laugh at him, all right, who claimed, I guess, to be a king, though he had never uttered such a thing, but only spoke of love through bleeding lips. He was a tramp, and not of royal birth, so we would see just what his realm was worth.My Father's Son
("For a few minutes, forget that I'm here and make believe that you are hearing the words of Barabbas from his own lips: 'I've always pictured myself as being a savior for Israel...")Galilean Teacher Seen Complicit in Own Execution
("The execution today of Jesus of Nazareth -- and one of Capernaum's most famous adopted sons -- took place in such a unusual manner that this reporter can only conclude that Jesus himself was complicit in his own death...")
Illustrated Resources from 2021 to 2023
Signs of the Kingdom
A friend told me about he and a friend of his a few years ago had a bit of a rift, mostly done via email over all things politics. He didn’t think much of what he considered a minor debate and thought that they had fallen out of contact since this friend had moved out of state to Arizona. A few months ago learned that his friend’s mother had passed away and reached out to extend his sympathies and sent a fruit basket to the house. In response, he got an email that one sentence thanked him for his sympathies and then proceeded to resume the fight from years earlier. This friend of mine was so ticked off, he started doing searches through his emails, dug out his old laptop, and started searching that one for old emails to prove how this guy was wrong and he was right. He was working on his response when he went to Mass and the Gospel that day was Jesus telling us when someone strikes you on the cheek turn and give the other one as well. And he said it was like Jesus was speaking to him directly. For the first time in his 50 + years of hearing this Gospel, he couldn’t even remember how many times, for the first time he understood that Gospel and the message. Was it really important to be right, to prove that he was right? Particularly at this moment where this apparently former friend of his was mourning the death of his mother (and obviously was struggling in the stages of grief with the understandable step of “anger”), He said he decided, very uncharacteristically to write an apology. An honest one – not just a begrudging “you’re right I am wrong” just to end a fight that he didn’t really believe – but “I’m sorry I let something like politics come between us. I’m sorry I wasn’t more thoughtful and attentive. I’m sorry I wasn’t and haven’t been a better friend.” He humbled himself, selflessly offering love to someone in need...What Is Truth?
In Greek mythology there are stories of the underworld, Hades, the place where Greeks believed the dead lived. Hades was surrounded by five rivers: Acheron - the river of woe, Cocytus - the river of lamentation, Phlegethon - the river of fire, Styx - the river of unbreakable oath, and Lethe - the river of forgetfulness or river of oblivion. When the newly dead entered the underworld, they would have to drink from the waters of the Lethe to forget their earthly lives. Lethe is also the name of the goddess of forgetfulness. She watches over the river. Why do I bring up this river from ancient mythology? Because of a matter of etymology. The passage I read you from John climaxes with Jesus telling what his kingship consists of, what the meaning of his reign is to be. Jesus says, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” The word truth in Greek - and it is reasonable to think that Jesus and Pilate were conversing in Greek, a language each had access to - is aletheia. The prefix a- is used to denote an opposite, just as in the words asymptomatic, amoral, asexual. Aletheia is the opposite of lethe, forgetting. So, the word Jesus and Pilate were using for truth meant un-forgetting, or un-concealing, or the opposite of oblivion. Aletheia...Signs of the Kingdom
On Halloween night in the UK three children stopped to trick or treat at the house of Brenda Burdon, 86. Brenda apologized because she did not have any treats ready to give out. The youth replied, “It’s OK, because sometimes making people happy and getting a nice big smile is reward enough.” They then decided they wanted to spread a little more happiness. They returned the next day with muffins and chocolates they had purchased for her, along with a ten pound note and a card which they had decorated with pumpkins and doodles that read, ““Thank you for being so kind. Hope your life gets better as you go on… “ Brenda Burdon’s grandson visited her later that day and said that “She was just lost in happiness that total strangers could leave such a wonderful impression” and that it had been the best Halloween of her life...Do You Want the Truth?
"Fred Craddock once decided to go back home for a visit when he was on school break. It is no place special on the map. It is just a little town in Arkansas. On the first morning of his visit, he ventured downtown. He walked into the diner that had been there for a hundred years. Fred just wanted to sit there, eat breakfast, and remember simpler times. He said the place had not changed at all. Everything was the same, even the owner. “As Fred waited for his fried eggs, the owner walked up to him and said, ‘I know you! You used to live here. You went on to be a preacher! I need to talk to you.’ Fred nodded yes, but he thought, ‘Just go away! All I want is breakfast and some quiet.’ “The owner pulled up a chair and began to talk. He said to Fred, ‘I don’t know what to do.’ Fred said, ‘About what?’ The owner responded, ‘About the curtain!’ He motioned to the curtain and Fred looked. The curtain had been there for years. Fred recalled that curtain from his childhood. The curtain wasn’t just there for decorative purposes. It had a practical purpose. The curtain separated the white customers from the black customers. The white customers would enter the restaurant through the front door and eat on that side of the curtain. The black customers entered through the back door and ate on that side of the curtain. “Just then, Fred’s breakfast was delivered. He wanted the owner to finish up his story because his eggs were getting cold. Fred asked the owner, ‘So what is the problem?’ The owner said, ‘Should I take the curtain down or should I leave the curtain up?’ Fred gave him a blank look and the owner continued. ‘If I take the curtain down, I will lose my business, but if I leave the curtain up, I will lose my soul!’”...A Drama of the Heart
What made Jesus’ sacrifice, his handing himself over, so special? We have, I think, focused too much on the physical aspects of the crucifixion to the detriment of what was happening more deeply, underneath. Why do I say that? Because none of the gospels emphasize the physical sufferings, nor indeed, in the fears he expresses in conversations before his death, does Jesus. What the gospels and Jesus emphasize is his moral loneliness, the fact that he was alone, betrayed, humiliated, misunderstood, the object of jealousy and crowd hysteria, that he was a stone’s throw away from everyone, that those who loved him were asleep to what was really happening, that he was unanimity-minus-one. And this moral loneliness, mocked by those outside of it, tempted him against everything he had preached and stood for during his life and ministry...Happiness and Meaning
For the Christian, then, the important question is not: “Am I happy?” but “Is my life meaningful?” By asking the latter question rather than the former one, I do not torture myself with some unattainable romantic ideal and, more importantly, I do not ask God to exempt me from the human condition. My life is meaningful precisely when I sense God’s presence in the midst of my suffering, sicknesses, loneliness, and pain. My faith should never pressure me to ask God to exempt me from these. Why should I be spared the human condition? Rather my faith should allow me to stand inside of every reality in my life, positive and negative, and see some meaning in it. “Is my life meaningful?” When I ask the question this way the perspective is very different...Tasting the Darkness of Good Friday
In 2004, partly in response to the popularity and controversy surrounding Mel Gibson’s movie, The Passion of the Christ, Time magazine ran a cover story on the question of why Jesus died. The piece was well researched and included the opinion of a variety of scholars, but it also delved into the feelings of ordinary people around this question. One person who expressed her feelings was a young woman who, as a child, had witnessed her mother being murdered by a jealous boyfriend. Looking back on her mother’s death, she senses, without being able to put it into words, that somehow her mother’s blood is connected to the blood that Jesus shed on Good Friday and that his death, also unfair, somehow gives dignity to her mother’s death...Good Friday (B)(2021)
The Giving Tree is the story of a friendship between a boy and a tree. Silverstein tells the story of the boy’s life through the gifts the tree gives to him. The tree provides a long branch on which the boy can swing and play. The tree provides leafy shade from the warm summer sun. As the boy grows older, the tree gives space for the boy and his lover to carve their initials. As the boy becomes a man – the tree gives her branches for wood for the boy to build. As an older man, the tree’s trunk makes a boat, so the man can go fishing. Finally, all that is left of the tree is a weather-beaten old stump. Silverstein illustrates the once beautiful, large, living tree as a sagging, worn-out, dying stump. The tree looks like she has nothing to offer...
Illustrated Resources from Christ the King 2018
Trading Illusion for Truth
one of my favorite movies - and books - is Gone With the Wind. Some parts are hard to read today. Still, I love the book because of the heroine, Scarlett O'Hara: resilient, undefeated, her motto, "tomorrow is another day." A few years ago I was delighted when a high school girl told me she was reading Gone with the Wind. She was facing serious struggles. I told her, "you are Scarlett O'Hara." As much as I love Scarlett O'Hara she has a fatal flaw. She loves the wrong man: Ashley Wilkes. Unfortunately for Scarlett he marries Melanie. By default Scarlett eventually marries Rhett Butler. Rhett's no fool. He knows Scarlett pines for Ashley. He keeps trying to wake her up - to realize she is living an illusion. In the end Melanie dies tragically and Scarlett of course runs to Ashley - only to discover she has been chasing a phantom. Gone with the Wind strikes a deep chord because it tells an ancient story. It's a story as old as the Garden of Eden - when our first parents sought happiness in something other than God. That story runs through human history - and in your life and mine...Is He Your King?
I saw a headline that read “27 year old Christian missionary killed by people he went to preach to.” Because of how distant and remote the island is, the full details are still not clear of what happened. But what they know is that, John Chau, originally from Washington state had felt this call to be a missionary to this remote island near India. In preparing for this journey and researching it, he wondered in his diary if this might be one of the last islands in the world where Jesus’ name had not been preached . So he had traveled to the island a few times. At first he brought gifts of fish, scissors, safety pins – introducing himself simply saying “My Name is John. I love you and Jesus loves you.” He wrote that when he had done this he had arrows shot at him. He retreated to safety and that night wrote in a journal over 13 pages that talked about his faith and his fear… At one point saying “I think I could be more useful alive . . . but to you, God, I give all the glory of whatever happens,” He asked God to forgive “any of the people on this island who try to kill me, and especially if they succeed.” The next morning, he was martyred...Living in Two Worlds
I grew up on a farm that straddled the state line between Virginia and North Carolina. My grandparents lived in a big house on one corner of the farm—it was in North Carolina. My family lived in a house on another corner—it was in Virginia. This “two-state” situation had an impact on our lives in many ways. We went to church in North Carolina, where all my Sunday school classmates went to Flatrock Elementary School, but I went to Redbank in Virginia. Our doctor was in North Carolina, our dentist in Virginia. Half the year, one state was on daylight saving time; the other was not. School on one-time system, church on another. My father thought it funny to tell us: “If you ever get in trouble with the sheriff, that apple tree is in North Carolina.” One day I thought to ask him, “Yeah, but does the sheriff know that tree is in North Carolina?”...The King of Love
One of my fondest childhood memories is sitting in front of a television screen--and I suspect black and white, not color yet--usually around Easter, probably Palm Sunday or Easter Sunday, watching the movie "The Robe." "The Robe" was one of those films from the 1950s starring Richard Burton, Jean Simmons, and Victor Mature. It was based on a work of historical fiction that sort of told the story of one of the Roman soldiers who was involved in the crucifixion of Jesus. Now, it gets a little bit fanciful and little bit Hollywood, because the story revolves around this soldier being the one who was gambling at the foot of the cross and, as a result of his gambling, he won Jesus's robe. Anyway, the story of his experience of the robe changed his life because, as long as he was living a life of hatred and violence, every time he touched the robe it would almost kind of electrocute him. That's why I say there's little bit Hollywood there. But the story had its roots in the gospel story because, eventually, the slave of the Roman soldier converts him to Christianity, or better yet, he converts him to the way of Jesus. And this Roman soldier all of a sudden realizes that he must live with two loyalties: his first loyalty now to Jesus of Nazareth and his way, and his other loyalty to the Empire of Rome. Well, obviously this conflict began to emerge into a real conflict...Nobleness
Once there was a king named Arthur. You remember him, the one who thought up the Round Table and had Lancelot as his knight and Guinevere as his wife.* Long before he became king, in fact when he was just an infant in the cradle, a strange thing happened. The nurse stepped out for a moment and, quick as a wink, Merlin the magician stepped in and then stepped out again taking the boy with him. This was not a kidnapping. Merlin was a kindly old magician and his commission was to let the boy grow up as a normal—not a spoiled, pampered or “royal”—person. He was not to be miles above the animals and the people and the tiny, precious specks of beauty in the most surprising places in our lives. He was to live with us...The Truth King
Years ago, I read Charles Bracelen Flood’s Hitler: The Path to Power. I was surprised (as, I guess any American might be) that there were some in Germany in the 1920’s who actually wanted a dictator. They wanted a strongman who would take over, knock some heads together, and make everything alright after the chaos of a lost war and an economic depression. They wanted a leader to reign with ruthless efficiency. Unfortunately, we too often get what we want and we suffer as a consequence. The problem, of course, is that no earthly ruler is ever perfect. We look for a leader who is the image of what we think we want, but that leader will invariably turn out to be a false messiah...Servants of Christ the King
The Nazis firebombed the industrial city of Coventry in England during World War II. The ancient cathedral was destroyed when the fire melted the lead on the roof and caused the building to collapse. After the war, a modern cathedral was rebuilt on the site, but visitors to Coventry know that adjacent to it are the ruins of an apse in which an altar stands with a charred cross, and behind it on the wall are the words “Father, forgive.” This place is a stark experience of the two opposing powers and the hope of redemption in the new cathedral where Christ in Glory is depicted above the high altar...cA King Like No Other
I had just finished presiding at an evening funeral. I was standing at the door of the funeral home as people gathered up to leave. A woman in an electric wheelchair approached me then, asking where the dinner would be. She had come in her wheelchair more than a mile to get there and she wanted to be sure there would be enough battery life remaining to get her home. I bent down to her and asked her name. 'It's Joan,' she replied. And then she went on to share that she had been a neighbor to the one who died.The Solemnity of Christ the King Tells Us That Time Has a Destiny
The first sense of time can be called “cyclical,” because it is indeed answered by looking at a circle, which never stops repeating, like the face of a watch and before that, in the distant past, by the rising and the setting of the sun or moon or the changing of the seasons. Farmers still work in cyclical time, though the rest of us only move, by convention, through a work week toward a weekend. Our other sense of time can be called “linear.” It is also easily illustrated. A physician sadly says to us, “We got to her too late to save her.” Or someone says, “We wouldn’t have the government we have today if more people would have voted.” “It’s too late now,” we say. In her new novel Flights, translated into English by Jennifer Croft, the acclaimed Polish author Olga Tokarczuk introduces a third view of time, a modern one that anyone familiar with jet lag can recognize...The Reign of Christ the Kind
Church binds together community and significance and embeds us in a way of life in which our responsibilities include insuring that no one is lonely. I love this story which illustrates this so beautifully. Bill is 20 years-old, has wild hair, wears a T-shirt, jeans with holes in them, and no shoes—literally his wardrobe for his entire four years of college. He is brilliant and rather eccentric. Across the street from the campus where he lived is a well-dressed, very traditional church that wanted to develop a ministry to the students but not sure how to go about it. One day Bill decided to go there. The service had already begun and so Bill started down the aisle looking for a seat. The church was completely packed and he could not find anywhere to sit. Bill got closer and closer and closer to the altar and the pulpit, and when he realized there were no seats, he just squatted down right on the floor—no shoes, holes in the jeans and all. By now the people were really edgy, and the tension in the air was thick. About then, the minister realized that from way at the back of the church, an elderly, long-time parishioner was slowly making his way toward Bill. This gentleman was in his eighties and wore a three-piece suit—a very elegant, very dignified, very courtly gentleman. He walked with a cane and, as he started walking toward this boy, everyone was thinking that no one could blame him for what he was about to do with that cane. How could one expect a man of his age and of his background to understand some college kid on the floor? By the time the man reached the kid the church was utterly silent but for the clicking of the man’s cane. All eyes focused on him. And then they see this elderly man drop his cane on the floor. With great difficulty, he lowered himself and sat down next to Bill to worship with him so he would not be alone. When the minister regained composure, he said, “What I’m about to preach, you will never remember. What you have just seen, you will never forget.”What Kind of King?
Immediately following the shooting at Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburg, PA, Tarek El-Messidi took to Launch Good to raise funds for the Synagogue and the victims’ families. The interesting thing is not that funds were raised, but that a Muslim organization, Muslims Unite for Pittsburgh Synagogue, did it. Muslim and Jewish groups have not always cooperated in the past and are often in conflict in the Middle East. However, El-Messidi had a different vision. He hoped to raise over $25,000 to take the financial burden of funerals off of families affected by the shooting. “We wish to respond to evil with good, as our faith instructs us, and send a powerful message of compassion through action,” he wrote on the organization’s webpage. Through his faith lens he talks about the recipients as fellow human beings being impacted by hate and tragedy. He led the Muslim community to see commonality with their Jewish brothers and sisters in their shared Abrahamic roots. His Launch Good effort has now raised over $238,000 for the victim’s families. “I think it says that there’s a lot more good in humanity than there is bad and evil and hatred,” said El-Messidi in a radio interview.What Planet Are You On?
The poet R.S Thomas put it better than I ever could in his poem “The Kingdom”: It’s a long way off but inside it There are quite different things going on: Festivals at which the poor man Is king and the consumptive is Healed; mirrors in which the blind look At themselves and love looks at them Back; and industry is for mending The bent bones and the minds fractured By life. It’s a long way off, but to get There takes no time and admission Is free, if you will purge yourself Of desire, and present yourself with Your need only and the simple offering Of your faith, green as a leaf...On Earth as in Heaven (John)(2018)
A second, perhaps broader, understanding comes from the Orthodox tradition, whose buildings are designed to be the New Jerusalem. When a worshipper enters an Orthodox church it is to be as if entering heaven. Light enters from (usually) high windows, reflecting off gold in mosaics and icons, bouncing around the space and filling it with a golden glow. Thick, heavy walls are showered with rays of light. In its most simple form, the church represents the idea of heaven and earth together...Christ the King (B)(2018)
I love the Lord of the Rings films. Mostly because I love the books, but it certainly helps to have drool-worthy Aragorn flashed across the screen from time to time. He’s an interesting fellow, Aragorn, or Strider as he is known when we first meet him. If you don’t know the stories, he is introduced as a shady character, a lone wanderer with a non-too-glorious past. Who is he? Can we trust him? What is the secret he is hiding? Two thousand pages later, he turns out to be the rightful king of men and he Gets The Girl. No-one would have believed that at the start – he neither looked like a king, nor acted like one. But appearances can be deceptive, as we see in today’s reading. Jesus and Strider have a lot in common...
Illustrated Resources from 2016 to 2020
Source of Mercy
Today we remember the Source of Mercy - Jesus' suffering and death for us. To enter this mystery I begin with an eyewitness account of how the Sisters (in Yemen) died. On Friday, March 4, the Sisters rose at their usual hour - 4:30 am. They had morning meditation followed by Mass and chores. At 8 am two sisters went to the care home for men and two to the home for women. At 8:30 ISIS gunmen entered the compound killing the guard.No Greater Love
A story was told some years ago that after a forest fire at a National Park, some park rangers made their trek up a mountain to assess the inferno’s damage. As they walked, a ranger came upon what initially was a sickening sight – a bird that was literally petrified in ashes, perched on the ground at the base of a tree. Kind of put off by the sight, he knocked over the bird with a stick. As he struck it, three tiny chicks scurried from under their dead mother’s wings. The loving mother bird, keenly aware of impending disaster had carried her offspring to the base of the tree and had gathered them under her wings, instinctively knowing that the toxic smoke would rise. She could have flown to safety, but had refused to abandon her babies. When the blaze had arrived and the heat had scorched her small body, the mother had remained steadfast. Because she had been willing to die, those under the cover of her wings would live...Were You There?
I stood kicking my toe into wet dirt in Jackson, Georgia. I was gathered with a group of men and women standing vigil outside of the State Prison where Georgia still decides to execute its citizens. That night, it was Warren Hill. A man who barely qualified as a “competent” adult. He slipped through the cracks of Georgia’s singularly punitive penal code that required a higher burden of proof for intellectual disability than any other state in the union.Separation Itself Is Torn Asunder
There are certain places in this world where we are not supposed to go. Most of them are roped off for our own protection. High voltage, vicious dogs, molten lava—these are all good reasons to KEEP OUT! But what about the not-so-good reasons. What about your neighbor—the one who keeps the perfectly manicured lawn, practically mowing the grass with a pair of scissors. That sign in his front yard that says, “Please keep off the grass,” doesn’t it make you want to veer ever so slightly off the sidewalk into his lawn when no one is looking?What Is Truth?
A remarkable thing happened in 2016 as the Oxford Dictionary declared “post truth” as its 2016 International Word of the Year. They say “post truth” is thought to have first been used in 1992, but the frequency of the usage of the word increased by 2,000% in 2016 compared to its usage in 2015. Oxford Dictionary defines “post truth” as “Relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.” The first use of the word “post truth” might well have been 1992, but the concept has been prominent among people for a long time before 1992. In 1878 the German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, wrote a book called, “Human, All Too Human.” In his book Nietzsche wrote, “There are no eternal facts, as there are no absolute truths.”Give Us Barabbas!
In his book, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, the 19th century philosopher and critic of Christianity, Friedrich Nietzsche, makes a startling observation. It was not the wicked who put Jesus to death; rather, Nietzsche argues, crucifixion was a deed of the “good and just.” “’The good and just’” could not understand Jesus because their spirit was “imprisoned in their good conscience” and they crucified him because they construed as evil his rejection of their notions of good. The “good and just” have to crucify the one who devises an alternative virtue because they already possess the knowledge of the good.”Did the Christ Child Know That the Crucifixion Was Coming?
Like so many other artists, before and since, Leonardo suggests that what did happen is what had to have happened. For these artists, the abhorrent cross is the revelation of God’s own artistic genius. Its form is too flawless, too complete, not to be embraced as an absolute expression of truth and beauty: God would undo death by means of death. His Christ would do this consciously, willingly. The great masterwork of Christ would be his death on the cross. Therefore, like a masterpiece, every element of his life was ordered to this end.What ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ Tells Us About Why We Sin
In The Grapes of Wrath, the character Jim Casy gives up preaching. He cannot resist the temptations of the flesh, he says, and, moreover, his faith is weak. Instead, he wants to concentrate upon loving this earth and the men and woman who live upon it. That is how he comes to be involved in a dispute, when sheriff’s deputies fear that labor agitators have infected the migrant camp. Jim Casy intervenes, trying to reason with the officers.Good Friday: Home for Easter
For Christians, the death and resurrection of Jesus is the proof of God’s presence in the worst of human experience, and the darkest of places, transforming them by his presence. Where God is, there is home, a place where we are loved and ultimately safe. The hymn we are going to sing later in the service (How Great Thou Art) reminds us powerfully of this, and even more so when we know the rather convoluted story behind it.O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go
The hymn we have just sung has a story attached to it, as so many hymns do. It was written by a Church of Scotland minister George Matheson, in the late 19th century. This was a man whom life had dealt a rough hand. As a child, he had begun to lose his sight, and by the time he was grown up was virtually blind. He’d been engaged to a woman whom he loved very much, but she’d ended the engagement as his sight worsened, saying that she couldn’t face being married to a blind man. His main support and comfort in life was his beloved sister, but in time she married, and that meant that she had to move from him. The hymn was written, he said, just before her marriage, in a moment of private despair. He never said what exactly had prompted his writing it, but it’s not hard to see how he might have felt alone and afraid, ground down by the losses and challenges of his life...Peter's Denial and Our Judgment
Sometimes being a disciple of Jesus Christ means being persecuted. Ida B. Wells-Barnett believed that she was called by God to be an anti-lynching activist. During her lifetime (1862-1931), African Americans were being lynched publicly by white people, to terrorize them into abdicating their civil liberties and living as second-class citizens. According to the Equal Justice Initiative, between 1877 (the end of Reconstruction) and 1950, more than 4,000 African Americans were lynched in southern states. Wells-Barnett began writing about lynching in 1892 after three African American men, who were friends of her family, were lynched because their grocery store was competing with a white-owned grocery store in Memphis, Tennessee...Jesus Did Not Die for Me
Malchus' name means King. And he is the slave of the High Priest; the king serves the sacred. So the violence attempted by Peter is symbolic of violence against the king; this violence is forbidden, whether it be seemingly justifiable violence against empire and injustice, or resistance against religion gone wrong. Violence is forbidden by Jesus. It would prevent what Jesus does for us from happening, and so would compromise our own discipleship of Jesus.Tasting the Darkness of Good Friday
In 2004, partly in response to the popularity and controversy surrounding Mel Gibson’s movie, The Passion of the Christ, Time magazine ran a cover story on the question of why Jesus died. The piece was well researched and included the opinion of a variety of scholars, but it also delved into the feelings of ordinary people around this question. One person who expressed her feelings was a young woman who, as a child, had witnessed her mother being murdered by a jealous boyfriend. Looking back on her mother’s death, she senses, without being able to put it into words, that somehow her mother’s blood is connected to the blood that Jesus shed on Good Friday and that his death, also unfair, somehow gives dignity to her mother’s death...Palms, Passion and Power
Tony Campolo told about a week he spent as junior high camp counselor. At this particular camp, there was a boy named Billy who suffered from cerebral palsy. Other kids were very cruel. They picked on him. As Billy walked across the camp the other kids would imitate him and make fun of him. Tony was irate. His anger at the kids reached a fever pitch on Thursday morning. It was Billy’s cabin’s turn to give devotions. Tony wondered what would happen, because they had chosen Billy to be their speaker. Tony knew they just wanted to get Billy in front of everybody so they could make fun of him. Billy made his way to the front and you could hear the giggles rolling through the crowd. It seemed to take forever for Billy to give his devotion, all of seven words. This is what he said: “Jesus...loves...me...and...I...love...Jesus.” When Billy finished, there was dead silence. Tony looked over his shoulder and saw junior high boys bawling all over the place. A revival broke out in that camp after Billy’s short testimony...What Is Truth?
Just this week, the Wall Street Journal had an article titled “Truth Isn’t the Problem – We Are.” The author noted that while the term “post-truth” has been around for decades, its use skyrocketed in 2016 and is now pretty much an everyday term. Among other things, truth has become a matter of tribal identity, and that believing the opposite of what so-called experts claim can be a pledge of allegiance to one’s political or opinion group. So to disagree with 97% of climate scientists that human actions have an impact on climate change, or to insist the genetically modified crops are unsafe, despite an exhaustive study by the National Academy of Sciences concluding there is no such evidence, is at the heart of it not so much an assertion of what is true but a claim of group identity. But man, it really messes with the truth...Love Rejoices in the Truth
President Trump’s Press Secretary, Scott Spicer, got himself in trouble with the White House press corps for making statements that couldn’t easily be verified. So, Kellyanne Conway, the President’s advisor, came to his rescue. Mr. Spicer, she explained, was working from a set of “alternative facts.†Alternative facts. Let that phrase sink in for a little bit. I believe there can be alternative opinions. I believe there can be alternative interpretations. But I’m not at all sure that alternative facts are even a thing. Because facts, by their very nature, are true. Maybe not self-evidently so. But, with a little evidence, they can be proven. And if you have a fact that’s been proven, there’s not a lot of space left for alternative facts. A fact is either true or it isn’t.
Illustrated Resources from 2013 to 2015
The Truth About Everything
("For this Good Friday homily I will use a quote from Fr. Richard Neuhaus. I preface the quote with a sketch of his life: Born in Canada, he studied in the United States to become a Lutheran minister. In the sixties he accompanied Dr. Martin Luther King in the Civil Rights Movement. He also saw the importance of civil rights for another group - the unborn...")A Kingdom Not of This World
On Christ the King Sunday, we come face to face with the One who comes to us as a Servant. The radical reconstruction in our becoming more like him--the path through Christian history of Francis and Clare, Romero and Bonhoeffer, Rosa Parks and Pope Francis, and also more recently, the nine Emanuel martyrs of Charleston, but also the way of countless ordinary women and men--this is the journey of discipleship, reflecting our Servant King.They've Got Guns But We Have Flowers
It was a less than two minute interview in front of the theater in Paris where the greatest loss of life took place at a concert last Friday night that had become a make-shift memorial. A reporter goes up to a Father with his young son and asks the little boy: 'Do you understand what's happened? Do you understand why these people have done this?'Good Friday (B)(2012)
("My late father-in-law used to tell a joke about two farms boys watching the Supermarket race after supper one night. Bill said, 'I bet you $5 horse #3 wins.' And Jack said, 'You're on!' Sure enough, #3 won. Bill grinned and said, 'Aw, I can't take your money. I saw it last night on the other channel and knew #3 won.' Jack replied, 'Go ahead and take it. I saw it too, but I didn't think he could do it again...")The Man with the Hammer
("Over the summer, I read Oliver Potzsch's Hangman's Daughter series...Potzsch explained how the torturer/executioner was an ambiguous member of society. His work was seen as necessary to social order, and thus well compensated. But it was also 'dishonorable', because the essence of the work was to cause and prolong suffering, and to take human life...")Thinking About the Cross
("In John, Jesus is crucified the day before Passover; the day–even the hour–when the Passover lamb was to be slaughtered. Also in John, when Jesus complains that he is thirsty, they put the vinegar-soaked sponge on a stalk of hyssop–which really makes no practical sense. Symbolically, though, hyssop was used to sprinkle the lamb's blood on the doorposts of Jewish homes. Then John tells us Jesus' legs were not broken–because the sacrificial animal must be whole..." a lot of good material here!!)A King Like No Other
"I had just finished presiding at an evening funeral. I was standing at the door of the funeral home as people gathered up to leave. A woman in an electric wheelchair approached me then, asking where the dinner would be. She had come in her wheelchair more than a mile to get there and she wanted to be sure there would be enough battery life remaining to get her home. I bent down to her and asked her name. 'It's Joan,' she replied. And then she went on to share that she had been a neighbor to the one who died..."God Is Dead?
Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market-place, and cried incessantly: “I am looking for God! I am looking for God!” As many of those who did not believe in God were standing together there, he excited considerable laughter. Have you lost him, then? said one. Did he lose his way like a child? said another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? or emigrated? Thus they shouted and laughed.Facing the Cross
["I know it doesn't look like a crucifixion scene, but take a moment and explore Pablo Picasso's famous The Old Guitarist from his Blue Period (1901-04). Painted in 1903 shortly after the suicide of a close friend, The Old Guitarist pays homage to the poor and downtrodden, the outcasts of society..."]Good Friday: These Dead People
("In January of 1946, Flannery O'Conner began a prayer journal, one in which she frequently struggled with suffering. In one journal entry, she does confront a particularly modern problem, yet one we seldom acknowledge. What does the cross of Christ mean in a world that no longer cares? She wrote: 'It is hard to want to suffer; I presume Grace is necessary for the want...")A Speaking Silence
("He was a few weeks shy of his seventeenth birthday. It was a morning in spring, and he was on his way to a youth rally. As he walked past his parish church, the Basilica of Saint Joseph, on the Avenida Rivadavia, Jorge Borgoglio felt compelled to enter. 'I went in. I felt I had to go in—those things you feel inside and you don't know what they are.' The details of what happened next didn't fade for him. They're recorded in Austen Ivereigh's biography, The Great Reformer...")Love and Be Silent
("The play begins with an unexpected abdication. Know that we have divided In three our kingdom, and 'tis our fast intent To shake all cares and business from our age, Conferring them on younger strengths while we Unburdened crawl toward death...")Preacher's Study (Good Friday)(A)(2014)
("I saw a wonderful documentary a number of years back. It chronicled some extraordinary deeds by some very ordinary folk the little French community of Le Chambon. During the Nazi occupation of France, more than three thousand Jewish refugees were rescued by these ordinary people, most of whom were Huguenots. In 1942, buses showed up to cart away Jews. The Vichy police demanded to be shown where the Jews were being hid. The pastor and people of the town refused to comply...")God's Passion, Our Passion
("Dr. Martin Luther King was incarcerated in the Birmingham, Alabama, jail, from which he wrote a series of letters urging white Christians to join his movement to end racial discrimination – segregation, what amounted to apartheid in America. In one of these letters, Dr. King quotes one of the 20th century's most renowned theologians, Reinhold Neibuhr. Quoting from Neibuhr's book, Moral Man and Immoral Society, Dr. King reminds the white clergy of Birmingham that "groups are more immoral than individuals...")Christ the King (B)(2015)
One of the early soldier saints was a man called Martin. He'd become a Christian, but what should he do now? Eventually, on the eve of a particularly important battle, he laid down his arms and declared 'I am a soldier of Christ. I cannot fight'. You can imagine how well that went down. He was arrested and would have been executed, but he offered instead to go into the frontline of the battle unarmed. He was only saved because the enemy decided to sue for peace the next day instead of fighting.Is It Nothing to You?
("In a few minutes the choir are going to sing an anthem which might be familiar to many of you, The Appeal of the Crucified, from Stainer's Crucifixion. 'From the Throne of his Cross, the King of Grief cries out to a world of unbelief. "O men and women, afar and nigh, is it nothing to you, all you that pass by?"'...")Accused
I was once accused of wrong-doing at work. It was a serious accusation, too. There was a big meeting just to tell me about it, and then an investigation, and I had to stay at home for awhile. Lawyers and investigators were called in. I had to answer some questions and write a statement. It was a big deal. I was cleared and it all went away. A few years later I ran into my accuser at a convenience store.What Is Truth?
What is truth? Here we are, coming to the end of a liturgical year that is marked by carnage in Paris, and war in Syria and Iraq. Here we are, turning toward Advent. How we answer the question about truth will make all the difference in where we go.A Drama of the Heart: Jesus' Sacrifice
("We have, I think, focused too much on the physical aspects of the crucifixion to the detriment of what was happening more deeply, underneath. Why do I say that? Because none of the gospels emphasize the physical sufferings, nor indeed, in the fears he expresses in conversations before his death, does Jesus. What the gospels and Jesus emphasize is his moral loneliness, the fact that he was alone, betrayed, humiliated, misunderstood, the object of jealousy and crowd hysteria...")The Passion of Jesus According to John
("John has Judas and the soldiers arrive to arrest Jesus carrying 'lanterns and torches'. He intends strong irony here: Jesus is the light of the world and so the irony should not be missed in the fact that those opposing him come to him guiding themselves by artificial, flimsy lighting - lanterns and torches. This suggests, among other things, that they prefer darkness to light...")Jesus, the King...Or Not
"I first saw this image Christ the Servant in a prayer meeting that I attended while I was having a personal struggle. I noticed a desktop version of this sculpture sitting on the table, and I thought, 'Oh, this man is on his knees crying out for mercy. He suffers as I suffer.' After the silence had ended I asked our host about the sculpture, and he told me it was Christ kneeling before his disciples, to wash their feet..."What Kind of King Is This?
"There is a story of a little boy who was in a hospital in England in the days of King George V. George V was king of Great Britain from 1910 until his death in 1936. This was when marriage was used as a political tool among the royal houses of Europe. So George was a grandson of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert and the first cousin of both Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany. And yet George was far less pretentious than many of history's monarchs..."Beautiful City
("My favorite song in Godspell, called , was not in the original show. Stephen Schwartz, the composer of Godspell, initially wrote the song for the movie adaptation, in which it takes on the same happy-go-lucky 70s tone that pervaded the rest of the musical, naively imagining a utopia that it thinks will pop up perfectly out of nowhere. But Schwartz reconsidered the song when he was involved in a Los Angeles production of Godspell in the wake of the Rodney King riots...")Do Not Engage
A student may attempt to lure a teacher away from the main focus of a lesson by calling attention to another student's behavior or an otherwise interesting subject outside of the lesson's purview. The technique of 'Do Not Engage' encourages the teacher to ignore the student's proposed detour and persist in his or her original intentions. In other words, "Do Not Engage" tries to ensure that the student's agenda will not take precedence over the teacher's and that the teacher will remain in control.
Illustrated Resources from 2009 to 2012
Being with Jesus at the Cross
("Around Good Friday 1373, an English woman laid a-bed, stricken by the plague, and facing what she thought would be her own death. Much of her life is a mystery. We know not if she was single or married, but if she had been married before that fateful season, the illness that sickened her took her husband and children. We know she did not die, but recovered by early May....")Do Not Waste Your Suffering
("Auschwitz was the largest of the German concentrations camps during World War II. To control the prisoners, the Nazi guards employed extreme cruelty and terror. In the summer of 1941, a prisoner escaped. In reprisal, the guards lined up the inmates and selected ten to die. One of them cried out, 'My wife! My children!'...")He Learned Obedience
("Jesus' obedience is great mystery. It is hard for us - especially in our individualistic culture - to understand what obedience means. To illustrate the meaning of obedience, I would give the example of a recent Christian martyr: a fourteen-year-old boy named Jose Luis Sanchez Del Rio...")"Yes, I am a King": The Anti-Politics of Christ the King
["In his new book In God's Shadow; Politics in the Hebrew Bible (Yale, 2012), Michael Walzer says that he reads the Hebrew Bible like "an ordinary reader". He's professor emeritus at Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study, and one of the country's leading political theorists..."]Show Me the Place
"Show me the place, where you want your slave to go Show me the place, I've forgotten I don't know Show me the place where my head is bend and low Show me the place, where you want your slave to go Show me the place, help me roll away the stone Show me the place, I can't move this thing alone Show me the place where the word became a man Show me the place where the suffering began..."Not of This World
You may know the legend of King Christian X of Denmark. When Denmark was occupied by Hitler’s forces, the order came that all Jews were to identify themselves by wearing armbands with yellow stars of David. The story says that King Christian’s answer to that was that one Danish person is exactly the same as the next one. The King himself would wear the first star of David and he expected that every loyal Dane would do the same. The next day in Copenhagen, almost the entire population wore armbands showing the star of David. The Danish people believed their king loved them, that he would identify with them to the extent of putting his own life on the line to save others...Good Friday (A)(2011)
("When dying is holy, it is a bright light, the color spectrum fully present. Sue Pilert's death was holy. Sue had five daughters, and innumerable grandchildren. All were musical, playing various instruments well, even the youngest. As Sue closed in on her last breath, Steve, her husband, and this wonderful and large family turned her living room into the bedroom...")For This I Was Born
in the Seventies I was in Kwun Tong and, as you know, Kwun Tong in the Seventies was a centre for refugees, as well as for factories, and it was a crummy, dirty little place, nothing like it is today. And Maryknoll had a parish there and I was coming out onto the street one day and I walked by this kindergarten. And, suddenly, the doors opened and all these little kids from Kwun Tong came running out the doors going towards their parents, who were behind a fence to pick them up. And all the kids had their ordinary, crummy little clothes on, and sneakers and what have you, but they were all wearing crowns, they had these beautifully made little crowns. Someone had found some golden paper and someone had found some stars to stick on it. And I was overwhelmed, because there were about a hundred of them, and all of them rushing forward with crowns. And it dawned on me, I think I understood what the teacher was telling them. They were saying, “Look around at your ordinary life and what do you see? Nothing to cheer you up. But I tell you, you all have the dignity and honour of kings and queens.”...Unforgiving Jesus on the Cross
("In the midst of his crucifixion, Jesus looks down and forgives his torturers, his crucifiers, his executioners. Jesus, in the midst of the unimaginable and intolerable injustice, musters the courage to forgive the unforgivable. It is a moment, at least according to how traditional Christianity teaches it, of overwhelming mercy and unfathomable forgiveness. Except, that's not exactly how it happens, is it? Jesus, in fact, doesn't forgive his captors. He can't, it seems. So, instead, he asks God to forgive them...")And It Was Night
("Shortly after midnight on March 6, 2010, Dakotah Eliason sat in a chair in his bedroom with a .38-calibre pistol in his hands, thinking about what the world would be like if he didn't exist. One of his friends had recently killed himself, and his girlfriend had dumped him. Earlier that night, Dakotah, who was fourteen, had taken his grandfather's loaded gun off the coatrack...")Hurricane Sandy: The Parable
("Hurricane Sandy can be pondered as a parable, because, like every parable, it contained a paradox. In this case, one of power. The hurricane reminded us of two distinct aspects of power: it both savages and sustains life...")Such a Scene
("Because I was doing doctoral studies at the time, I able to be home when my father died, even able to stay a couple of weeks afterwards, with my Mother. So I was with her when those initial days of funeral preparation, and its frenzied aftermath of calls and visits, had passed...")Christ the King (B)(2012)
("Denis McBride CssR tells the following story about a man who travelled to London to attend an interview for an important post in the security services. When he arrived at the appointed place he found five other applicants in the waiting room, all discussing their prospects. There was no secretary on duty. A sign on the wall stated that applicants were to knock and enter the interview room at fifteen minute intervals, beginning at eleven o'clock...")What Is Truth?
I love the story told about Lillian Carter, President Carter’s mother. When he was running for President, there was a female reporter who was determined to dig up some dirt on the candidate. So, she dogged Miss Lillian relentlessly for weeks. Finally, Miss Lillian consented to an interview in her home. She met the reporter at the door and invited her in. No sooner than they’d sat down, the reporter asked, “Has your son ever told a lie?” Miss Lillian bristled and said, “No, never.” “Never?” the reporter asked. “Never!” Miss Lillian answered. “Never??” the reporter persisted. Miss Lillian said, “Well, maybe a little white lie, now and then.” It was the chink in the armor the reporter was looking for. “I see,” she said, “and what, pray tell, is a white lie?” Miss Lillian smiled and said, “Well, do you remember when I greeted you at the door and said how nice it was to see you?”...Holy Week (B)(2012)
("When I was a Jesuit novice, the novice master once decided that the novices should all go on a pilgrimage in the North of Spain. He had been reading about the life of St Ignatius and had gottento the part where St Ignatius went on a long pilgrimage in Northern Spain and achieved many deep and wonderful spiritual insights. So our novice master decided that what was good for Ignatius was good for us...")Lesson Learned
("I was driving to work in College Station on Good Friday through a miasma of dogwood and redbud and not feeling good about it at all. It was a sparkling, resplendent day. Thickets ofwil plum thew up their dark arms in dreamy clouds of white. Primroses, tenderly pink and gold, filled up the ditches along the road. I was not pleased...")Good Friday (A)(2008)
("Several years ago, I did a series of charcoal drawings for Peter Storey's book Listening at Golgotha, in which he reflects on Jesus' Seven Last Words from the cross...")The Passion of Jesus According to John
("John has Judas and the soldiers arrive to arrest Jesus carrying 'lanterns and torches'. He intends strong irony here: Jesus is the light of the world and so the irony should not be missed in the fact that those opposing him come to him guiding themselves by artificial, flimsy lighting - lanterns and torches. This suggests, among other things, that they prefer darkness to light...")What Is the Essence of True Religion?
("Paul Tillich once distinguished between what he termed: Pseudo-religion, Quasi-religion, and True-religion. He defined them this way: 'Pseudo-religion uses explicit religious language and sometimes even intends it in its real sense, but ultimately it doesn't open someone up to anything beyond what is highest within the individual self....")Rally or Rail?
['"Who's on first?" That was the opening line of a classic baseball sketch acted out in 1945 by the vaudeville comedy team of Abbott and Costello. The big joke was that the ball players' last name were "Who" (first base), "What" (second base), "I Don't Know" (third base), "Why" (left field), "Tomorrow" (pitcher) "Today" (catcher), etc..."]Did Jesus Have to Die?
"Some years ago, one of the great missionary scholars in the field of missiology, Dr. Eugene Bunkowske, told me how to understand enculturation, the way in which the Gospel comes to be resident within a culture. In Nigeria, he said, many thousands of people had become Christian. The chief, however, resisted the claims of the missionaries..."
Illustrated Resources from 2006 to 2008
Living the Questions, Dying the Answers
Why does this still sound familiar? (ed.)Richard Rodriguez comments recently on NPR – “In the noisy argument over what to do with illegal immigrants, the common assumption is that America has done a great deal for them already. The question now is what more should we give them? Should we give them a green card? Grant them amnesty? Or stop all this generosity and send them packing? “No one speaks of what illegal immigrants have done for us. It occurs to me I have not heard two relevant words spoken. If you will allow me I will speak them. Thank you. “Thank you for turning on the sprinklers. Thank you for cleaning the swimming pool and scrambling the eggs and doing the dishes. Thank you for making the bed. Thank you for getting the children up and ready for school. Thank you for picking them up after school. Thank you for caring for our dying parents...
Year/Your/Our End: From Jesus to Christ to Jesus Again
And we may identify that Book with what we learned in the news this week of the incomprehensively comprehensive records compiled after World War II of all the deportation lists of all the camps where Jews and others were transported for extermination. What is called the “ITS,” the International Tracing Service (sounds like divine mission to me!), contains the records of some 17.5 million displaced and deported. That archive will be opened for the first time to survivors, relatives, and Holocaust researchers. The files have been stored in a small town in central Germany in sixteen miles of shelf space! The name of Anne Frank appears only once among the 50 million pages of Nazi documents. The news story called it “electrifying to scan the endless litany of doomed names and suddenly come across, Frank, Annelies M. / 12.6.29 / A’stm, Merwedeplein 37 / 3.9.44 / . “The entry stands for name, birth date, address in Amsterdam and the date she boarded the train to the concentration camps. The final column, destination, is blank.” But we may say with assurance this morning, there are no blanks in the Lamb’s Book of Life...I Am the Alpha and the Omega
("A certain man had a daughter who he adored. Wanting to always please her, he lavished things on her: the nicest clothes and beautiful gifts for her room. He bought a fancy car so he could drive her around in style...")Christ the King (B)(2006)
Taylor Branch, in his remarkable book, Parting the Waters: America In the King Years 1954-1963, tells of a meeting between Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and President John F. Kennedy that’s slightly reminiscent of Pilate’s encounter with Jesus. In the fall of 1961, one of President Kennedy’s aides, Harris Wofford, invited Dr. King to meet privately with the President. President Kennedy was, of course, the head of one of the most powerful nations on earth. He had a mighty army and economy at his disposal. He seemed to hold all of the authority in his meeting with Dr. King. Dr. King, on the other hand, had little economic power and no military might. His followers were often economically and socially marginalized people whom others worked very hard to oppress. He possessed little apparent authority.*The Inconvenient Truth
("Questions that ask for your opinion are never easy to answer. At times being truthful without being hurtful are two polar opposites that refuse to be united. Many a true friend has licked their wounds after being truthful. A compliment rather than an critique can be what is sought by the questioner...")The Politics of Jesus
("This weekend, I went to see the movie, The Queen, which is about the death of Princess Diana and her former mother-in-law's, the Queen's, response. It's a fascinating study in leadership and followership and how even the most devoted of monarchs can be almost totally out of step with her own people...")The Gift of Disillusionment
"Remember that controversial film titled The Last Temptation of Christ? In the book, the author paints a unforgettable picture of Jesus and John. It is sunrise. They are sitting high above the Jordan in the hollow of a rock, where they have been arguing all night long about what to do with the world..." and another illustrationChrist the King (B)(2006)
("A new boy moved into the neighborhood just before the football season began. He was a little guy, thin and scrawny and clumsy. He went out for the football team and made a fool out of himself against the big kids. The coach, who had a kind heart, did not cut him from the team. However, he came home from every practice bruised and battered...")A Different Kind of King
In the fall of 1987, a few weeks after I started working in my first Pastoral Charge, an older man and his daughter came to the manse to talk to me. His wife was dying in the local hospital and the daughter had just come home to be with her family. I had met her for the first time at the church service the day before. We talked about the things I would expect when a loved one is dying and the family live in distant places. When they were getting ready to go back to the hospital the daughter said to me: “Can I ask you a question?” “Sure”, I said. “How come you and the Pope had the same sermon yesterday?” Well, you have to think quick at a question like that! I thought of saying something about ‘great minds thinking alike’, but I explained that while I hadn’t heard the Pope’s sermon, I suspected that she recognized a similarity because both churches used the same gospel readings, as outlined in the Lectionary. I didn’t ask her whose was the better sermon!...Christ the King (B)(2006)
("An anonymous author made this striking comparison: 'Socrates taught for 40 years, Plato for 50, Aristotle for 40, and Jesus for only 3. Yet the influence of Christ's 3-year ministry infinitely transcends the impact left by the combined 130 years of teaching from these men who were among the greatest philosophers of all antiquity...")*Christ the King (B)(2006)
("In an book entitled Whispering the Lyrics, Tom Long tells of a scene similar to the trial of Jesus before Pilate. He writes: 'During the prime days of the struggle for racial integration in the South, black civil rights workers - "freedom riders" they were called - would travel on buses from city to city, challenging segregationist laws. Sometimes they were greeted with violence; often they were arrested..." and other illustrations)The Cross
I could not help but think, as I reflected on those words of forgiveness, of the incident that shocked us all a few months ago when a deranged man entered a small school house in Pennsylvania and cruelly fired upon a group of Amish children, killing several of them. You may have heard about the grandfather of two small girls who were critically wounded in that incident. He went to one hospital and held his granddaughter in his arms while she died. Then he went to a second hospital and held the other child in his arms while she died. Then he went to the family of the man who had killed them and held them in his arms while he forgave them...So, You're a King, Huh?
("I recently read the story of a terrible incident that happened at the height of the war in the former Yugoslavia: a three-year-old girl in Sarajevo was hit by a sniper's bullet while playing outside her home. They rushed her to the hospital, of course, and the television cameras captured the scene, including her father bursting into tears, overcome by crushing grief..." and other illustrations)The Servant King with Scars
("Jesus is the servant king with scars. Charles Colson, former legal counsel to Richard Nixon and later founder of the Christian Prison Fellowship, says it like this: 'All the kings and queens I have known in history sent their people out to die for them. I only know one king who decided to die for his people.'...")Illustrations (Christ the King)(B)(2003)
("When, as a child, I laughed and wept, Time crept. When, as a youth, I dreamed and talked, Time walked. When I became a full grown man, Time ran. And later as I older grew, Time flew..." and others)The Real King?
("In his book Girded With Truth James Bjorge says, 'I can remember as a child I liked to play in the town cemetery. I liked to drown gophers among the tombstones. 'Mom was not too fond of this activity. So she made a rule no more playing in the cemetery. One lazy summer afternoon, I found myself without much to do, so I thought of that forbidden cemetery...")
Illustrated Resources (and Other Resources of Merit) from the Archives
Royalty Stoops
Princess Diana was not a king, but she was royalty. She was the beautiful, fairy-tale princess. Americans, who have chosen not to have kings and queens, watched her wedding by the thousands. Two billion people watched her funeral. In the media coverage around her tragic death and funeral, everyone wanted to talk about what made Diana special -- her beauty, her accessibility, her vulnerability, her compassion - the list went on and on. Everyone who had ever had any connection to her had a chance to speak. But the key to what Diana did was this: in the princess of Wales, majesty stooped. She certainly had her flaws, but her greatness came when she was willing to lay aside the trappings and prerogatives of royalty to be with those who were downtrodden. Diana had an amazing ability to communicate her concern for the wretched of the earth. One American physician accompanied her on hospital rounds where there were no cameras. He said she did not hesitate to caress and linger beside patients with disfigurements and symptoms that were distressing even to medical personnel. That capacity, the doctor emphasized, cannot be faked. Royalty stooped. The princess let go of her right to be served and became the servant...The Banality of Evil: I Don’t Want to Disturb Us (Yes I Do!), but Somebody Somewhere’s Making More Crosses Right Now!
Crosses do not just happen. Crosses are made. They are assembled. It is likely Jesus carries only the crossbar, not the whole cross, not the whole 350-pound cross, (After scourging?!) up the hill to the garbage dump. The trunk of the cross is already in place. It is used so routinely. Is someone making a cross for us even now? For you? For us? What does it look like? What form does it take? What will it say? Where for Jesus is written "the King of the Jews"? What political/prophetic charge can be made against us? Against you? Against me? Remember the old question: If we were arrested and charged with being Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict us? Much less enough threat to send us to death? What threat am I, are we, to what system? What organized power against the people are we seen to be opposing? Crucifixion with the Romans, the empire of context for Jesus, -- in whose name we must always ask, to be faithful to him, what is the empire of context for us? – crucifixion is a regular, terrible method of what we like to call "deterrence." Holly Near calls it killing people who are killing people to show that killing people is wrong...Cosmics and Civics: Speaking Our Truth to the Powers
A young rabbi said to the master, "You know, when I study and when I join with others in great feasts, I feel a great sense of light and life. But the minute it’s over it’s all gone; everything dies in me." The old rabbi replied: "It is just this feeling that happens when a person walks through the woods at night, when the breeze is cool and the scent in the air is delicious. If another joins the traveler with a lantern, they can walk safely and joyfully together. But if they come to a crossroads and the one with the lantern departs then the first must grope their way alone unless they carry their light within them."He Accepted Jesus as King
("I recently heard a man give a beautiful testimony to the kingship of Jesus. He was on a business trip in El Paso, far from his wife and two young children. He especially missed his three-year-old daughter, whom he adored. That night he had a horrible dream...")The Testimony of Bishop Dolli
("Bishop Bullen Dolli of Sudan tells a remarkable story of persecution and pardon. Since Colonel Jaafar Mohammed Nimeiri established Sharia law in 1973, Sudanese Christians have faced harsh treatment. The National Islamic Front falsely accused Bishop Dolli's brother of belonging to a Christian rebel group...")Is It Nothing to You, All Who Pass By?
A priest has told the story a group of parochial high school students on their way to church to go to confession. As they walked along, they were discussing the Sacrament of Penance, and one among them had very strong views. He considered the notion of confessing one's sins to be, at best, irrelevant and, at worst, extortion. And on this particular day, this young man decided to do something about it€ in a way that only a teenager could. He told his friends that he had concocted a laundry list of sins that was too outrageous to believe and that this would be what he would confess when they got to church. When they went inside, each boy had his private audience with the priest, went forward to the Altar to pray their penances, and waited for the others outside. The one with the bogus list went last, and his conference was no longer than the others. But somehow, it seemed like it was taking forever for him to leave the church. His friends grew tired of waiting and went back into the church to see what was the matter. They found their friend on his knees in front of the Altar, looking up at the Crucifix and bawling his eyes out. The priest, you see, had given him a most peculiar penance. He had told the young man, "For your penance, I want you to go to the Altar and look up at the Crucifix. And for your prayer, these are the words that I want you to say: 'Yes, Lord, I see you hanging up there. I know the misery that you suffered. And what it means to me is . . . absolutely NOTHING.' Now, go in peace. Your sins are forgiven."...*Good Friday (C)(2004)
"And thousands of years later, it’s no different. Who’s at fault: The guards of Auschwitz, the husband cheating on his wife, Martha Stewart or the CEO of Enron, the physician giving lethal doses of morphine in a nursing home – everyone has excuses: I was following orders, I have uncontrollable needs that must be satisfied; everybody does it..."*Daring To Be Truthful
("the great Indian Statesman Mahatma Gandhi's listed seven social sins. They give a handy agenda for today's weaknesses and problems. 'Politics without principle Wealth without work Commerce without morality Pleasure without conscience Education without character Science without humanity And worship without sacrifice...")Good Friday (C)(2001)
("I have a friend , a fellow Jesuit Fr. Angelo D'Agostino, who started a place for abandoned aids children in Nairobi Kenya He named it Nyumbani, the Swahili word for 'home'. Two months ago Fr. Angelo D'Agostino made the A section of the Washington Post. 'I'm sick and tired of doing funerals', he was quoted as saying....")Christ the King (B)(2003)
("Once upon a time, not so very long ago, a woman ran for the office of representative to her town council. She was the first woman from their town to run for the office. Many people from her district were surprised by this and spoke out against her...")Our Images of Christ
"David Shearman wrote this note as he reflected on the idea of Jesus as a King - and on the idea of the Kingdom of God. 'It is easy // To see // Kingdom Marked by a flag; // By a border; // By force of arms. It is easy to discern // Who has power // In the kingdoms // Of this world..." and another illustration*God Is Watching Us?!
("YEARS AGO NOW Bette Middler topped the charts with a stunning performance of From a Distance, a powerful folk-like tune that left us alone with the thought that 'God is watching us'... from a distance. On this Good Friday I am painfully aware that God is watching us ... up close...")Final Words
("Ken Gire writes, 'We know nothing about that criminal on the cross next to Christ. We don't know how much he stole or how often. From whom or why. We know only that he was a thief- a wayward son over whom some mother's heart has been broken' over whom some father's hopes have been dashed...")The King
("I heard a story about an American family that went on vacation in England. They were visiting Windsor Castle and were standing at the top of the Runny Mede, a long long meadow that stretches down for quite a ways. Karen, the 15-year-old, saw a statue of man on a horse halfway down the meadow, and wondered who it was. Bill, her father, suggested she go ask the security guard..." and another illustration)*Our Heartfelt Cries Are Heard
("Elie Wiesel is a Nobel prize winner and survivor of the Holocaust. He tells of a time when he was forced to watch the hanging of two Jewish man and a Jewish boy. The two men died almost instantly, but for some reason the boy struggled on the gallows for almost half an hour...")*Christ the King (B)(2003)
("I enjoy the television series The West Wing. It chronicles the workings of the White House. President Bartlett is a leader of brilliance and integrity who seeks to do the proper thing. He is surrounded by a group of highly intelligent advisors who seek to help him understand what the right thing might look like in a variety of situations, which often require immediate decisions...")*Good Friday (B)(2003)
("I always find it interesting that as we begin the season of Lent, the Academy Awards happen. Hollywood is such a pervading part of our culture that it is interesting to watch the Academy Awards while the high season of the Christian church begins to unfold. Hollywood builds an unreal culture with all sorts of images about how life should be, what is important, what is not...")Explaining without Explaining Away
["When something big (e.g., September 11) happens, we want explanations, and if we can't get explanations, we will take all the information we can get; we'll talk about it over and over. We want to make some sense of what seems non-sensical..."]Famous Last Words
("'How were the receipts today in Madison Square Garden?' This sounds like a simple question, deserving of a simple answer. Yet it turned out to be the final words of the world-famous circus promoter, P.T. Barnum. The man spoke and croaked. Famous last words. Actually, these words are not so famous, although they were uttered by Barnum, the American showman, on his deathbed...")Science Proves That God Does Not Exist
("Technology Review recently ran an article entitled Is Life the Product of a Grand Designer? In the article, biologist Kenneth Miller attempts to prove that life is not the result of a divine plan of creation by God, but "cobbled together layer upon layer by a tireless tinkerer called evolution...")The Truth
("Mike Killam was traveling overseas one time – it was Europe, I think – with a small group of colleagues when they found themselves late at night sitting in an almost empty airport waiting for a flight. As they waited, Muhammad Ali and his entourage came in...")Are We There Yet?
I love the cartoon strip For Better or For Worse. A recent cartoon depicts this well known cartoon family having a conversation at the kitchen table over coffee. April is listening in. The grandfather says, 'So, it turns out that two of the boys who did all the damage on Halloween are nice kids from good homes!'...Mark of True Power
("In the children's classic, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Dorothy, whose house has been deposited in Oz by a cyclone and who desperately wants to go home, a cowardly lion in search of courage, a scarecrow in search of brains and a tin woodcutter in search of a heart are successful in their quest to destroy the Wicked Witch of the West...")Timeless Last Words
("Catherine Marshall, in the biography about her husband Peter, called, originally enough A Man Called Peter, tells of a terminally ill little boy who asks his mother if death would hurt. 'Kenneth,' she said, 'you remember when you were a tiny boy how you used to play so hard all day that when night came you would be too tired even to undress..." and other illustrations)*Christ the King (C)(2004)
("A young man is sleeping in a hut by a lake. It is near dawn. As the sky brightens in the east, a group of armed men appear. They enter the hut, seize the young man and bind his wrists with leather cords. The men carry their prisoner to a waiting boat, and the boat is pushed out into the lake. They then row the boat to an island in the center of the lake where other men are waiting...The young man sacrificed was not a criminal or a slave. He was, in fact, the king..")The Alpha and the Omega
We remember the Pilgrims' journey that had begun so full of hope for a new life of religious freedom in a warm and welcoming land called Virginia. Oops. Instead they landed at Plymouth Rock on December 21, 1620, not the best time of year in Massachusetts. Until such time as they could build houses and establish themselves on the land, they made their home on board the Mayflower, the vessel in which they had sailed.(1) The men went ashore every morning to work, returning to the little ship at night. They built a "common house" to which the sick and dying were transferred, placed their four little cannon in a fort, which they built on a hill close by, built two rows of houses with a wide street between and finally landed their stores and provisions. Then the whole company came ashore toward the last of March, and in April the Mayflower sailed away. The ensuing winter was hard and bitter...Were You There?
("The morning sun had been up for some hours over the Holy City. Already pilgrims and visitors were pouring in through the gates, mingling with merchants from the villages, with shepherds coming down from the hills...")*The Miracle of the Fellowship of Suffering Love
("In the year 2003, Sgt. Zachary Scott-Singley was a translator assigned to work, in Iraq, with the 3rd infantry division of the United States Army. One tragic day, he had an experience of being 'near the cross' - not the cross of historical imagining on which the political powers of the day crucified Jesus, but a modern cross experience in which another “innocent” child was slain. Hear him tell his story:...")Christ the King: Gospel Analysis
("It is with this mood of rioting, polarizations, and a nation and city torn apart, that we approach the governorship of Pontius Pilate. Pilate was the governor of Jerusalem and Judea. Pontius Pilate, during his ten years as a governor, from the year 26-36 CE, had 32 riots in mere ten years...")The Magnetism of the Cross
("It was about 1920, and there was a man by then name of Dr. Gordon who had been looking for the Place of the Skull. Dr. Gordon was an archeologist. For sixteen centuries, people had believed that the place of Jesus’ crucifixion was in the center of the city of Jerusalem, where the Roman empress, Mother Helena, had built a gorgeous palace for Christ. It was called the Holy Sepulcher...")The Seven Last Words
("I would like to share with you a story which has been meaningful to me. One time, a group of pastors were talking with each other about many things, and we were having some arguments with each other. We were discussing which was more important, Easter or Good Friday. Finally, one particular pastor became emotional and he said simply 'Good Friday'. And he told the following story...")What Is Power?
("The sun did not shine. It was too wet to play. So we sat in the house All that cold, cold, wet day. I sat there with Sally. We sat there, we two. And I said, 'How I wish We had something to do!' Too wet to go out And too cold to play ball. So we sat in the house. We did nothing at all...")*The King and the Rebels
("This story is from Athanasius in Brian McLaren's book A Generous Orthodoxy: Once upon a time there was a good and kind king who had a great kindgom with many cities. In one distant city, some people took advantage of the freedom the king gave them and started doing evil...")The Chapel of the Holy Cross
The Chapel of the Holy Cross is built high into the side of a remote Arizona mountain. A pilgrim facing the chapel from the valley floor immediately sees the tall, narrow stone cross that literally is the building's structural foundation. The rest of the facade is glass, giving the pilgrim who enters the chapel a spectacular view of the surrounding red-rock hills and valleys. The height and breadth of the cross that looks over the valley also dominates the interior of the chapel. Until the end of the 1980's, coming in to the cool and dim interior from the intense, blinding sun of the Arizona desert, a pilgrim's eyes were at once and almost uncontrollably drawn to that cross. The size of the cross and the incredible beauty visible through the windows would certainly have been enough to touch one's soul; but on the cross was a most astonishing representation of the body of the crucified Jesus. The corpus was made of blackened metal, twisted and jagged and severe. It was very a modern interpretation. There were no discernible features. It was more skeleton than flesh, more space than matter. It was very disturbing, very hard to look at, and yet powerfully compelling. This mangled, emptied Jesus held your gaze and forced you to contemplate the consequence of sin. Being confronted with this tragic image, a pilgrim might well consider the words of the prophet Isaiah in today's first reading. In the late 1980's a controversy began around the image of Jesus on that cross in the Arizona desert. Some were offended by an image so powerful, so visceral that you could not ignore it. There is an ugliness to the effects of sin that we just may not want to face, so that it's hard to stay and watch and pray. They took Jesus down. They took Jesus off that cross, cleaned it, patched the holes in the cross where nails had supported his body...*Our Greatest Fears
("In C.S. Lewis' story The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the lion Aslan, is the Christ figure. Aslan allows himself to killed so that the evil queen will spare the life of a child. The queen had tricked the child into betraying his siblings. In the magical world of Narnia, the penalty for such a betrayal is death....")The King of Kings and Lord of Lords: What Do We Believe?
I recently saw the movie "Bruce Almighty". Now, whether or not you are a Jim Carrie fan I highly recommend you see the movie. There are some theological concepts that are well portrayed in this movie. Probably one of the best concerns free will, the ability to choose. Jim Carrie does not like his life as Bruce very much. He wants more out of life and so he prays to God. He is mad at God for his position and wants to know why God made it so. As a result God answers his prayer by giving Bruce God's power for a short time. He can do anything he wants except mess with free will. People have to be willing to choose. They have to be free to choose what they will do, good or bad. They are free to choose what they will express of their feelings, anger or love. They have to be free to choose what they will believe, God is alive or there is no God...Is He Your King?
("Many years ago I attended Southern Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. Each week in class we were given opportunity to share or give a testimony of something good that had happened to us. I will always remember a testimony given by one of our female students. She told of how she wanted to go home for Thanksgiving but only had $40 to her name...")Life's Two Magnitudes
("A great mathematician once said that he was not concerned about spiritual matters until he vividly saw life’s 'two magnitudes - the shortness of time and the vastness of eternity'. When this truth came home to him, he became a devoted disciple of Jesus Christ...")Because of This Cross
("A friend of mine named Ed Smith took his family one Easter to one of those out of the way island resorts. The beach was beautiful with crashing waves and crystal green water. The hotel had all the amenities including a pool overlooking the ocean with one of those refreshment stands built inside the pool so if you ever wanted anything you never had to leave the water...")Beginnings and Endings
("In one of Charlie Shultz's comic strips, Charlie Brown is listening to a friend interpret a nursery rhyme, saying 'The way I see it, the cow jumped over the moon indicates a rise in farm prices…and the part about the dish running away with the spoon must refer to the consumer…do you agree with me Charlie Brown?'...")God Is An Ex-Convict?
("In Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ, there is an arresting scene in which Jesus and Judas come upon the townspeople as they are stoning Mary Magdalene. Mary is a prostitute, but it is not her trade for which she is being punished, but for plying it with the hated Roman soldiers - and on the sabbath..." and other illustrations)God Undertook Death
("Loren Eiseley had a dream in which he was visited by Death. The dream came soon after the sudden passing of the writer's patron, his uncle, Buck Price. 'One night he dreamt of sitting in the parlor of his uncle's home, rocking gently and waiting. A laugh came from behind a curtained door, followed by the sound of a snapped lock. The laughter resumed, deep and vibrating..." and other illustrations)The Burial of the Lord
"Talaq (or 'Shooter' in English) was in his 70's when he first came to us some ten years ago. …as a young, married shepherd from near the Iraqi border many years ago he killed a man who was attempting to steal his sheep. He spent seven years in prison for his crime, lost his family, and wound up spending the next twenty years or so alone bearing a personal burden of immense guilt..."Jesus Before Pilate
("I have just completed a fascinating book by Bruce Lockerbie, entitled Dismissing God: Modern Writers' Struggle Against Religion. It is an account of modern unbelief as expressed and as fostered by some of the lions of Western literature from the early 19th century onwards to our own day. Lockerbie considers, among others, Matthew Arnold and Emily Dickinson; Ralph Waldo Emerson...")The Passion In John: The Cross
("Some of you may know the painting by Holman Hunt, one of the Pre-Raphaelite painters of Victorian Britain, entitled The Shadow of Death. The Pre-Raphaelites are accused of being sentimental, but they were serious about what they were seeking to achieve. Hunt himself saw his own work as a protest against the triviality and superficiality of the art of his own day...")Peter's Betrayal
("Do you know the old story of the bishop and the barber? It seems that the bishop came to this barbershop one day to have his hair cut and while the barber was cutting his hair the bishop asked him, as a Christian minister will, whether he went to church. "Well, no," the barber said, "I'm not a church going man myself. But, I do my best...")Treachery and Malice
("One of the great old works on sin, the nature and consequences of sin, was Ralph Venning's The Plague of Plagues published in 1669. Right at the outset, Venning makes this point, that sin is not first the violation of this law or that, but the fundamental anti-God bias that rules and controls the human heart...")Thanksgiving in Three Tenses
("An old Native American legend told of a young warrior who found a lone eagle egg. To be helpful, he placed it in the nest of a prairie chicken. The little eagle grew up with prairie chicks, pecking and clucking around the ground for worms, insects, and seeds..." and other quotes and illustrations)Not of This World
("A few years ago, a couple in Tennessee had a frightening experience. Nathan and Louise Degrafinreid went to bed with the news report that five prisoners had escaped from a nearby jail. The next morning, when Nathan went out on the porch to get the paper, one of those escapees pointed a gun at him. He pushed Nathan into the living room where Louise saw the two of them..." and other illustrations)The Passion of the Christ: "Denied"
("Molly Ivins tells a story The Fun's in the Fight about two little boys, Johnny and Boots, that really gives good insight into the kind of fear Peter must have felt. When Johnny and Boots were 6 and 7 respectively and growing up in Texas, they played Texas Rangers in the back yard..." and other illustrations)The Passion of the Christ: "Exalted"
("Tony Campolo tells how he was asked to be a counselor in a junior high camp. He says everybody ought to be a counselor at a junior high camp. A junior high kid's concept of a good time, Tony says, is picking on people. And in this particular case, at this particular camp, there was a little boy who was suffering from cerebral palsy. His name was Billy. And they picked on him...")Jesus Knows Our Need
("In his best selling book Addiction and Grace, Dr. Gerald May maintains that each of us have deep longings. Our deepest inner longing is for the presence of Almighty God in our lives. Unfortunately, we try to fill this longing with the wrong thing. Dr. May explains that through addiction we attempt to fill this longing...")Back to the Source
("It is always important to remember the source of our life and faith. Archbishop Michael Ramsay, the former bishop of Canterbury, said this in one of his books, The Future of the Christian Church: 'The mistake of ecclesiasticism through the ages has been to believe in the church as a kind of thing in itself. The Apostles never regarded the church as a thing in itself..." and a personal story)Our Ultimate Concern
("Recently I read a story of a lighthouse keeper about priorities that Robin Sharma tells in his book Who Will Cry When You Die? 'The man had only a limited amount of oil to keep his beacon lit so that passing ships could avoid the rocky shore. One night, a man who lived close by needed to borrow some of the oil to light his home, so the lighthouse keeper gave him some of his own...")Recoil
("Paul Brand, was world renown surgeon and leprosy specialist. In the book that he authored with Philip Yancey, he tells the story of when he felt called to work with Lepers. He had been invited to tour a hospital for lepers in India, and touring the facility with a Dr. Cochrane, a dermatologist (skin specialist), Dr. Brand wondered why Lepers' hands and feet just seemed to waste away..." and another illustration)What Have We Learned?
("Barbara Brown Taylor tells this story: 'I remember being at a retreat once where the leader asked us to think of someone who represented Christ in our lives. When it came time to share our answers, one woman stood up and said, "I had to think hard about that one...")The Crucified King
("An artist once created a most unusual painting of Jesus on the cross. The body stood out in sharp relief against a darkened background. But as one gazed at the painting, a second figure seemed to appear from among the shadows. It was as if God could be seen behind the figure of Jesus...")Why Is This Day Different?
("Arundhati Roy is a Christian from India. In her book The God of Small Things, she writes about the love affair between a man belonging to the caste known as 'untouchables' and an upper caste woman. Her description of the people who killed the man reminds me of the crucifixion...")Behold the Lamb of God
("Jonathan's connection to Jesus goes back a full three years to Jericho and the Jordan when he was thirteen. Jonathan was a shepherd who had grown up out-of-doors, familiar with each hill and vale on the Jericho plain...")Completed in You and Me
(" The story of M. Night Shymalan's The Village begins in Covington, an isolated village on one side of a deep forest, which no one has crossed in decades. The buildings and the dress of the people, not to mention their archaic language patterns, suggests a time in the 1800s, but the reality is that the time is now. These villagers have isolated themselves...")Illustrations (Good Friday)
("Henri Nouwen tells the story of a family he knew in Paraguay. The father, a doctor, spoke out against the military there and its human rights abuses. Local police took their revenge by arresting his teenage son and torturing him to death. Townsfolk wanted to turn the funeral into a huge protest march. But the doctor chose another means of protest..." and others)The Courtroom
("I would like you to imagine that you are in a courtroom. In this courtroom there is the prosecuting attorney seated behind a table, the defense attorney seated behind a table, a judge seated behind the bench of justice, and the jury. All of us are seated behind the defense attorney, for each of us is on trial, there are no onlookers, no spectators, no innocent bystanders at this trial, everyone is on trial...")
Other Resources from Good Friday 2019
Other Resources from Good Friday 2018
Other Resources from Christ the King 2018
Other Resources from Good Friday and Christ the King 2015
Other Resources from Good Friday 2013 and 2014
Other Resources from Christ the King 2012
Other Resources from Good Friday 2010 to 2012
Other Resources from Christ the King 2009
Other Resources from 2006 to 2009
Other Resources from 2004 and 2005
Other Resources from Christ the King 2003
Other Resources from Good Friday 2001 to 2003
Other Resources from Good Friday and Christ the King 2000
Other Resources from 1997 to 1999
Other Resources from the Archives
Resources from the Bookstore
*No Compromises
("Private Joseph Schultz, a loyal, young German patrol soldier, was sent to Yugoslavia shortly after it was invaded. One day the sergeant called out eight names, Schultz's among them. They thought they were going on a routine patrol, and as they hitched up their rifles, they came over a hill, still not knowing what their mission was. There were eight Yugoslavians there, standing on the brow of the hill..." and other illustrations)
Children's Resources and Dramas
Jesus, the Servant King
Johnny’s father took him to the park to play in the big sand pile. “Johnny,” he said, “you stay here and play in the sand while I sit on the bench over there.” So, his father took his newspaper and sat on the bench. Johnny took his little shovel and put sand in his bucket. Then he went over to a girl who was also playing in the sand. “Want some sand?” he asked. “Okay,” the little girl said. Johnny put his shovel in the bucket and scooped out some sand. “Hold out your hand,” Johnny said to the little girl. The little girl held out both hands, and Johnny poured the sand into her hands. It ran down her arms and through her fingers and she laughed. “You want some more sand?” asked Johnny. “Okay,” said the little girl. So, Johnny took another scoop of sand, but this time when she put out her hands, he poured the sand on her head. She began to cry. Her mother came right over. She got down so she could look right in Johnny’s eyes and said, “That was not nice. If you can’t play nice, you may not play in the sand pile.” You know what Johnny said back to the lady? He said, “You aren’t the boss of me.” That night when Johnny and his father were getting ready to say prayers, they talked about what had happened that day in the sand pile in the park. “That lady isn’t the boss of me,” Johnny said again...
The Classics
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*Sacred Heart of Jesus
("Twelve years ago, for the first time ever, Ireland got into the finals of the football World Cup. Our little team of second and third division players was going to America to play in the biggest tournament of all. We were going to play with the big boys - Brazil, Argentina, Italy, Germany, Holland - all the greatest football nations in the world...")Christ the King (B)(2015)
The young ruler of the American Camelot, sainted in the popular culture far beyond what any achievements of his brief administration might have merited, stepped suddenly into eternity forty years ago today. That it was so long ago seems impossible for those of us who remember the day well, that one of a handful of life's days on which you always remember where you were when you heard. Forty years later we persist in making him better than we was, still miss him, even though we now know he had character flaws which would make him unelectable today.The Hardest Thing
("In sports, there are few things tougher than bicycling the Tour de France, running a marathon or landing a quadruple toe loop on figure skates. But these extraordinary exploits are not as hard as the feats we must perform in the game of life...")