[This post is part of an Easter series: President [fill in the blank] and King Jesus.]
When we were around ten my cousin and I witnessed a murder. We were playing in the parking lot of his grandfather’s car dealership in our small hometown. We heard a loud “Pop!” There was a bus depot next door, so we thought it was probably just a bus backfiring. Then we heard two more pops, and we knew it wasn’t a backfire. We ran the twenty yards or so to the corner and saw a man lying facedown in front of the gas station across the street, a pool of blood widening around him. We also saw another man quickly get into a car in the alley and take off. We ran back to the dealership to get help. Very soon we heard the ambulance coming. We stood across the street and watched the paramedic—our family friend who always had a new joke to tell—attend to the man lying on the ground. I will never forget the image of that paramedic looking at his partner and shaking his head. That was my first real exposure to violence and humanity’s capacity for brutality. The police did their work, including questioning my cousin and me. We were witnesses. Later we witnessed the gas station owner hosing the blood off his lot.
“The God of our ancestors raised Jesus, after you had laid violent hands on him and hanged him on a tree” (Acts 5:30).
The big-picture result of the coming of the Holy Spirit is power, power to be witnesses (Acts 1:8). And this witnessing unites us. But witness to what?
Read More[This post is part of an Easter series: President [fill in the blank] and King Jesus.]
We are in the midst of electing the next president of the United States, and there are ways in which it feels like this election cycle is taking place within a pressure cooker. I’ll be quick to confess that it feels more pressure cooker-ish to me when I have listened to more news coverage than does anyone any good (and perhaps it doesn’t take much quantity to qualify for that description).
Here are two facts that are true as I write this: 1) we are electing a president (and experiencing communal anxiety as we do so), and 2) Easter is here. What do these have to do with each other? We are electing a president, and the crucified and risen Jesus is still reigning as King. But how? How can an unseen Jesus actually be ruling in any meaningful sense, particularly when in any thirty seconds of those news reports, we will see things directly contrary to Christ and his way?
Read More[Note from Daniel: Yes, we are electing a president, and Jesus still reigns as King. This will be the theme in the weekly series beginning on Easter Sunday and continuing through Pentecost, as we focus on how Jesus reigns through the stories in the book of Acts. Robert Pelfrey and I will trade weeks writing the series, and I asked him to write this introduction for today, Palm Sunday.]
In this crazy political season there are three kinds of people showing up to the often out-of-control rallies. One person is absolutely sure this candidate is America’s only hope. This is my candidate who thinks just like I think, and therefore, this is God’s candidate. Another person is absolutely sure this same candidate is the worst thing that could ever happen to America. If this candidate is elected, all hope is lost. This candidate must be stopped! And the third person is at the rally because it’s a spectacle with TV cameras and celebrities. They’ll eventually move on to the next flavor of the month.
It’s funny how crowds don’t change. This also describes the people in the crowd on Palm Sunday—which, make no mistake, was very much a political rally.
Read MoreAbiding God,
The invitation to be with you is overwhelming yet resonates with my deepest and truest desires. I often don't pay enough attention to just how much I want to be with you. At the same time, I also resist going into solitude. I don't know what is there for us to do together. I am scared that I might find you to be boring or inaccessible. I am worried that the web of entanglements in which I live might unravel if I go away to be alone. I have parts of me that I like to hide––even from myself––and I am fearful that they might come to the surface if I am alone and quiet for long.
But you keep inviting me nonetheless. All of those fears eventually lose their energy as I sit in the quietness of your love. Your presence and your silence gently invite me to find my home in you and to discover that you are already dwelling in me. Here I find you, I find others, I find the world in which I live, and I find my own life hidden in yours.
Read More
