Entering the Passion of Jesus
This Lenten season explores the final week that Jesus spent in Jerusalem. Guided by the book Entering the Passion of Jesus by Dr. Amy-Jill Levine, each message looks at the underlying risks for Jesus and his followers as the crowds became larger and the authorities took greater notice.
Risking the Salvation of God
This is the end of Lent and the beginning of our celebration of resurrection! This is a time of looking forward with renewed hope after a period of darkness. This is a time that surely feels surprising, even to the point that we may even doubt what we see and what we feel. Could it be?? Scripture: John 20:1-18; Acts 10:34-43
Risking Temptation
This is the sixth week of the season of Lent and Palm/Passion Sunday. We conclude our Worship series guided by Amy-Jill Levine’s Entering the Passion of Jesus: A Beginner’s Guide to Holy Week. As we near our Easter celebration, we might be tempted to want over to skip over the bad stuff and jump straight to the celebration and the eggs and the fun! And we would be wrong to do this. I wonder if Jesus was tempted, as he…
Risking the Loss of Friends
This is the fifth week of the season of Lent, and we continue our Worship series guided by Amy-Jill Levine’s Entering the Passion of Jesus: A Beginner’s Guide to Holy Week. As we continue through Holy Week and near Easter, we arrive at a profoundly moving gathering of Jesus with his disciples. Gathering for the Passover celebration, Jesus does something extraordinary. Told differently in the Gospels (read Matthew 26, Mark 14, and John 13), we may understand Jesus in his…
Risking Rejection
This is the fourth week of the season of Lent, and we continue our Worship series guided by Amy-Jill Levine’s Entering the Passion of Jesus: A Beginner’s Guide to Holy Week. The Scripture passage this week is the story of a woman anointing Jesus’ feet (or head depending on which Gospel you read). We may recall this story of a woman in its various forms. Perhaps we think of Mary as the one anointing as depicted below, or perhaps as…
Risking Challenge
This is the third week of the season of Lent, and we continue our Worship series guided by Amy-Jill Levine’s Entering the Passion of Jesus: A Beginner’s Guide to Holy Week. This week, we land on Tuesday of Holy Week with Jesus remaining in Jerusalem. Jesus spends the day teaching, and there are numerous exchanges where Jesus is challenged by the religious authorities or is challenged by them. Sometimes these challenges are subtle, and sometimes not. Each one seems to…
Risking Righteous Anger
This is the second week of the season of Lent, and we continue our Worship series guided by Amy-Jill Levine’s Entering the Passion of Jesus: A Beginner’s Guide to Holy Week. The Scripture passage this week is the story of the cleansing of the Temple. This story is having a bit of a revival right now among Christians of my generation (and others!). Those of us who grew up in or around Christian traditions where the main goal of that type…
Risking Reputation
This is the first week of the season of Lent, and the first week of our new Worship series guided by Amy-Jill Levine’s Entering the Passion of Jesus: A Beginner’s Guide to Holy Week. This Sunday we begin with the first day of Holy Week, which brings the familiar scripture of Palm Sunday. The story of Jesus’ entry to the fanfare of the people is in all four of the Gospels, though each story varies slightly in its details. This…