Posts from December 2023

The nativity scenes you see in front yards typically look pretty similar to each other – the baby, Mary and Joseph, some animals, maybe the shepherds and wise men are there. They’re not likely to include a great red dragon looming over Mary’s shoulder, even though that’s how the book of Revelation tells the story. In Revelation 12, we meet a woman “clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and a crown of twelve stars on her…

John 14-17, often referred to as the “farewell discourses,” are the final teachings from Jesus to his disciples in the hours leading up to his arrest. However, John 17 wraps up the farewell discourses not with another teaching but with a prayer. Jesus prays that the Father would be glorified (not unlike teaching us in the Lord’s Prayer to begin praying with “Father, hallowed by thy name”). He prays that the disciples would experience complete joy, be protected from evil,…

“I am the vine, you are the branches,” Jesus says to us in John 15. His life is our life. What is true of him is true of us. As Jesus goes on in John 15, this also means that his struggle is our struggle. The places he fits in are the places we fit in. And the places he doesn’t fit are the places we don’t fit. Discipleship requires dissonance, like a symphony orchestra playing in perfect accord except for…

I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. -John 15:5 There’s a mystery at the heart of the Christian faith: how is the God and creator of the universe supposed to communicate with and make himself known to us flawed, limited, sinful humans? In the words of the Psalmist, “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is so high…

God is making his home with us. It’s the good news we hear at the end of the book of Revelation and it’s the good news Jesus shares with us in John 14. The promise from Jesus is that God will be with us and in and in us forever. This is no hollow promise. Jesus doesn’t give as the world gives. There are no strings attached. This presence with us and in us comes by way of what Jesus…