Lent, which begins on Ash Wednesday, is a period of 40 days, not including Sundays, that precede Easter.
This is one day on which the cynics are wrong. The barrier of human death is revealed as vulnerable and the love of God shows through in glory and in humility.
How do you observe or “celebrate” Good Friday? What makes it a “good” day?
Yearly Christians celebrate the seasons of Christmas and Easter. There are some things we need to repeat, like the Christian year, and the repetition is good.
This Lent my heart has grown “strangely warmed” as I think about United Methodist women across the country building a new community through their loving acts of mercy and justice.
By God’s grace I am well loved and cared and I am recovered and claim myself, “I am your precious daughter, O Lord!” What a great gift this is!
In this third week of Lent we are blessed by The Word that comes from different times, different lives and different histories giving passionate testimony to the greatness and power of God.
My cross is to carve out a space to redefine what it means to be free on earth as it is in heaven.
“Where is God?” was a question many people asked as Hurricane Mitch pounded Honduras in 1998. The women unanimously answered, “God was with us during the storm.”
This Ash Wednesday, on Feb. 25, as I remember Nicaraguan ministry of presence in the dusty places of Nicaragua, I realize that their trips were Lenten pilgrimages.
We are on the threshold of another Lenten Season that begins with Ash Wednesday. According to Christian tradition, Lent is a time to observe spiritual discipline to overcome temptations and confront evil.
During this season of Lent when we are confronted with temptations of materialism, temptations of the easy life and temptations of power, let us remember Jesus. Our strength comes from God, as Jesus’ strength came from God.
Many theologians and even Jesus, himself have said that the God of love and grace, justice and community is found in the margins, in the darkness.
There she was - at the well - an amazing, unnamed woman. There are some who have claimed this unnamed Samaritan woman was a powerful woman.
Sometimes the obvious is really not so obvious, and what we want to hear or see may not be what is best for the future. Samuel didn’t want to anoint a new king, and he certainly did not plan to choose the youngest and smallest of the sons of Jesse.
Young people today are looking death squarely in the face. At no other time in history have young people been so vulnerable to criminal activity, incarceration, sexual abuse, homicide, suicide, unemployment, poverty, lack of health care and homelessness.
It was Good Friday. In the wee hours of the day, Jesus stood on trial before Pilate, the Roman governor.
The presence of the women in the Easter story continues to be a marvel and a wonder to me. Of course, Jesus the Christ has center stage in the narrative; nothing should compete with his role in the story, much less succeed in supplanting him.
