Pierced and crucified
Because you cried,
“Repent and believe the Good News.”

Pierced and crucified
Because you cried,
“Peter, put up your sword.” Continue reading →

Sea of Galilee
Synagogue in Capernaum
Christ is Risen! He is Risen indeed!
Al Masih Qam! He Haqan Qam! (Arabic)
The Easter message is loud and clear. In the reading for Monday, the women are hurrying away from the tomb. Matthew says that they went away with awe and great joy. Awe—a sense of wonder—enables us to grasp the inner meaning of events. Joy the quintessential Christian virtue. In fact, Bernard Häring, the late great moral theologian, says that joy is the cornerstone of Christian witness. They were filled with awe and joy (not violent shock and awe!) because their nonviolent teacher had conquered sin and death. Continue reading →

My heart was heavy yesterday. All day long I was thinking about our trip to Israel Palestine and the many wonderful, spirit-filled people we had met there. Then Joan told me that the Israelis had refused to allow our West Bank Christian brothers and sisters to enter Jerusalem to celebrate the passion and death of Jesus. My mind immediately went back to our visit with an American Jewish settler in Efrata. In claiming his right to live in the Holy land (actually to illegally live in occupied territory in contravention of international law and two United Nation’s resolutions), the settler vehemently decried the fact that the Jews had been barred from access to their sacred sites for so long. Now they are barring Christians from their sacred sites. The oppressed become the oppressors!
I sent emails to Melkite Archbishop Elias Chacour from Ibillin, Abuna Raed from Taybeh (Ephraim), Rev. Mitri Raheb from the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Christmas in Bethlehem, and the family we shared a meal with in Beit Sahour. I also sent a letter detailing the Israeli oppression of the Palestinian people to my congressional delegation, the three presidential candidates and Secretary of State Rice. Continue reading →

Reuters. Jerusalem. April 25, 33.
Our correspondents in Jerusalem report that a little known carpenter turned preacher-healer was executed like a common criminal. Jesus, from the backwater Galilean village of Nazareth, was pronounced dead on the cross around noon on the eve of the Passover Sabbath. Continue reading →