Our Life With Jesus

"Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end."  --John 13:1 Life with Jesus is life immersed in the gracious love of God-- embracing, drenching, challenging, shocking, strong yet tender, moment-by-moment, decision-by-decision, transforming agape love-- given without demanding anything in return.    This love destabilizes his disciples in one way while rooting them deeply in an alternative way of living. When Jesus gathers his disciples for the Passover, he knows that "his  hour has come;" that the time he has been preparing them for is here.  And how do the twelve arrive?  Hopelessly wrongheaded, it would seem, their minds full of assumptions about their own privilege in God's emerging kingdom, bickering with each other over which positions each will hold in the new administration, blissfully deaf to the passion of his sharing.  Later in the evening, as Jesus pours out heart and soul to the Father in prayer, the ones who ...

Jesus enters Jerusalem with his followers at the outset of Holy Week.  We call the scene Palm Sunday, remembering the leafy branches laid on the road as Jesus rode into the capitol city on the back of a borrowed colt.  The branches and the simple outer garments of some of this followers  (the only coats they have)  create a humble "red carpet" for our Lord. It is the group travelling with Jesus, in front of him and behind, that are shouting their "Hosannas!" On Sunday I asked everyone to imagine the Palm Sunday procession in their mind's eye.  Are you someone who is watching Jesus come into town, or someone travelling with him? If you are "on the move" with him, you are part of a fascinating crowd, all people whose lives have been changed by his love.  You are walking in the midst of poor people from Bethany, the "House of Poverty," people like Mary and Martha and Lazarus, who are giving testimony to the new world that is coming!  You...