Breathe, by Laura Alary My friend Laura Alary has a lovely new book coming out: Breathe: A Child’s Guide to Ascension, Pentecost and the Growing Time (Paraclete Press, 2021). It is designed as a children’s book, but it would be so good for grown-ups too. Don’t miss out just because you don’t have kids around […]
Monday Meditation: RCL Year B, Trinity Sunday, John 3:1-17
(This week’s Monday Meditation is coming out on Tuesday. But I really did write it on Monday. No kidding.) I love the story of Nicodemus (John 3:1-17), though it is very hard to read it with fresh eyes. Two verses have their own enormous cultural gravity, pulling the rest of the story in like black […]
Does the Ascension Divide Christ’s Natures? (Heidelberg Catechism Q48)
Questions You May Not Have Thought Of People often think theologians are busy thinking up answers to questions that people don’t really care about. I bet you’ve heard that, in the Middle Ages, scholastic theologians spent their time debating how many angels could dance on the head of a pin. People believe this is true. It is our stereotype […]
The Paradoxical Presence of Christ (Heidelberg Catechism Q47)
A couple weeks ago I was reflecting on a much-neglected biblical teaching: the ascension of Christ. We may neglect it because there is a conundrum in the ascension: the puzzling, if not outright paradoxical, presence of Christ. Ascension vs. Presence The last scenes of Jesus’ earthly ministry are emphatic about two completely opposite things: Jesus […]
Vocabulary Lesson: What’s Up with the “Ascension”? (Heidelberg Catechism Q. 49)
We just rushed by the most neglected day of the Church’s year: the “Ascension”, forty days after Easter when the risen Christ left the earth and went to heaven. Part of the problem: the original event happened on a Thursday. Churches don’t gather to take notice until the Sunday afterward. Another issue: Jesus lifting off without benefit […]