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Each week during Eastertide I am posting a poem that helps me engage more meaningfully with Jesus' resurrection. Here is Teresa of Avila's poem "Christ Has No Body." Teresa was a 16th century Carmelite nun in Spain best known as a mystic, reformer, and writer who experienced divine visions. Her most important works include her …
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This past weekend at Eastbrook, I preached on Jesus' powerful statement: "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life" (John 8:12). I wanted to spend a little time today exploring four ways that Jesus shines the light of God into the …
Continue reading "Jesus Shines God’s Light: 4 Ways Jesus the Light of the World Reveals Who God Is"
Before the crucifixion, and while on His way to Jerusalem, Jesus predicts His death in conversation with His disciples three different times. In each of Jesus’ predictions of His death, there is an expanding description of the suffering, but there is a consistent description of resurrection, each time given in one final phrase: “…on the …
"So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets." (Matthew 7:12) Now, even though it could feel like Jesus’ summary statement in Matthew 7:12 is the sort of thing you would find in All I Really Need to Know I Learned …
Continue reading "“In Everything”: the comprehensive call to love our neighbor"
When Adam and Eve turn from God and His will by choosing for themselves and their own will, they were in essence choosing to love themselves over God. Sin can be both the decision for and experience of disordered love. Saint Augustine, the 4th century Bishop of Hippo in present-day Algeria, described this reality when …
Continue reading "Sin’s Disruption and Disordered Love: Insights from St. Augustine"
Matthew Erickson 