One of the most famous psalms in the Bible is Psalm 23, which begins: “The Lord is my shepherd.” It was written by King David who knew something about shepherds because when he was a boy, he had to look after his father’s sheep. Now you may think that being a shepherd is a pretty…
It must have been dark in the belly of the whale. No horizon in sight. No hills. No plains. No rosy-fingered dawn. No marker of a new day. It was a time away, but not the one he was hoping for. At the opening of the book of Jonah, the prophet had his sights set…
We don’t know very much about Simon of Cyrene. That doesn’t diminish his significance. He’s mentioned in three of the gospels as the man who carried the cross for Jesus. The fact that he’s named in Scripture attests to the honour of his service to our Lord. Since details are sparse, I can’t help but…
“That’s not fair!” Have you ever said that? I’m guessing that you probably have. Maybe you said it when you went to an ice cream store, and your brother got a cone with two scoops of ice cream, and your cone only had one scoop. Another word for fairness is justice. We usually think it…
This story is about a five-year-old boy named Tommy. It was time for Tommy to go to kindergarten, but Tommy wasn’t sure whether he was going to like kindergarten. He had been told that it would be lots of fun, and that he would learn interesting things and play with new friends. But he would…
I grew up with images of the mother of Jesus as an idealistic, serene lady quietly sitting in the background. Maybe you did too. Mary was “meek and mild,” a docile observer, patiently “pondering” all the lovely things around her. Recently, I heard a preacher critique this sanitized portrayal. He explained that Mary was actually…
They should have left long ago, but they are still here. I check every morning, though the light is weak in the courtyard, my fingers stiff and the cold latch awkward. And every morning, they are there, sitting up on the branch, their feathered crests like crowns bright in the wintering daylight. I wonder if…
This month, we celebrate the Incarnation, a fancy word we use to remember a baby born in a stable, in an occupied country, in poverty. Yet this event is full of mystery. The creeds tell us this baby was fully God and fully man in one person. Yet from what we have learned about God’s…
The Book of Belonging is a gentle and imaginative collection of Bible stories for children shaped by the belief that God welcomes and cherishes everyone. In her introduction, author Mariko Clark addresses her young readers and shares her hope that they will know, “God is trustworthy, and God’s names for you are true. You Belong….
I came across a strange little story in the Gospel of Matthew. I’d been looking for words about kingship because the November lectionary brings the church year to a close with the celebration of Christ as King, and so I stumbled upon Matthew 17: 24-27. At first glance, it looks like another version of the…
In his introduction to his graphic novel which imagines the possible stories and interactions Jesus – whom he calls Yeshua, his Hebrew name – might have had on the Emmaus Road, author Matt Mikalatos asserts that comic books and the Bible have much in common: “Pretty much every story you like comes in comic form…
Can there be resurrection /
among the ruins? /
Dare we imagine new life /
rising from these streets of death?
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