Posts from March 2025

     Besides the Last Supper, Holy Week contains another important story that happens at dinner.  Earlier in the week, Jesus and his followers gather for a meal, and a woman shows up unexpectedly to anoint Jesus in an extravagant show of devotion.  To say she caused quite a “stir” might be understating it a bit.  We imagine ourselves in the room and we see the looks of…

 That last week, Jesus doesn’t “lay low.”  He puts himself out there, susceptible to those who want to traphim, twist his words, get him to say something damning.  He cannot turn from his vocation—he is not only a master teacher, but prophet and voice of the Divine.  It is his ability to draw the people to his teachings that pose a threat, a challenge, to the authorities.…

 Jesus’ response to a visit to the Temple in the midst of this busy, noisy, Passover “tourist season” is utter frustration turned to anger.  With so much at stake, “business-as-usual” seems obscene.  This can be true for us today.  The banality of our everyday lives sometimes seems ludicrous in the face of such suffering around the world.  But taking a moment inside the…

Jesus’ ride into Jerusalem at the beginning of Holy Week was full of risk. Rather than a nice impromptu celebration, it can be seen for the carefully planned and significantly symbolic event that would rub those in power the wrong way. In a moment already filled with tension, this “victory parade” had many implications, and as we know, many consequences. We will stop the…