humanity on Abyss

I am a Christian because of that moment on the cross when Jesus, drinking the very dregs of human bitterness, cries out, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? . . . The point is that he felt huma...

The deepest, the only theme of human history, compared to which all others are to subordinate importance, is the conflict of skepticism with faith.

Leader: The Lord searches us and knows us. God discerns our thoughts and is acquainted with all our ways. People: Even the darkness is not dark to God; the night is as bright as the day, for darknes...

Pastor: Your steadfast love, O LORD, extends to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds. All: How precious is your steadfast love, O God! The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of yo...

Before we get to Easter, we need to linger: in the vulnerability of the basin and the towel at the remembrance and promise of the table in the struggle and betrayal of the garden in the shadows and sh...

After the fall of our first parents, boundaries were something to push past, to transgress. It’s worth pausing to note how we use the word transgression for “sin.”  With its Latin roots, “across” and ...

The Latin words humus, soil/earth, and homo, human being, have a common derivation, from which we also get our word 'humble.' This is the Genesis origin of who we are: dust - dust that the Lor...

Let us pray. Almighty, powerful, creator God So often we think we know best. We confess to you our sin alongside the sin of all humanity. We have tried to master creation rather than care for it. We ...

Our lives are meant to inspire with (or inhale) the breath of God, the glory of his presence, the brilliance and beauty of his creation, and to expire (or exhale) an echo of wonder—an “amen.” It shoul...

My dear King, my own King, without pride, without sin, You created the whole world, eternal, victorious King. King of the mysteries, You existed before the elements, before the waters covered the ocea...

Man is a metaphysical being, an animal that nourishes its life on transcendence.

We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.

The one essential condition of human existence is that man should always be able to bow down before something infinitely great. If men are deprived of the infinitely great they will not go on living a...

Enter John the Baptist John the Baptist enters the stage in Mark 1 as the “voice of one crying in the wilderness,” (Isaiah 40:3) whose message and ministry is to “prepare the way of the Lord.” Mark d...

[Speaking of crucifixion] It seems almost inevitable to me that Jesus should go through this kind of darkness. . . . If you think of Jesus as God disguised as a man, then this will have no meaning for...

Nothing is more precious than teeming, overabundant resource-destroying human life. (For humor/contrast)

Gracious God, sometimes I am so caught up in my failures, in all the ways I am not like you, that I neglect the deeper truth, the earlier truth of Genesis 1. You have made me, as a human being, in you...

This [brokenness] is what needs to be accepted. Unfortunately, this is what we tend to reject. Here the seeds of a corrosive self-hatred take root. This painful vulnerability is the characteristic fea...

Our Father, Lord, when the world was without form and void did you roll the clay into shapes of life? Did you sing on that far distant Friday, when you fashioned the caterpillar, and the cobra? And Je...

Contrast the creation of the first man according to Genesis 2 with the creation of the first human beings according to Mesopotamian tradition. Both start with dust or clay, but then the accounts vary....

Kindness flows from you, Lord, pure and continual. You had cast us off, as was only just, but mercifully you forgave us; you hated us and you were reconciled to us, you cursed us and you blessed us; y...

Leader: Oh Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! People: You have set your glory above the heavens! Leader: From the lips of babes and infants you have established strength, ...

Leader: Look! God’s dwelling is here with humankind. God dwells with us, and we are God’s people. People: God will wipe away every tear from our eyes. Death will be no more. There will be no more mo...

The world has always despised people from the wrong places and with the wrong credentials. We are always trying to justify ourselves. We need desperately to feel superior to others. And everything abo...

Everything in the universe is all jumbled together. So God begins to do some creative separating: he separates light from darkness, day from night, water from land, the sea creatures from the land cru...

In this beautiful poem by the English Divine John Donne, our nature as both redeemed and still sinful is eloquently described: We think that Paradise and Calvary, Christ’s Cross and Adam’s Tree, ...

Preaching Commentary Enter John the Baptist John the Baptist enters the stage in Mark 1 as the “voice of one crying in the wilderness,” (Isaiah 40:3) whose message and ministry is to “prepare the w...

The promised Messiah, whose voice sounds like rushing waters, who holds the key to death and Hades, also grew in secret in Mary’s womb. He kicked and elbowed as all babies do, and came at the appointe...

[I]f we chose to project the human figure forward out of an unhuman world, we could only say that one of the animals had obviously gone mad.

Take refuge in our God who knows we are mere mortals. He forgives us for our sins, even though they were aimed at his loving heart. Rejoice that the Lord, out of his grace, will not remember our sins ...