Uproar.  That’s the only word for it.  Precisely the thing that the Council must not allow to happen.  Who could predict how Pilate would react? 

In the comfort of our hindsight, we can tend to be kind of harsh in our assessment of Israel’s behavior following the Exodus from Egypt. 

Nothing ever goes smoothly, it seems. Or if something does it’s almost a shock. Our culture has a name for it:  Murphy’s Law. No point in going into all the ways it shows up in daily living.  But it might be worth thinking about it in a spiritual context.

You can count yourself blessed if you’ve never been asked by a health care professional to rate your pain on a scale of 1 to 10.  Many are all too familiar with the question. 

Paul exhorts us to examine ourselves, as often as we remember our Lord’s sacrifice and resurrection.

Ordinary sentences are simply inadequate to describe Jesus. A poet’s touch is needed, the skillful use of devices such as metaphor, which can pack far more meaning into a few words.

“Have I learned anything?  Have I grown?  Have I lost ground?” 

Paul confesses to a specific recurring weakness—covetousness. Realizing he might have had a particular problem in this area, we start noticing that it appears A LOT in his writings. 

“These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God’s creation.” (Rev 3:14).**

The New Testament frequently and emphatically reminds us that the Law of Moses was a foreshadowing of the work of Messiah. 

Today I was struck with a realization of how many people we encounter in scripture, of whom God asked a lot—way beyond what we might think of as a “standard” level of commitment. 

Everyone knows what a scapegoat is:  someone who is made to take the blame for something, allowing the actual perpetrator(s) to go scot-free.