Every time someone is baptized, every time bread is broken and wine poured, every time a sinner hears, “Your sins are forgiven in Christ,” Pentecost happens again.
They were still praying, trusting, and hoping. Why? Because they knew who was with them and who was for them: the risen Christ.
So Christ is risen, but what now?

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I think the chief reason that a faction within me welcomes the disintegration of the American ethos is this: it makes me feel so much better about myself. The smut makes me quite smug.
A cemetery is a hard place to confess because the cemetery itself seems to confess, “You, O mortal, have lost.”
Hell is just as happy with those who believe in a fake Jesus, as with those who believe in no Jesus at all. For there is no difference.
Why does John make you uncomfortable? You know. It’s not just the clothing; it’s not only the hair; it’s not even really the diet. John the Baptist is uncivilized—that’s the problem.
Have you ever experienced the awkwardness of meeting someone you really enjoy and thinking that it was the start of beautiful friendship, only to find out that they didn’t feel the same way?
He may be a good sport about it, smile for the camera, congratulate the better man, but secretly he hates the loss and covets another chance at victory.
O such is the crumbling fortress of the god of this world, but how it entices our flesh! For it looks like a house of candy to the Hansels and Gretels who wander through this world.
But this dying world is still the world of our living God, who graces us with tokens of a final renewal. As leaf subsides to leaf, and frost to snow, and snow to ice, there comes a day when the gold of nature sprouts anew.
The place where God appears or dwells ceases to be common ground; it becomes holy. Dust, rocks, vegetation, wood, metals, everything roundabout soaks in his sacredness.
Yes, He knows all—not only the sins you remember and are ashamed of, but also those you have forgotten and even those you never knew you committed.
For out of the mouths of these opposition forces, gathered on enemy turf, comes the defiant declaration of death’s undoing: “Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed!” An audacious act it is, to march smack dab into the middle of a place that screams, “Dead!” and to sing, “Alive!”
Jesus is thus not only the fulfillment of the Scriptures of Israel; He is their fullness. He fills them with words, people, actions, and institutions that testify of Him.