The church is not renewed when one pastor tries to do the work of the whole body. The church is renewed when Christ’s body begins to act like a body again.
This is what Christian catechesis does; it turns the knobs of the Scriptures and throws the doors of God’s word wide open to tell us the story of salvation.
Christianity isn’t simply a tool to fix social, spiritual, or economic problems. Its claims are much larger, touching upon truth itself and therefore all things and all people.

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When Jesus was baptized, his Father’s voice fell from heaven, proclaiming, “You are my beloved Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased,” (Mk 1:11). But there in the wilderness it did not seem so, did it?
The prophets had foretold, His coming Incarnation; The Word would make our flesh, His only habitation.
He had a way with words, this Preacher, a way that well-nigh sent Him plummeting headlong down a nearby cliff. What got Him in trouble was quite simply telling the truth – always a dangerous activity, for men prefer that you lie to them, especially if the truth exposes them for what they are.
Never are we more Hollywood than when we admit wrongdoing. Our confession is scripted, edited, practiced. Move over Brad Pitt; I’ve got this role down pat, for it’s my version of me.
The Bible of Jesus and the apostles was therefore the Old Testament. On the basis of these writings, they confessed the totality of who the Messiah is and what He does.
People take off their public masks when around relatives. They let their darkness shine. That’s why Manuel spends his December 25 in the graveyard, talking to the dead.
Strange though it be, however, it is marvelous in meaning: for this was his way of writing his covenant into the very flesh of his people. What was not there, was a sign of what was there.
A few weeks ago, the pastor of my congregation did something in his sermon I’ve never heard a pastor do: he confessed a failure. He had once been ashamed of his brother, he admitted, and had acted in a way toward him that was not in keeping with love.
Perhaps part of the mistake we’ve made is in forgetting that the first Christmas, the actual birthday of Jesus, started out as the worst of times.
A few people can endure a Job-like hell, get up, bless God, and face the future stronger than ever. Most of us aren’t such saints. We hobble along, half-walking, half-crawling into the will-be from the what-was.
Our hearts are half Amish at times, hankering to live in the past, for we dislike the present or fear the future. But therein lies a grave danger, for nostalgia can easily become the gateway drug to despair.
Ingram Robinson was 91 years old and had seen it all—well, almost seen it all. For what his eyes were about to behold, as the sun rose on his ninth decade in this world, was something entirely, and radically, new.