1. This is the prelude of Easter. Is a dead Jesus still resting in the tomb? No!
  2. What is undoubtedly true, however, is that St. Peter wasn’t left outside. He wasn’t left weeping. He was restored, as am I, as are you.
  3. Past, present, and future are tied together in Christ.
  4. We can’t predict the harvest. We can only sow.
  5. To believe God is love and thus loves you is a miracle wrought by the Holy Spirit.
  6. His love for you is so deep that in his mercy, while you were yet a sinner, God sent his only begotten Son to die for you.
  7. “So loved,” then isn’t about how much but instead simply how.
  8. Zephaniah has given us something more visceral to help us understand the love of God: the sound of salvation.
  9. Love is pointing to Jesus who said, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).
  10. Predestination, Jim knew, is no longer a frightening doctrine of mystery when you understand that God makes his choice about you in the simple word of God, given from one sinner to another.
  11. Even as he was dying, the heart of God poured itself out for the sake of sinners.
  12. I think the problem with the idea of eternity is that we do not have any direct experience of it, but we encounter enough of its possibility to be unsettling.