Have you ever stood at the front door, waiting for the arrival of a loved one? We mamas do this all the time. We hear our child is headed home, and we take our place at the door and wait — looking into the distance, trying to see as far down the street as possible, searching for that familiar car, anticipating the moment when we will have our loved one not at a distance, but in our arms. When you love someone deeply, their homecoming becomes a sacred occasion.

Have you ever wronged a friend or family member and then they held it against you until you earned back their favor? Or have you ever had a friend make you feel like to stay in their good graces, you had to constantly strive to keep them happy?

One of the most disorienting things about the Christian life is the gap between who we are told we are and how we actually feel on any given Tuesday. The Bible says we are new creations. It says we are free. It says sin no longer has dominion over us. And yet, if we are honest, most of us wake up fairly regularly feeling like the same old person with the same old struggles, wondering if any of it is actually true.

There is a question that has followed the Gospel almost since the very beginning. Paul heard it, addressed it directly, and his answer is just as relevant today as it was then: "Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?" It is a question that sounds theological, but underneath it is something deeply human — a misunderstanding of what forgiveness is actually for.

I don't know about you, but I often get distracted and quickly lose sight of God's goodness. I know God is good. I believe the familiar words of the 23rd Psalm — "Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life." I'll even feel warm and fuzzy singing Goodness of God — "His goodness is running after me!"

Contemplation leads us to the cross. Celebration leads us to the empty tomb. And consecration leads us to the question that follows every genuine encounter with the risen Jesus: Now what?

There is a difference between knowing something is true and actually letting yourself rejoice in it. Many of us have the facts of Easter lodged firmly in our heads — Jesus died, Jesus rose, sin is defeated — but somewhere between our heads and our hearts, the celebration gets lost. We know it happened. We're just not sure we're allowed to be as joyful about it as it deserves.

We live in a world that moves fast. Notifications, deadlines, obligations — the noise rarely stops long enough for us to sit with what is true. But Easter invites us to do something countercultural: to slow down, to be still, and to contemplate the weight and the wonder of what happened on the cross.

The resurrection is first announced not to a religious authority or a government official, but to a grieving woman standing alone at an empty tomb. The first word spoken by the risen Christ is a name.

Holy Saturday is the forgotten day. We move quickly from the grief of Friday to the celebration of Sunday, and the in-between gets swallowed. But for the disciples, there was no skipping it. Saturday was just Saturday — the day after the worst thing, the day before they had any idea there was a best thing coming. They sat in the dark without a map.

Isaiah wrote today’s words seven hundred years before the crucifixion. He saw something — a suffering servant, a figure absorbing what others deserved, a wound that became a way to wholeness. When it actually happened, the people watching had no category for it. Even now, it is not easy to look at directly.

John opens today’s passage with one of the most tender lines in all of Scripture: having loved his own, he loved them to the end. The Greek phrase is ‘eis telos’ — to the uttermost, to completion, all the way through. What follows is the proof.

Wednesday of Holy Week is the strangest day in the calendar. After the noise of the parade, the confrontation in the Temple, and two days of relentless teaching — the Gospels go quiet. There is no recorded account of anything Jesus said or did. Just silence. A day with nothing written on it, sitting between Tuesday's intensity and Thursday's breaking sorrow.

Tuesday of Holy Week was dense. Jesus spent the entire day in the Temple courts teaching — answering challenges from the Pharisees and Sadducees, telling parables, warning against hypocrisy, and watching a widow drop two coins into the offering. He knew the week would end on a cross. These were, in many ways, His final public words. And when someone asked which commandment was the greatest, He distilled everything down to love.

The morning after the parade, Jesus went straight to the Temple. What He found there wasn't shocking by the standards of the day — this was business as usual. The money changers and dove sellers had set up shop in the Court of the Gentiles, the one area of the Temple where non-Jews were allowed to come and pray. They had turned the only space available to outsiders into a marketplace. And Jesus would not let it stand.

Jerusalem has seen plenty of rulers make their entrance. Roman generals came through on warhorses with soldiers behind them and weapons gleaming in the sun. The message was always the same: power is here, and power demands submission. When Jesus came over the Mount of Olives, the crowd expected the same energy — finally, their conquering King had arrived.

Have you ever been given an amazing gift that you didn't even know you needed? Sometimes a loved one knows us so well that they can see what will light up our souls, even before we can see it ourselves. That's how Paul describes the gift of reconciling with God in 2 Corinthians 5. It's not something we earn or gain through penance — it's a gift from a God who loves to celebrate when we are no longer separated from Him.

To feel the weight of today’s passage, it helps to know what the Most Holy Place was. In the Jewish temple, it was the innermost room — the place where God's presence was believed to dwell. A thick curtain separated it from everything else. Only the high priest could enter, and only once a year, on the Day of Atonement, carrying blood to make atonement for the sins of the people. Everyone else? You kept your distance. You did not just walk in.

So often, we feel guilty before God. Logically, we know that the cross has assured our pardon. We know that God’s grace has covered all our sin. We know that our guilt has been erased. 

Have you ever wondered what God is thinking whenever we come back to Him after we've sinned? Luke 15 answers that question with the story of a wayward son and an expectant father. Like many of us, the wayward son goes out on his own, trying to make it in a broken world. He leaves behind a good father and the comfort and security of a life connected to him. And on his journey, he discovers what many of us eventually find apart from Christ: emptiness and brokenness.