Michigan in the summer. The creamery outside of Fennville is bringing out the summer chèvre. We put fire to some charcoal just before the rain put us to flight, grill-on-wheels, beneath the tall porch. Rhubarb pie with ice cream. May is little anniversaries ripe with godly sorrow, repentance. Salvation. The psalm this morning spoke of the Bread of angels and the cravings of humanity. It was as if Someone knew. In three days I will travel to Wisconsin. If the Lord wills, we will live.

The Resurrection of Jesus Christ is literally the most joyful thing that has ever happened in the world. Without exaggeration, it does not make sense to be happier about anything else in the world, ever. You were guilty and broken. God did not simply settle the debt – bring you back to zero, so you could start over. He put his Spirit within you and made you alive with Christ. The whole world was our graveyard, but in the resurrection we have been given Eden – and better than Eden: Eden incorruptible.

Worship Jesus today. Worship Father, Son, and Holy Spirit for what God did in the tomb early Easter Sunday morning. And I’m not going to tell you outright how you should worship, but I’m going to hint in some directions. Think of how you behave when you’re really enjoying something. You probably do some or all of these things: laugh, sing, whistle, shout, jump up and down, clap, pray, smile, hug someone, sway back and forth, bake a cake. If you do any of these things (or other things to express joy), then they indicate some elements you should incorporate into your worship of Christ today because of his resurrection. In fact, you should probably get a little ridiculous in order to be reacting properly to the goodness of this news. Christ is Risen. CHRIST IS RISEN!

Also, while we’re talking superlatives, do you realize that everyone needs to know about this event?

We have a tendency to measure our lives according to the calendar year. Near the end of December we make an account of the year, and, finding ourselves fallen short, resolve to do better the next year. The year ends, a new year begins, and we grow some.

Dear friend, the world ended on Good Friday. More has happened than you can account for. You are both the guilty and the victim. Bring your entire world to the cross, and confess that it is finished. Though it is not yet fully visible, on the cross, your world was condemned and destroyed. Armageddon is but the light of distant stars that will finally reach us someday, years after the true event has happened. Share in the death of Christ. Those who die this way will live.

Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out.
John 12:31

…if one died for all, then all died…
2 Cor 5:14-15

Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.  But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
Isaiah 53:4-5

(addressed to myself, in the second person) 1. Carry half a sandwich in your pocket. You might get hungry, and others seem to find it fairly entertaining if you’ve prepared for this contingency by that means. Also, dogs will love you. 2. If you must speak of your future, speak humbly and sparingly before God. Think [...]

As Christians, we must not allow the way that we have offended others to go unexamined. Rather, we must reflect on the ways in which we have shared in offending others, whether individually or as the inheritors of a corporate wrong. The result of such reflection is nothing less than the authentication of the gospel [...]

I can imagine a day when I will learn to flick spiders away, rather than smashing them between my thumb and forefinger. I will even learn to live at peace with the sci-fi centipede creatures that dwell in this house and, occasionally, haunt my dreams. sock ties, independent coffee roasteries, fava beans, basmati rice, curry [...]

The greatest argument for the pure arbitrariness of our division of time is surely found in those fleeting moments of waking whose perceived length I can never seem to reconcile with the measurements of any clock. Our comprehension of the word moment is a strange thing anyway, I suppose. It is nothing short of baffling [...]

i nearly hit a doe as i rounded a curve at 4 a.m. only the very fringes of my low beams caught the slope of its back before it leapt into full illumination. to know is to remember? (all things pass, few are known.) we are flooded with angles, lines, curves, we pass through them, [...]

writing is compression of thought. and thought itself, compression of experience. i have nothing to write because i have no thoughts. only a flood of un-compressable experience. but sometimes i wake up and i am thirsty. sometimes i am not hungry for a long time. my dreams have not arrived in Africa yet – i [...]