Each Sunday throughout Lent, my church has prayed The Great Litany, a liturgy formed by petitions. As a follower of Christ working in national security, this petition has arrested my soul every week:

To make wars to cease in all the world, and to give to all nations unity, peace, and concord:

We beseech you to hear us, good Lord.

The problem of war is the motivating question of…

And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.’

St. John’s description of the crucifixion of our Lord is dramatically paralleled in the Flemish painter…

Today is Maundy Thursday, the day faithful Christians memorialize the several events surrounding Christ’s final Passover meal, which he observed in the company of his closest friends—well, in the company of mostly his closest friends. This evening initiates the _Paschal Triduum_ , the three-day sequence commemorating the passion, crucifixion, death, burial, and resurrection. “Maundy” derives from…

On Holy Wednesday, the day prior to the Last Supper, Jesus lodged in Bethany at the home of Simon the Leper on the southern slope of the Mount of Olives. While there, a woman, probably Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, anointed Jesus with spikenard—gesturing to and declaring Jesus’ messianic and kingly character. There’s some confusion as to precisely who all the key players are, including…

The events of Holy Tuesday follow directly from Monday’s temple clearing, during which, among much else, Jesus manifest his messianic claims. Questioning his right to do such things, the Pharisees strove to discredit his authority. Holy Tuesday depicts the multiple conspiracies to entangle Jesus, efforts to find him in contempt of legal, theological, or scriptural norms. Jesus dealt deftly with…

In its splendor, the second temple in Jerusalem that Jesus would have seen was far more magnificent than the more modest edifice—however miraculous in provenance—constructed by those Jewish exiles whose return to Jerusalem from Babylon is retold in the closing chapters of Second Chronicles and in Ezra and Nehemiah. The temple of Jesus’ day was one element of a reconstruction plan of astonishing…