. . . and the firmament proclaims God’s handiwork! In a churchyard in Ohio, USA, at the center of eclipse “totality,” Ellen and I watched in amazement yesterday as the moon slid in front of the sun. Through dense solar filter glasses we saw earth’s satellite take a progressively larger bite out of our closest…
“Dead” on the sidewalk in Holy Week
(Photo by Greg Swiercz, South Bend Tribune.) On Wednesday of Holy Week I lay “dead” with others on a cold sidewalk for forty-five minutes outside the office of our Congressman Rudy Yakym in Mishawaka, Indiana. (I am the second person from the camera, in the olive jacket.) The Congressman sends out mailings saying, “Israel needs…
Dog in the Manger
Near Bethlehem Bible College, where I was teaching a year ago, the “separation wall” is thick with graffiti registering anger, frustration, and yearning. Almost daily I walked down Star Street in Bethlehem to the Church of the Nativity to pray for justice and peace in a land with so much suffering. Visits to the manger…
(Corrected) Christmas is canceled in Bethlehem this year
(For those of you who get to this blog by an email notice, I am resending this story. The link in the first version I sent out did not work. Sorry!) Christmas is canceled in Bethlehem this year. Take a few minutes to hear Palestinian Christian voices from Bethlehem and Jerusalem this Advent season. During…
Christmas is cancelled in Bethlehem this year
Christmas is canceled in Bethlehem this year. Normally that would sound like the beginning of a joke, but this year it is deadly serious. During the academic year 2022-23 I had the privilege of being a visiting scholar at Bethlehem Bible College where Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac is academic dean. He also is the senior…
The things that make for peace
“As Jesus came near and saw the city of Jerusalem, he wept over it, saying, ‘If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes’” (Luke 19:41,42). Safe back at home in Indiana, getting over jet lag from being in Jerusalem,…
Painful paradox in Palestine
Jerusalem is in the midst of Sukkot, the seven-day Festival of Booths (Lev. 23:39–43). It’s one of three festivals for which the Torah says God’s people should come to the Holy City. Sukkot is both a harvest event and a time to remember God’s faithfulness when Israelites were vulnerable in the wilderness. People celebrating Sukkot…
Holy Fire
This is Great Saturday of Orthodox Pascha (Easter) weekend. Thousands gather every year outside the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, awaiting Holy Fire from the empty tomb. Today Ellen and I were hosted by a friend for lunch next to Manger Square in Bethlehem when the report came that the flame had appeared…
Hope in a polarized world
How easily I get entangled in the divisions of church and society! Do you also get discouraged or angry? I set out to find help and hope in the Bible, in ancient Judaism, in Jesus, in the early church, and in the witness of Christians in our time. This book (released April 11) logs what…
A house of prayer for all nations
This Holy Week my wife Ellen and I joined 15,000 jubilant Christians for a Palm Sunday procession from Bethphage on the Mount of Olives to Old City Jerusalem. On this photo the multitude is descending the Mount of Olives into Kidron Valley. At top center is the golden Dome of the Rock where the temple…
Holy Lands Peace Pilgrim 