Jesus at 2AM - A Humorous, Intelligent Look at the Bible, Church History & the Life of Faith

Doubt, true doubt (not the mere intellectual variety, but the deep questioning an agonized soul), is one of the most painful and most necessary aspects of the life of faith. All the great saints have been through it. From Augustine in his Confessions to St. John of the Cross's Dark Night of the Soul, the church […]

True faith doesn't happen in an instant. At least it didn't for Peter…or James or John (Jesus's innermost circle)! Honest faith is a process that unfolds over a lifetime, and contains elements of wonder, doubt, confusion, awe, more confusion, agony, guilt, healing… This up-and-down, in-and-out journey is the authentic process of transformation (sanctification), and is […]

Here we get a first, detailed look into Jesus's ministry of healing and exorcism. (Luke has mentioned such activity in the past, but finally we get are given a description of an actual event.) In this episode, regular contributor Rev. Ian Farrell demonstrates that there is much more to Jesus's "healings" than mere demonstrations of divine power. […]

Why did Jesus provoke such rage in his religious contemporaries? And why do we still often bristle ourselves at his words? While we imagine that one who brings God's word of salvation would be warmly welcomed – at least by us! Yet history and the human condition reveal that we often "can't handle the truth" […]

Growth in love requires us to step into the unknown, to take the path of risk and dependence upon God. In this episode we look at Jesus's 40-day journey into the wilderness. It is there he faces the temptation to other, easier "loves" (what are – in reality – false loves). And it is there […]

An enigmatic figure in his day and in ours! In this episode we examine the ministry of John the Baptist – a prophet in the style of Elijah who came preaching both warning and welcome as preparation for the coming of Jesus. In particular, we'll interpret John in light of his contemporaries and how his […]

The central question of Israel's faith in the first century boiled down to this: What must we do to provoke God to complete his project of salvation? It had been centuries since the temple – destroyed during the Babylonian invasion – had been restored, and yet the glory of God had not returned. Some attempts […]

The "annunciation" to Mary of Jesus's birth is, at one level, a very gracious encounter between God and a young girl – the divine revelation that, with Mary's permission, she will be the means through which God's messiah enters into creation. And it involves one of the great miracles of the biblical story – the pregnancy […]

Luke opens on a darkened scene. Herod, a despotic ruler installed by Rome, sits on David's throne in Jerusalem – a powerful symbol that Israel is far from where she expected to be. The first character we meet is Zechariah – an aged priest of a childless wife – coming to due his religious duty in the […]

The Apostle Luke is often regarded as an historian. His book, Acts (of the Apostles), is a highly detailed description of the events of the early church, and he describes his "gospel" as a carefully investigated "orderly account" of Jesus's life. Both are the sort of literature we find in other ancient histories. But Luke's […]