This is the fourth of seven posts highlighting lessons we can learn from a variety of different Bible characters. [From Luke 19:1-10]   It’s a warm day in Jericho; the city is bustling as usual with people traveling through and doing business in town. Zacchaeus is glad that he’s the chief tax collector here, for Jericho is a wealthy city. A very wealthy city. This wealth provides extra revenue for the royal family, and also a fat living for people such as himself. As the overseer of the town’s tax collection process, he lives extremely well. He’s at the top of a financial pyramid (sort of like modern-day multi-level marketing) with tax collectors who work for him, and he gets a cut of every transaction. The system is corrupt, so he fleeces his own people, who are helpless and have no way to complain or push back. At least from a financial perspective, life is good for Zacchaeus. But today, Zacchaeus has more than money on his mind. Jesus will be passing through town a...

This is the fifth in a series of six posts leading up to Easter. This period – often called Lent - can be a time of preparation and observance as we reflect on what Jesus did for us. When I first started teaching English to fifth graders, I was teaching in a Catholic school. Every week all the students took turns going to the chapel where they stepped into the confessional booth to confess their sins to a priest, and seek repentance for their sins from God.  Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of  refreshing may come from the Lord. (Acts 3:19) Being a Protestant, I never had viewed this experience before, and found it interesting to observe the reactions of my students. Some of them made light of it and seemed to get little out of it. Others approached this as a way to humbly…and sincerely…repent and get right with God. They took God seriously, they took confession of sin seriously, and they believed in a lovin...

When Jesus was nailed to the cross, his enemies thought they had won. And why not? After all, his very existence was a threat to the existing social and religious order. What better way to get rid of a nuisance like Jesus than to kill him painfully and shamefully through the act of crucifixion. Crucifixion was a penalty reserved for the worst and the lowest; for the scum of society. It was the preferred form of capital punishment for criminals and rebellious slaves; for traitors and rebels who promoted insurrection against the government. It was so gruesome, so painful, so disgraceful that it was more than an act of execution: it was an act of torture. Needless to say, it served as a strong form of deterrence because no one…no one…wanted to be crucified.  Crucifixion was such a cruel and degrading form of punishment that all sorts of writers and historians – both secular and sacred – quailed at describing it with any significant detail. Surely God did not intend for hi...