In working through Matthew’s Passion for our Lenten Devotions this year, I’ve been struck again by some of the really difficult elements of his story. In particular, at several points he seems to work pretty hard to exonerate the Romans, and particularly Pontius Pilate, of responsibility for Jesus’ death and to cast that responsibility and blame onto the Jewish religious authorities and crowds. All of the gospels do that to some degree or another, but Matthew goes to greater lengths (although John’s Gospel comes in a close second). His is the only passion narrative, for instance, in which Pilate washes his hands of Jesus’...

I need you help. I started this blog just prior to Ash Wednesday last year with the intention of posting a daily devotion on Mark’s story of Jesus’ passion. It was a way, I thought, of responding to the number of church’s I’d noticed that weren’t producing parish Lenten devotions any more. And then I figured that as long as I had a blog up and going, I could maybe post on something else once in a while Well…the once in a while became everyday (Sundays excepted!) and I enjoyed writing and sharing the Lenten devotions so much that I decided to continue, and so was born the “Daily Bread” devotions. Mark’s story of the...

Tommorow we begin our detailed look at the Passion of Jesus according to St. Mark, a journey that will take us through the 40 days of Lent. I thought that a final word of preparation would be in order; in a sense, a preview of the Passion in which we will immerse ourselves. Martin Kähler, a German biblical scholar who lived and wrote at the turn of the twentieth century, once called Mark “a passion narrative with a long introduction.” When you read through Mark up to chapter 14, the start of the “passion narrative” proper, you get a sense of what Kähler meant. Jesus predicts his death and resurrection at several points. The tension...