Welcome to the last episode of our podcast series called Upside-Down Christmas. We’ve been working our way through the Gospel of Luke and asking how Jesus turns things on their heads. That is, how he takes conventional wisdom and conventional ways of doing things and turns them, well, upside down. And we’ve finally reached the end of our journey with the resurrection of Jesus in Luke 24. And perhaps of all the things we’ve talked about the resurrection of Jesus is the thing t

Welcome to our podcast called Upside-Down Christmas. We’ve been working our way through the Gospel of Luke one chapter at at time looking at the way the birth, life, ministry, and now the death of Jesus turns the world upside down. Chapter 23 tells the story of the trial, crucifixion and burial of Jesus. And one of the threads that runs throughout this chapter is the question of deserving. What is it that the people deserve? When the people bring Jesus to Pilate, Pilate finds

When the disciples were told that one of them would betray Jesus, Judas had already taken the money in exchange for handing over him to the authorities. Of course, Judas was one of Jesus’ disciples who had been with him for the life of his ministry. And he was there around the table. But the other disciples didn’t know. They were wondering if Jesus wasn’t making some prophesy about them—about one of them. They were nervous that it was them. And you can imagine that this is ho

It wasn’t uncommon to see someone making a spectacle at the offering box. Maybe it was a ring with a jewel—very valuable—and they’d tell of how it had been in their family for generations, but that now it was being given to the Lord and to his temple. And maybe they were sincere; but many of them were just doing it for show. They wanted to be in the spot light. They wanted not to just be generous but to have a reputation of generosity. Many donors—it was less about the donati