That was over thirty years ago. I’ve been trying to figure out the way of Jesus ever since.

Becoming a Christian isn’t a one-time prayer experience that fills our brains with knowledge and our hearts with constant joy. It’s an ongoing process of learning and unlearning, wrestling and seeking our way toward greater freedom that has been offered to us in Christ. When we look all the way back to the beginning of the Church, we see that the very first Jesus followers had the same experience. The Twelve walked and talked with Jesus, then worked to share His story and build His Church. As people from an array of non-Jewish cultures joined the fold, new believers had to contend with a huge question: “What must we do to be saved?”

When a particularly confusing debate arose in Antioch over the need for Gentile believers to adopt Jewish traditions, the apostles and elders gathered in Jerusalem to work it out. The Jerusalem Council was a time to debate, all in an effort to discern the true essentials of following Jesus. I love how Peter expressed the heart of God in his speech to the council: “He made no distinction between us and them, cleansing their hearts by faith. Now then, why are you testing God by putting a yoke on the disciples’ necks that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear?” (Acts 15:9–10).

In a diverse, growing community, Peter stood up for the newcomers who didn’t have the insider knowledge of Jewish culture. Bringing all nations into the family is what Jesus commissioned them to do, after all. Paul and Barnabas backed it up with exciting stories from their missionary travels. James advocated for a simple way, because “we should not cause difficulties for those among the Gentiles who turn to God” (v.19).

Doesn’t this feel freeing? Following Jesus was never meant to be burdensome, and it’s certainly not meant to erase the incredible diversity of the kingdom. It’s a narrow way, true, but a narrow way marked by freedom (Galatians 5:1).

The result of this conversation was the Jerusalem letter, a message to Gentile believers, written to ease their confusion and give clear direction. It was clearly what they needed to hear, because, “when they read it, they rejoiced because of its encouragement” (Acts 15:31). Not only that, the council sent leaders to these churches to offer them presence and guidance. There is always more to learn and room to grow, but, thank God, we don’t have to do it alone.

Now I live in a New England city where I can stand on my porch and hear the bells of the local Catholic parish peal at 6:00 p.m. Some say we’re the least churched part of the country, but I still see our vibrant history in every simple town church. My own community meets in a century-old building with towering stained glass and a modern light system. Meanwhile, in parts of China and the Middle East, underground churches flourish despite hostile conditions, and our neighbors to the Global South are among the fastest growing branches of the Christian faith’s family tree.

In just over 2,000 years, the Church has become so much bigger than the group of disciples that first walked with Jesus. Sprawling, messy, and yes, often dysfunctional, we now reach into every far-flung corner of the world. In today’s reading, we get a glimpse of the earliest days of a fledgling Church and everything this family could be.

The first Christians were a people driven by bold belief and unshakeable trust. Herod, Pilate, the Roman Empire, and even some Jewish leaders chose unthinkable violence against Jesus (Acts 4:27), but His followers didn’t answer with revenge. Instead, they came together as a force of goodness, care, and love. No one among them knew need, because “the entire group of those who believed were of one heart and mind, and no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but instead they held everything in common” (Acts 4:32).

This leads me to wonder, could this kind of unity be possible in the Church today? We are a mixed bag, with a history of triumphs and failures. Our history is darkened by internal wars, conquering Crusades, scandals, and secret sins. And our history holds great good too—the creation of hospitals, the civil rights movement, and the notion that every human has inherent worth and dignity.

Perhaps Jesus was imagining this messy, beautiful future when He prayed for not only His disciples but every follower to come: “May they all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us, so that the world may believe you sent me” (John 17:21).

What if we came to see the strength in our diversity? What if we rejected the chase for power and the need to be right and instead reoriented everything toward a deepening friendship with Jesus? When we let go of our fear and open our hands, when we ensure there are no needy among us, we may find ourselves living as citizens of God’s kingdom, not an earthly empire.

As Peter and John arrived for afternoon prayer, they met a man who was “lame from birth” (Acts 3:2), a daily sight at the temple gate. He asked for spare change, but Peter gave him something far more valuable—healing for his broken body. And of course, the crowd noticed. This once invisible beggar was “walking, leaping, and praising God,” and “they were filled with awe and astonishment at what had happened to him” (Acts 3:8,10).

No doubt Jerusalem was still buzzing with rumors about Jesus’s resurrection. And here, once again, miracles were springing up around two of Jesus’s closest followers. And this is where Peter started a sermon that might as well have begun, “We need to talk.”

“The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our ancestors, has glorified his servant Jesus,” Peter claims before issuing a volley of strong accusations. “You,” he says to these devout worshipers, “handed [him] over….You denied the Holy and Righteous One….You killed the source of life, whom God raised from the dead” (vv.13–15).

But even these strong words couldn’t break their familial bond. He called them “brothers and sisters,” even as he begged them to “repent and turn back, so that your sins may be wiped out, that seasons of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord” (vv.17,19–20). He called them fellow Israelites, appealing to the heritage and promise they shared.

It’s a striking response. But Peter knew what it is to repent, to be forgiven, to be refreshed.

Though they killed the source of life, an invitation to resurrection awaited. Though it would make sense for Jesus’s closest friends and followers to cut them off, Peter called them family. Though feeling the weight of sin called out can bring a whole set of painful emotions—shame, guilt, embarrassment, and regret—Peter’s sermon is a reminder that it doesn’t have to mean the fracturing of relationships. This calling back into community, to repentance, is one more step toward healing and restoration.

The good news of Jesus’s resurrection is victory over death, not just in our bodies. There’s hope for the healing of everything broken and an opportunity to restore humanity to life.

As I imagine this scene, here is Gabriel, outside in the garden or standing in the room, glowing with heavenly light. There is Mary, shrinking back in astonishment, interrupted in her chores or other daily duties. Religious art reflects the cultures and time periods that created them, but the one thing in common is those two haloed characters: a divine messenger and an ordinary girl.

Lovely as they are, what these paintings usually miss is Mary’s lived experience in first century Galilee.

Kelley Nikondeha paints a vivid picture of Mary’s world in her book The First Advent in Palestine. We may imagine the people of Israel breathlessly waiting for a Messiah, and that was true for some communities in ancient Israel. The southern kingdom, Judea, was home to Jerusalem, a city immersed in temple culture where rabbis debated the finer points of Torah and Davidic history.

But Mary was a Galilean, northern villager likely trying to survive. I imagine the people of her town practiced their faith and waited for the Messiah the way we, too, wait for Jesus to return. We hope for the new creation, but bills must be paid and meals must be made.

So imagine what it would be like for a girl from one of these humble villages to find herself at the center of an improbable announcement: “Now listen: You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus.” (Luke 1:31) No wonder she was so “deeply troubled” and her first reaction was a perplexed, “How can this be?” (v.34).

What if waiting with hope feels more like a smoldering ember than a blazing fire? None of us has to look far to see that the world is not as it should be. We can rage at the headlines, or we can numb out. We can deeply engage, or we can keep plodding along, trying to survive.

But what does it look like to notice where God is already here, working, announcing the kingdom to come? What if we linger in these last few days of Advent, scanning our headlines for the helpers, highlighting the glimmers of peace and hope that are already here.

Later, when Joseph, too, felt rocked by this improbable news, an angel gave him the same encouraging words Mary heard: “Don’t be afraid….She will give birth a son, and you are to name him Jesus.” (Matthew 1:20–21)

And so the story took place in unexpected places, in wombs and in dreams, in villages and in temples. God is making all things new.

It’s the same with God’s kingdom. Long before Jesus’s birth and life on earth, the first foundation of God’s cultural expectations were laid by stone tablets on a wilderness mountain.

The Ten Commandments are God’s law in broad strokes, less about punitive rules and more about the ways of relating to God and each other. Then comes the rest of the Law (or Torah), which might feel strange to the modern, Western perspective. Many Christians even say it doesn’t matter because Jesus released us from all that, right? Mix fabrics all you want! Eat some bacon! Why are there so many rules? Who could keep them all anyway?

And yet, Jesus also said, “Don’t think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to abolish but to fulfill” (Matthew 5:17). As a rabbi, living according to the law and teaching his disciples the same was essential to His religion. Even when He expanded, clarified, or outright contradicted everything people thought—“You heard it said, but I say to you”—He never lost His deep respect for this part of His community’s story.

So what if the law never was about arbitrary rules? When Moses and his band of wanderers came out of Egypt, they were taught to “listen to the statutes and ordinances….Carefully follow them, for this will show your wisdom and understanding in the eyes of the peoples” (Deuteronomy 4:1,6). The law was not just a bunch of rules to make life harder. It was God’s way of showing His people and all their neighbors what He values. They’re like “house rules” for God’s family, all about honoring one God, taking a Sabbath rest, and treating their neighbors with dignity and respect.

During Advent, we reflect on how Jesus came to inaugurate a new kingdom, one not bound by tribal affiliation. This new kingdom needed a new relationship to the law. Jesus didn’t throw out what God began centuries before, but instead honored, challenged, and expanded on it. And even today, when we find ourselves struggling to live out kingdom values, we can trust the Holy Spirit to help us. After all, “there is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus, because the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death” (Romans 8:1–2).

The law was given to show what it’s like when people walk with God, but Jesus shows us what happens when God walks among us. And with His Spirit, we can keep walking together until He comes to walk with us again.

From our perspective, this story of Mary anointing Jesus feels like a story about extravagant, impractical worship. “Then Mary took a pound of perfume, pure and expensive nard, anointed Jesus’s feet, and wiped his feet with her hair. So the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume” (John 12:3). Judas griped about this foolish woman’s wastefulness. Jesus came to her defense, honoring her actions as beautiful.

I know for most of my life, I thought the lesson I should get from this story was, “Look at how freely Mary gives her worship! You should do that too!” But if I’m honest, there’s a little bit of my reserved, practical self that wonders if maybe Judas has a point. Dig a little deeper, and questions start to surface. Why perfume? Why all of it, and not just a tasteful dab? Everything about this moment feels so lavish and impractical, and if I were in Mary’s shoes, I know I’d feel ashamed for being so extra.

Thankfully, Jesus didn’t see it that way at all. He saw how Mary overflowed with gratitude to her teacher, her friend, the healer who elevated her at every turn and raised her beloved brother from death. Her response echoed the work of her ancestors, who lavished their most expensive fragrant oils on priests and instruments and altars (Exodus 30:23–33). In her world, this kind of anointing was kept for only the most sacred tasks. What could be more sacred than the anointing Jesus carried: “…to bring good news to the poor…to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives…to give them…festive oil instead of mourning” (Isaiah 61:1–3)?

“Leave her alone,” the Anointed One admonished Judas as the perfume dripped from Him. “She has kept it for the day of my burial” (John 12:7). In this moment, while the plot to kill him built to a crescendo and before He had ridden into Jerusalem on a humble donkey to walk toward His destiny in Jerusalem, perhaps the gift of Mary’s anointing was the scent of courage.

Nehemiah returned from exile to help rebuild Jerusalem’s wall, but he found even deeper problems brewing. The poorest families were struggling to get by, resorting to predatory loans so they could pay taxes and buy food. Noble landowners were charging their own people interest, an illegal practice according to the law (Deuteronomy 23:19–20). The rich grew richer, maybe seeing it as smart business. The poor grew poorer, and Nehemiah saw their suffering.

Did Nehemiah join the complaints or keep his head down? Not at all. Nehemiah’s anger compelled him to act. “After seriously considering the matter,” he went straight to the source of the problem—the oppressive nobles and officials who were holding their brothers and sisters down.

They’d broken the law, and they knew it. And remember, the whole point of the law was to set a higher standard, to show how God’s chosen people care for their neighbors. Nehemiah’s accusation was scathing and direct: “What you are doing isn’t right. Shouldn’t you walk in the fear of our God and not invite the reproach of our foreign enemies” (Nehemiah 5:9)?

Our world may be far different from Nehemiah’s, but the truth remains. Shouldn’t our actions reflect God’s care for all creation? Shouldn’t leaders be held to an even higher standard? Several centuries later, Paul (also an expert in the law!) encouraged a similar standard for the Christians in Rome. “Now we who are strong have an obligation to bear the weaknesses of those without strength…For even Christ did not please himself” (Romans 15:1,3).

Thankfully, Nehemiah’s run-in with the nobles came to a good end. Maybe it was shame or maybe it was genuine repentance that led them to end their corrupt practices and swear to return everything they’d taken. And the story doesn’t end there. Nehemiah eventually became governor of the land of Judah, and he led by example, not even accepting the salary he was due “because the burden on the people was so heavy” (Nehemiah 5:18).

We may be overwhelmed by the injustice of the world. But look up and listen. See the pain of people closest to you. Consider how you could lovingly but fiercely work for repentance and restoration. Prayerfully use the influence you have, even if it’s as small as your family, your neighborhood, or your town. Perhaps together, we could live out healing and rebuild our world, honoring the God who makes all things new.

In the Judaic tradition, few loom larger as key cultural figures than prophets. Ezekiel, Daniel, Elijah, Isaiah, and Jeremiah are metaphorical giants of the ancient tradition, acting as the voice of God to His people in difficult times. But at the closing of the Old Testament, their great tradition seemed to end. Centuries passed, kingdoms rose and fell, and God’s people found themselves surviving under Caesar’s power. But God was preparing a voice to speak once more.

Rumors circulated about a strange man in the wilderness. Some said he wore camel-hair and ate bugs, recalling to them old stories about Elijah. Some said he had a miraculous birth, the first child of a barren, old woman. He was ascetic and eccentric, unafraid to preach repentance and shout down wealthy religious leaders, yet he’d baptize anyone willing to confess their sins. Soon everyone was talking about this “voice of one crying out in the wilderness” (Matthew 3:3).

This was John, and they called him the Baptizer. He was strange but compelling, bold but humble. Yet even though his preaching and personality drew crowds, he had no interest in building fame for himself. “The one who is coming after me is more powerful than I,” he insisted. “I am not worthy to remove his sandals.” (Matthew 3:11)

Through so much of Scripture, we see God working through ordinary people, using them to call His people back to Himself. When God’s people were at their lowest under the Roman Empire, John proclaimed the long-awaited Messiah was coming—and soon! John was God’s voice in the wilderness to once again remind them that a sacred lineage, accumulated wealth, and favor with an empire wouldn’t actually save anyone. In God’s economy, the poor and overlooked would be raised up.

To those who had the heart to hear, John was preparing them for a Messiah who would not look anything like what they expected.

We don’t know exactly what sparked John’s calling to give his life proclaiming the Messiah’s arrival. But John, larger-than-life and unafraid to speak truth to power, was human too. While in prison for offending Herod’s wife, he sent a message to Jesus and asked: “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?” (Matthew 11:3). Under this question was a more vulnerable one: “Was it all a waste?”

Like God appearing to Elijah at his lowest, Jesus met John’s wavering with assurance: “Go and report to John what you hear and see.” Healing for broken bodies, the dead raised, good news to the poor — all the wonders John himself had proclaimed. “And blessed is the one who isn’t offended by me” (Matthew 11:4–6).

John is remembered, in Jesus’s words, as “more than a prophet.” (Matthew 11:9,14) His presence helped break up long-fallow ground and prepare a nation’s heart for Jesus’s message and miracles, to make way for the coming of a humble Messiah and King.

Written by Jen Yokel

Is there any couple more famous than Adam and Eve? Their story is woven into our culture and history. We tell it to children to explain everything—from why we wear clothes to why people die. Yet in a story with a talking serpent and supernatural trees, Adam and Eve’s story still endures because in them, we see something true about the beauty and complexity of being human.

When I was a child, I learned to see this story as the tale of how things got so broken. Adam and Eve are removed from me and easy to blame. But the truest thing about them is who they reflected from the start. “So God created man in his own image…he created them male and female” (Genesis 1:27).

To be made in God’s image is a mystery, but I imagine it means that, at our best, we are a reflection of His goodness and truth. In Adam and Eve we see glimpses of God’s delight, creativity, and care as they cultivated and watched over Eden. They weren’t just empty creations but friends of God and chosen caretakers for a beautiful world.

Until…well, we know the rest of the story. “The woman…took some of its fruit and ate it; she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew they were naked” (Genesis 3:6–7).

The story of the fall is unsettling to read and opens more questions than it gives answers. We try to explain it away with theology or heap blame on Eve or Adam or both. We may even feel bold enough to wonder if God was overreacting.

But all of Scripture tells us that God is good, kind, and merciful. If we believe this is the core of God’s character, how does the story change?

When God approached them during His evening walk, they were hiding, shivering and scared, wrapped in leaves. It never occurred to them to be scared of their friend. God came to them with questions. “Where are you?” “What have you done?” (Genesis 3:9,13).

I used to imagine these as angry questions, but now I hear a tender grief. His children had grown. Their eyes were opened to harsh reality. I wonder if God would’ve loved one more day to walk in the garden with them. I used to imagine God kicking them out and slamming the door. Now I see that God was gently preparing them for the journey with the parting gift of clothing for their shame.

Every story has a moment where the world is turned upside down, including the story of humanity. But we know God was not abandoning His people forever. The first steps out of the garden were into a future of heartache, joy, and everything in between. 

I imagine they had barely set foot on the road before God was planning a way to meet them again.

In the drama of Holy Week, Saturday is a sacred pause between the sorrow of Good Friday and the triumph of Resurrection Sunday. I spent most of my life skipping right over this day, glossing over it. After all, don’t we call Good Friday good because Sunday’s coming? But as I’ve gotten older and experienced more waiting seasons, grief, and dark nights, Holy Saturday has become more precious. In the darkness, I find a solemn companion.

Friday is despair and Sunday is joy. But Saturday is a day for waiting, as the psalmist says, “more than watchmen for the morning” (Psalm 130:6). After the final words, the final breath, and the earth-quaking enormity of Jesus’s death, His followers were scattered and heartbroken. Even in the grim aftermath, there were still moments of courage, tenderness, and grace.

Joseph, a rich man from Arimathea and disciple of Jesus, wouldn’t let Jesus be dishonored any further. He requested Jesus’s body for a proper burial. As a member of the Sanhedrin, aligning himself with Jesus in such a public way was a huge risk to his reputation, but that didn’t matter to him. Instead of leaving Jesus to a dishonorable criminals’ burial, Joseph made room in his own family tomb. 

Many disciples went into hiding, but the women who loved Jesus followed Him all the way to His burial site. They “observed the tomb and how his body was placed” so they could return after the Sabbath and properly lay His body to rest (Luke 23:55). Their generosity is noticeable to me here. While the empire would treat Jesus as a criminal, His friends offered as close to a kingly funeral as they could manage.

Of course, this level of devotion raised some fear from the religious leaders who called for Jesus’s crucifixion in the first place. Jesus had said He’d rise again in three days, hadn’t He? The leaders went to Pilate—on the Sabbath, no less!—and raised their anxieties. What if it was all a conspiracy to keep the deception going? What if his followers actually plotted to “steal him, and tell the people, ‘He has been raised from the dead’” (Matthew 27:64)? I imagine Pilate was ready to be done with the whole deal when he told them to go and make the tomb as secure as they could. 

A tomb that can’t be opened from the inside. A seal on the door and guards at the ready. There’s a finality to this scene that deserves a moment of lingering. Jesus was buried, and all truly felt finished.

Perhaps you have buried something too—dreams, desires, maybe even hope itself. How does it feel to lock them away in the dark? How does it feel to wait? The psalmist also knew this feeling.

Put your hope in the LORD.
For there is faithful love with the LORD,
and with him is redemption in abundance. 
—Psalm 130:7

May you know this hope today. May you find a glimpse of redemption in your waiting, for every good thing that’s been buried could still live again.

Written by Jen Yokel