April 2009 – Page 2 – 300 words a day

follower first

I was driving to a church. A family was inside. And a casket. And the body of a young woman. And her three children. And her husband of ten years. I was crying. I hadn’t cried much for a few days, since Saturday night when we heard she died. I mean, I had some, but […]

by Jon Swanson

friend of Judas

We know little about Simon the Zealot. I mean, we can read about the Zealots as a political movement in first century CE Israel. We can read about their desire to throw Rome out, to take Israel back. But we know little about him other than that he is listed with the twelve disciples every […]

by Jon Swanson

bait and switch

In advertising, bait and switch means that you offer a product at a steep discount to get people into the store. Then, when they show up, you get them to switch to something more expensive, something that they didn’t intent to buy, something that they can’t resist. I read the end of Matthew chapter 9 […]

by Jon Swanson

compassion

Jesus was preaching and teaching and healing. That’s what the text says. He was preaching and teaching and healing and he saw crowds. The text doesn’t say, though it implies, that the crowds were coming to where he was, because of what he was doing. The text does say, “When he saw the crowds, he […]

by Jon Swanson

into the house

Two blind guys knew Jesus healed blind guys. They followed him. They called to him, “have mercy on us.” We don’t know how far the followed him. We don’t know where they started following him. We know that they were with him after he left the house of the formerly dead daughter. Whether they had […]