Jesus entered the village of Nain, walked straight into a funeral procession and jolted life into a dead man. The only son of a widow, the mother depended on the boy. Jesus’s act placed her back on solid footing in a society where childless widows faced desperate futures.

It doesn’t appear that Jesus knew this woman or her son before he strolled into town. However, it didn’t take much for Jesus to understand the woman’s predicament. Jesus acted with compassion and mercy in reanimating the son.

Also, neither the woman nor her son show any previous knowledge of the man who crashed their ceremony. Jesus played his trump card over death for a family who didn’t follow him or profess faith in him—at least not yet.

Along with mother and son, the entire burial entourage experienced an impossible miracle. Hope born again. Heaven invaded their village for a day.

Of course, funerals don’t end miraculously. We experience tragic deaths and broken families again and again. This side of heaven they won’t go away.

But when Jesus arrived, a new hope entered those around him. It’s good to ask him to show up unexpectedly and fill us with his presence, whether we see hoped-for miracles or not.

Luke 7 in reading the Bible in 2023

Photo by panyawat auitpol

When strolling through museums in Italy, one sees numerous statues missing various body parts. The one pictured above bears the description: Headless statue depicting an emperor.

The sculptor used a rare type of marble, the expense pointing to the wealth of the benefactor. A powerful man went to great lengths to preserve his image for all posterity to remember him by.

Until his head got knocked off. How did that happen? Earthquake? Barbarians? A tiny fault line in the stone? Dropped during a move? Regardless, the identity rolled off with the head. No one today knows which emperor this statue represents.

The psalmist wrote of idols, words also appropriate for headless statues of emperors: They have mouths, but cannot speak, eyes, but cannot see. They have ears, but cannot hear, noses, but cannot smell. They have hands, but cannot feel, feet, but cannot walk, nor can they utter a sound with their throats. Those who make them will be like them, and so will all who trust in them.

Those who commission statues of themselves eventually turn out just like them—unhearing, unseeing, unfeeling. They join a long list of celebrities who flash and fade.

Instead of creating statues, let us enjoy this blessing shared by the psalmist: May the Lord cause you to flourish, both you and your children. May you be blessed by the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.

We grow hard and lose our heads when we honor ourselves. We flourish, along with our families, as we give attention to the Lord. Enjoy his blessings today as you keep the faith.

Psalm 115 in reading the Bible in 2023

We don’t know exactly why the Lord destroyed the nations of the promised land as the Israelites entered. Apparently their extreme cruelty exhausted the Lord’s patience. Nowadays, based on a cursory reading of these narratives, many describe God as angry, judgmental, and capricious.

But what if this God in the Old Testament is the same God who wants all to come to repentance? What if God—in his love—sent prophet after prophet to win them back?

What if people wholeheartedly devoted themselves to demonic gods, even zealously offering their children as sacrifices? How would we feel if forced to watch babies slaughtered by priests, and burned alive to appease the spirits?

What if people not only scorned Jehovah, but killed his messengers and refused even a taste of water to those in thirst? How much evil would you be comfortable with before deciding to clean out the whole lot?

The Lord described these nations clearly: You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way, for every abominable thing that the Lord hates they have done for their gods, for they even burn their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods.

God can defend himself—he doesn’t need me. But I am wondering what types of abominable behavior pushes the gracious God I read about all through the scriptures to such extremes? Torturing babies screams social order beyond repair.

Which gets me thinking about societies today. How far is too far? God waits and waits and waits for folks to turn to him. However, the fate of those in the past who totally rejected the Lord and his ways reminds us that patience eventually runs dry.

Deuteronomy 12 in reading the Bible in 2023

Photo by AJITH S

The crypts at Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini top the list of creepiest places I’ve ever visited.

Over several hundred years, Capuchin friars buried 3,700 of their brothers in this Roman church. Carefully dismembering each body, the bones remained stacked in place for many years. Then one brother, serving penance for past sins, organized them into “artful” designs.

The Crypt of the Pelvis features arrangements on the walls and ceilings using hundreds of pelvic bones. The Crypt of the Skulls comes next, stacked floor to ceiling with skulls. Room after room of skeletal compositions greet the visitor. Dried corpses recline under arches of femurs.

As bizarre as the arrangements strike the eye, the grottos also convey a sense of rest. The Catholic order who oversees these tombs insists that the display is not meant to be gruesome, but a silent reminder of the swift passage of life on earth and our own mortality.

God’s words to Adam, for dust you are and to dust you shall return, ran through my mind as I paused in each crypt. The exhibition drove home the sense of finality to life and remarkably, the hope of a brighter future in eternity.

If ever in Rome, visit these crypts. Bones of friars who served the poor in life now encourage us to consider our way of living, and our hope in something better to come.

Genesis 3 in reading the Bible in 2023

Photo thanks to Walking Tours of Rome