Today we’re joined by Dr. Tony as we talk about the central moment of the Christian faith. We talk about Jesus and the cross in Mt 27.15-56; Mk 15.6-41; Lk 23.13-49; Jn 18.38-19.37.

All four gospels bring you to the same hill, the same cross, the same Friday. And then each one tells you something the others don't.

This week Dr. Tony works through the crucifixion narratives, and the conversation keeps returning to a simple but demanding question: what is each gospel writer trying to show you about what is happening on this cross, and why does it matter that they don't all show you the same thing?

John frames the crucifixion as simultaneously atonement and enthronement. Jesus is the Lamb of God, dying on the very day the Passover lambs are slaughtered, and he is the king lifted up and exalted, just as he said he would be. "It is finished" means both that a life has ended and that a mission has been completed. John holds both things at once and will not let you separate them.

Luke gives you two prayers. The first is for the people killing him. The second is an act of complete trust spoken into what must have felt like complete darkness. And somewhere between those two prayers, a man dying beside him asks to be remembered, and receives the only explicit promise of paradise Jesus makes to anyone in any of the four gospels. No works. No baptism. No time for reform. Pure grace, with nowhere left to hide from it.

Matthew and Mark give you the cry of dereliction. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me. Dr. Tony opens up what it means that Jesus, for the first time in his life, could not feel the presence of God, and why that detail is the most painful thing in the entire Passion narrative, and also, read against the whole of Psalm 22, not the last word.

Readings for next week: Mt 27.57-66; Mk 15.42-47; Lk 23.50-56; Jn 19.38-42

Links mentioned in this episode:

- Dr. Tony’s notes on the crucifixion (https://www.stmartininthefields.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/The-Crucifixion.pdf)

- Rembrandt’s painting, The Sacrifice of Isaac (​​https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sacrifice_of_Isaac_(Rembrandt))

- Why Did Jesus Have To Die, by Adam Hamilton (https://www.abingdonpress.com/product/9781791040611/)

- Entering the Passion of Jesus: A Beginner's Guide to Holy Week (https://a.co/d/89u4GX8)

- Christ Chronological Bible (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/143364603X)

- Check us out on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/@biblelovepodcast)

Today we talk about denial, abandonment, and Jesus on trial in Mt 26.57-27.14;Mk 14.53-15.5; Lk 22.54-23.12; Jn 18.13-38.

Jesus is handed from one authority to another. Religious leaders to Pilate. Pilate to Herod. Herod back to Pilate. The proceedings are chaotic, the charges keep shifting, and through all of it Jesus is almost entirely alone.

This week Alan and Mary Balfour work through the trial narratives across all four gospels, and the differences between them turn out to be as instructive as the agreements. Each writer frames the proceedings through a distinct lens, and paying attention to what each one includes, and what each one leaves out, opens up the story in ways a single account never could.

Peter's denial runs alongside the hearing the whole time, and the fact that all four gospel writers include it is worth pausing on. The early church preserved the story of its most prominent leader's worst moment and built it into the center of the Passion narrative. That decision says something important about what the gospels are actually trying to do.

But the heart of the conversation this week is the loneliness of what Jesus endures. No supporters. No character witnesses. No one in the room on his side. Alan and Mary Balfour reflect on what it means that Jesus experienced this kind of abandonment, and why that matters to anyone who has ever felt completely alone. Jesus's faithfulness to God in his darkest moment is not a distant theological proposition. It is a word spoken directly into human suffering.

Readings for next week: Mt 27.15-56; Mk 15.6-41; Lk 23.13-49; Jn 18.38-19.37

Links mentioned in this episode:

- Zita of Tuscany (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zita)

- Education for Ministry (https://theology.sewanee.edu/education-for-ministry/)

- Entering the Passion of Jesus: A Beginner's Guide to Holy Week (https://a.co/d/89u4GX8)

- Christ Chronological Bible (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/143364603X)
- Check us out on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/@biblelovepodcast)

Today we talk about Jesus, the disciples, and the Garden of Gesthemene in Mt 26.36-56; Mk 14.32-52; Lk 22.40-53; Jn 18.1-12.

After the supper, Jesus goes to a garden. He asks his disciples to watch with him. They fall asleep. Three times.

This week Alan and Mary sit with the Agony in the Garden and the arrest, one of the few sequences that appears in all four gospels, and when all four gospels agree on something, that is worth paying close attention to. Each account tells the same story through a genuinely different lens, and the differences turn out to matter as much as the agreement.

Matthew, Mark, and Luke show you a Jesus in real anguish, asking if the cup can pass, returning again and again to a prayer he has to work through. John shows you something else entirely: a Jesus who arrives at the garden already resolved, who steps forward to meet the soldiers, says "I am," and watches them fall to the ground.

We also talk about what happens when the swords come out, and what Jesus says and does about it. One disciple swings at a servant and takes off his ear. Only Luke tells you Jesus healed it, right there in the middle of his own arrest. And then Alan addresses something that sits just underneath this whole passage: scripture is sometimes used to justify armed conflict, and Jesus's own words and actions in this garden push back on that directly. War may sometimes be necessary. It is never of God, and it is never for God.

This episode releases on the feast day of Toyohiko Kagawa, a Japanese Christian social reformer and pacifist from the early twentieth century. A link to learn more about him is in the show notes.

Readings for next week: Mt 26.57-27.14;Mk 14.53-15.5; Lk 22.54-23.12; Jn 18.13-38

Links mentioned in this episode:

- Toyohiko Kagawa (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyohiko_Kagawa)

- Entering the Passion of Jesus: A Beginner's Guide to Holy Week (https://a.co/d/89u4GX8)

- Christ Chronological Bible (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/143364603X)

- Check us out on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/@biblelovepodcast)

Today we talk about feet washing, the last supper, and everything that happened on Maundy Thursday in Mt 26.17-30; Mk 14.12-26; Lk 22. 7-30; Jn 13.1-35.

Three of the four gospels give you a table, bread, a cup, and the words that have echoed through Christian worship for two thousand years. John gives you a basin and a towel. This week Alan and Mary sit with all four accounts of the night before the crucifixion and ask what it means that the gospel most saturated with Eucharistic imagery is the one that leaves the institution out entirely.

We talk about the foot washing as John's enacted interpretation of what the meal means, why Luke places a dispute about greatness immediately after Jesus says this is my body given for you, and what "and it was night" is actually telling you when Judas walks out the door.

But the conversation keeps coming back to what the Eucharist is actually for. Alan describes it as a fueling station. Mary talks about what it means to say someone's name when you place bread in their hands. And a story about two little girls at the communion rail, one of whom broke her wafer in half and gave it to her friend, turns out to say more about what Jesus intended than a lot of theology does.

We receive so we can share. We get fed so we can feed. The Maundy in Maundy Thursday is not the footwashing and it is not the supper. It is the commandment: love one another as I have loved you. Everything else is in service of that.

Readings for next week: Mt 26.17-30; Mk 14.12-26; Lk 22. 7-30; Jn 13.1-35

Links mentioned in this episode:

- Peter Williams Cassey and Anna Besant Cassey (https://prayer.forwardmovement.org/calendar/peter-williams-cassey)

- Entering the Passion of Jesus: A Beginner's Guide to Holy Week (https://a.co/d/89u4GX8)

- Christ Chronological Bible (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/143364603X)

- Check us out on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/@biblelovepodcast)

Today we talk about the anointing of Jesus at Bethany in Mt 26.6-13; Mk 14.3-9; Jn 12.1-11.

Today we talk about the plot to kill Jesus in Mt 26.1-5, 14-16; Mk 14.1-2, 10-11; Lk 22.1-6.

The Passion has begun, and Jesus isn't even in the room.

This week's readings are short but loaded. The chief priests are plotting, Judas is making a deal, and the machinery of the crucifixion is quietly starting to turn. We look at how all three synoptic writers frame this opening moment of the Passion and why the differences between them matter.

Mark gives you the bare bones. Matthew adds thirty pieces of silver and the shadow of Zechariah. Luke does something neither of them does: he tells you Satan entered Judas, and if you remember where Luke left Satan at the end of the temptation narrative in chapter 4, you know that line has been waiting twenty chapters to land.

We also spend some time with the Greek word behind "betray," paradidomi, to hand over, and why it turns out to be one of the most theologically freighted words in the entire Passion story. And we sit with the Judas question honestly: free agent, cosmic pawn, or something the gospels refuse to resolve cleanly on purpose?

The Passover feast is days away. The authorities wanted to wait until after it. It will not go according to plan.

Readings for next week: Mt 26.6-13; Mk 14.3-9; Jn 12.1-11

Links mentioned in this episode:

- Entering the Passion of Jesus: A Beginner's Guide to Holy Week (https://a.co/d/89u4GX8)

- Christ Chronological Bible (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/143364603X)

- Check us out on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/@biblelovepodcast)

Today we talk about wars, rumors of wars, and how we should live when we know we’re gonna die in Mt 24.1-51; Mk 13.1-37; Lk 21.5-38.

Jesus leaves the temple for the last time, and his disciples point out the impressive stonework. His response stops them cold: not one stone will be left on another. From the Mount of Olives, they ask the obvious follow-up question, and Jesus answers with what scholars call the Olivet Discourse, sometimes the Little Apocalypse.

This week we slow down in one of the most misread sections of the Gospels. All three synoptic writers include this material, but they're not doing the same thing with it. Mark writes with urgency and immediacy for a community in or near crisis. Luke adds specificity that looks a lot like the Roman siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE. Matthew expands the whole discourse and frames it explicitly around the return of Christ.

Along the way we talk about what "one taken and one left" actually means in context (the answer may surprise you), why Jesus saying "even the Son does not know the day or the hour" is one of the most remarkable and most ignored lines in the Gospels, and what "this generation will not pass away" is almost certainly referring to.

The Olivet Discourse is not a timetable. It is formation literature for people under pressure. The repeated command across all three versions is simple: watch, stay awake, do not be led astray. That turns out to be a word for every generation, not just the one that watched the temple fall.

Readings for next week: Mt 26.1-5, 14-16; Mk 14.1-2, 10-11; Lk 22.1-6

Links mentioned in this episode:

- The Feast of Harriet Monsell (https://livingchurch.org/church-life/march-26-harriet-monsell-monastic-1883/)

- Entering the Passion of Jesus: A Beginner's Guide to Holy Week (https://a.co/d/89u4GX8)

- Christ Chronological Bible (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/143364603X)
- Check us out on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/@biblelovepodcast)

Today we talk about dark humor, angry Jesus, and how we’re all a little bit of a Pharisee in Mt 22.41-23.36; Mk 12.35-40; Lk 20.41-47. And a bonus sermon on St. Joseph for his feast day!

Readings for next week: Mt 24.1-51; Mk 13.1-37; Lk 21.5-38

Links mentioned in this episode:

- Church of St. Joseph in Nazareth (https://www.liturgicalartsjournal.com/2024/01/romanesque-revival-in-holy-land-church.html)

- Entering the Passion of Jesus: A Beginner's Guide to Holy Week (https://a.co/d/89u4GX8)

- Christ Chronological Bible (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/143364603X)

- Check us out on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/@biblelovepodcast)

Today we’re joined by Dr. Tony, as we talk about Jesus’ greatest commandments in Mt 22.34-40; Mk 12.28-34. The recording cut off a bit in the beginning, but it’s easy to catch up with what we are discussing!

Questions for reflection:

- Where have you encountered God this week?

Readings for next week: Mt 22.41-23.36; Mk 12.35-40; Lk 20.41-47

Links mentioned in this episode:

- Dr. Tony’s notes (https://www.stmartininthefields.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/The-Greatest-Commandments.pdf)

- Entering the Passion of Jesus: A Beginner's Guide to Holy Week (https://a.co/d/89u4GX8)

- Christ Chronological Bible (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/143364603X)

- Check us out on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/@biblelovepodcast)

Today we’re joined by the Rev. Eric Holloway, Associate Rector of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in San Antonio, Texas. We talk about Jesus, death, and taxes in Mt 22.15-33; Mk 12.13-27; Lk 20.20-40.

Questions for reflection:

- Where have you encountered God this week?

Readings for next week: Mt 22.34-40; Mk 12.28-34

Links mentioned in this episode:

- St. Luke’s, San Antonio (https://www.slecsa.org/clergy-staff/)

- Entering the Passion of Jesus: A Beginner's Guide to Holy Week (https://a.co/d/89u4GX8)

- Christ Chronological Bible (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/143364603X)

- Check us out on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/@biblelovepodcast)