First Baptist Church of Asheville Podcast

The title comes from Abraham Heschel’s description of the prophet as one who feels “the blast from heaven” and can’t help but “scream in the night.” Enter Ezekiel, who, despite the horrors he’s witnessed in exile, still lifts his head in faith to speak to dry bones on God’s behalf. Today we stand in awe of God’s power to inspire new life in human remains, as well as Ezekiel’s searing refusal to despair. The combination of divine power and mortal obedience opens a blast from heaven against which the power of death is no match.

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One gets to the end of the story of the man born blind and has to wonder, “Why did the authorities raise such a ruckus about his healing?” They interrogate him multiple times and even call his parents to testify. Why can’t they simply rejoice with him? But Jesus’ miracle has more than offended their religious sensibilities. Having done what only God can do, Jesus has upended the moral order. The beggar becomes the teacher, while the teachers become blind. This great reversal, Jesus says, is precisely why “I came into this world.”

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Like a play-by-play announcer, John relays the conversion of a Samaritan woman in real time. We get to observe up close a person’s faith being born, growing, and even spreading. What conditions make her conversion possible? First, Jesus sees past the social constructs that would otherwise prevent their ever speaking to each other. Jesus also accepts rather than condemns her rocky past. Even more, he offers the woman a fresh and compelling vision of God she’s never considered or imagined. Now let the church ask, “Who’s next?”

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Second Sunday in Lent · March 1, 2026

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Each temptation of Jesus bears a striking resemblance to the idols of empire (one scholar compares them, respectively, to the “bread, circuses, and political power” with which Roman citizens would have been familiar). Jesus rejects them all with his Scriptural wisdom and devotion to God. The grand gift of Jesus’ resistance to temptation is the establishment of a new kind of kingdom in contrast to the kingdoms of this world that are passing away—an eternal kingdom rooted in God’s word, trust, and holy reverence.

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“And his face shone like the sun…” In a moment of astonishing metamorphosis, Jesus becomes light—his face as bright as the sun, the fabric of his clothes made only of photons. Jesus’ shining recalls God’s fiery presence with Moses on Mt. Sinai and anticipates his stunning revelation as “one like the Son of Man” to John of Patmos. Here is Jesus, the Son of God, the Son of Humanity, the Beloved, transfigured in glory. The voice from the cloud calls us all to listen to this One with whom God is well pleased.

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