After the events of Good Friday and Easter Sunday, some of Jesus' followers struggle to recognize Him: their friend had become a stranger. Trauma can do that to a relationship, and coming back from the trauma of COVID-19 requires us naming and working through the ways we've been made strange to one another.

As Jesus triumphantly enters Jerusalem, he comes face-to-face again with the temptation to rule the world on the world's own terms. Once again, Jesus withstands this temptation—because the wilderness has changed him.

In the desert, Jesus is offered a shortcut, an opportunity to bypass pain and sorrow, suffering and loss—as long as he abandons his God-given calling. How do we respond to similar temptation?

All of us have run out of something this pandemic, whether it was toilet paper, rice, meat, or patience. What can the story of manna in the desert teach us about the myth of accumulation—and the power of abundance?

How do we find purpose in the midst of pain? Does pain itself have any intrinsic purpose?

The season of Lent evokes Jesus' experience in the wilderness and Israel's journey through the desert. But how do we approach this specific Lenten season? After all, we've been living through entire year characterized by disconnection and darkness, desert and wilderness. Do we even need Lent this year?

Jesus came to that which was his own, and his own did not receive him—perhaps, in part, because their hearts were bent on insurrection.

If you could go back to your first day believing in God, or identifying as a Christian, or calling yourself a person of faith, what questions would you want to ask? What would be the most important things to understand?

The season of Advent is a time of expectant waiting. What do we do while we wait?

Jesus was born into a traditionally Jewish family and grew up according to their customs. Throughout his ministry, though, Jesus lived in the tension between honor tradition and challenging it.