It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Wooo!! It's the hap-happiest season of all. No, it's not Christmas, it's EASTER! Lots and lots of people have been born. In fact, people are born every day. Plenty of people have died too. But only one person has died and then, after three days of being dead and descending into hell, come triumphantly back to life. That's why Easter is a big deal and why it should be the party of the year as far as Christians are concerned. It's a celebration of Jesus' historic championship win over death, which had been riding an unbeaten streak since the post-Eden era.

Jesus on the Red Carpet

I've never been on a red carpet other than the one in my apartment. It must be thrilling to be all dressed up and to have the world paying attention to you, obsessing over your life and work. Who doesn't love being the center of attention? Jesus had his red carpet moment even before the "red carpet" was invented. In fact, they didn't have any carpet for Jesus as he entered Jerusalem so they made one... by taking off their jackets and throwing them on the ground before him and by cutting palm leaves to lay on the ground. Scripture tells us that crowds of people gathered to watch him come into town, just like the throngs of people taking pictures and clamoring for autographs outside the Oscars. Jesus was an A-list celebrity because of his miracles and on-point teachings but he rode into Jerusalem on a donkey. That's like showing up to the Academy awards in a Windstar.

Party with St. Patrick

It's St. Patrick's day! Although this day is known for drinking it is, at least in principle, a celebration of the devoted, driven, and pious man known as Patrick of Ireland. They don't call him "Saint" for nothing. His life was as holy as it was action-packed, yielding many stories that warrant drunkenly being shared during St. Patrick's day festivities. What better way to honor one of Christian history's most butt-kicking characters?

The man himself

All work and no play makes Satan's day

Our culture is based on work. The incredible amount of work that we have to do just to feed ourselves and have a place to live, not to mention achieving our most noble desires, is exhausting. The author William Faulkner had some pretty depressing but accurate thoughts on this. He said "you can’t eat eight hours a day nor drink for eight hours a day nor make love for eight hours — all you can do for eight hours is work. Which is the reason why man makes himself and everybody else so miserable and unhappy." Dang. God sees this problem though. In fact, God was on to this a long time ago and tried to nip it in the bud.

Amen means I'll drink to that

More than one person has voiced their concern to me about the fact that saying "amen" after prayer is biased against women. It's great that people are concerned about that! But "amen" has nothing to do with the English word "men." Actually, amen is a Hebrew word which appears in the Hebrew Bible like this: אָמֵן. It is translated as "truly" or "so be it." So after a prayer we say amen to affirm that we believe what we say, just like when our friends say or do something we really like, we say "I'll drink to that."

Steve McQueen says Amen