It’s crazy to think, but Mbird was founded almost 19 years ago. That might not seem like a long time to some, but that was before anyone had an iPhone in their pocket. Before anyone knew what a meme was and when MySpace was the dominant social media site. (Wait, so we outlived MySpace?) Which is to say that we’ve got a ton of articles gathering dust in our archives. Not all of it gold, of course, but there are more than a few nuggets unspoiled by time.
So if need something to read while the lamb is roasting, or if your Holy Week hasn’t felt so holy, here are some of our best articles over the years:
Maundy Thursday
“Spiritual Podiatry” by David Zahl
You could say that unlike most body parts, feet tend to be a source of commiseration rather than comparison, a body part that places us all on similar, er, footing. It’s no coincidence that Jerry Seinfeld once quipped about one of Elaine’s boyfriends, “He’s not a doctor, he’s a podiatrist.”
“Ghosting Jesus: Making Sense of Judas (and Ourselves)” by Todd Brewer
It’s not that the villain of the story became worse with every retelling. What’s actually going on is something far more sad, far more relatable. Each in their own way, the four Gospels are attempts to understand why Judas betrayed Jesus. The additional details given are not increasing evidence of his guilt but the desperate grasping of former friends interrogating the past to discover why Judas ghosted Jesus so suddenly.
“Five Years of Grace and Bad Coffee: Sobriety and Holy Week” by Connor Gwin
On Tuesday night of Holy Week, I sat under fluorescent lights at a plastic folding table and gripped a styrofoam cup of bad coffee. Around the room sat men from all walks of life. Respectable businessmen, craftsmen and laborers, men living in a residential rehab or halfway house, and me: a young clergyman who looks like he has it all together.
A round-up of Mr. Rogers, Sally Lloyd-Jones, memes, and jams. Come for the Johnny Cash, stay for the Whit Stillman.
See also:
“The Most Ernest Prayer of Christ,” “About That Random Naked Guy in Mark’s Gospel,” and “The Empty Halo of Judas Iscariot.”
Good Friday
“Sharks in the Water: In the Event of a Failure (on Good Friday)” by C. J. Green
There’s talk of destiny-defining “exits.” Of Jesus and his disciples: “The most successful startup in history!” Of the parable of the talents, in which two servants are lauded by their master for turning a profit with money he staked them: “The first recorded instance of venture capital and investment banking in history!”
“The Weakness of the Short Distance Pilot” by David Zahl
Today we remember that Christ himself was familiar with weakness. We read how, during Holy Week, he was shuffled from person to person, authority figure to authority figure, like someone without any rights or agency. Moreover, he was demeaned and treated as a criminal — beaten, imprisoned, ridiculed, crucified. The Jesus of Good Friday is not Zeus or Caesar or Superman. He is not the God of wish fulfillment; he is who Isaiah calls the suffering servant.
“Feeling Known in the Horrors of Holy Week” by Sarah Condon
As we enter into the suffering and horror of the death of Jesus this week, I am struck by how viscerally similar the experience is. We hear about the beating and torture of Jesus, his feeling of abandonment, the seemingly hopeless situation he hangs from. The Passion of Jesus is the most theatrical rendering of suffering. But it is compelling to Christians both because we know that Jesus is suffering and dying for us, but also that we know he is suffering and dying with us.
“The Hero Dies in This One” by Sam Bush
As Jesus breathes his last, even we, the reader, have been betrayed all over again. We may know the story by heart, but somehow it’s still impossible to believe. How could the savior of the world fail to even save himself?
See also:
“Francis Spufford’s Good Friday: Communication, Emotion, and Atonement,” “W.H. Auden Was There on Good Friday,” “A (Prose) Poem for Good Friday: ‘Decency’ by Czeslaw Milosz,” “A Poem for Good Friday – Emily Dickinson (#622),” and “T. S. Eliot’s East Coker musings on the Wounded Surgeon.”
Easter
“How Easter Makes Sense of the World” by David Clay
The resurrection is the only way out. Dying with Jesus and rising again with him to new life is the only thing powerful enough to free us from the endless cycle of narcissism, fear, tribalism, and self-seeking. Offering solutions within the cycle just doesn’t work; only something as great as the death and resurrection of Jesus can interrupt history and offer a shot at real freedom.
“The Light Has Come to Stay” by Sarah Condon
I need to hear that it is actually all true. That Jesus came to rescue me. That he came to die in my place. That my sins are forgiven. Such news hits an almost unreachable spot in my heart. But Jesus manages to find it.
“Easter Is God’s Great ‘Yes’ to the Earth” by Chad Bird
We wait now in the parenthesis between Easter and the Last Day. But it won’t last forever. This earth awaits its re-genesis by God. On this renewed, spinning globe we will live unto ages of ages — not in heaven, not as bodiless spirits, but here as people with breathing lungs and beating hearts.
See also:
“And Death Shall Have No Dominion” by Dylan Thomas, “Descending Theology: The Resurrection” by Mary Karr, and “The Difference Between Christmas and Easter.”
