I hate it when jingles get stuck in my head, especially stupid jingles. Every time I return to Mark’s “Palm Sunday” story, I hear this insipid, annoying sports cheer from High School days. I would be sitting in the stands on Friday night, watching a football game, when the cheerleaders would try to pump up the crowd by asking, “Power, power, who got da power?” The student body would respond, “Vikings, Vikings, we got da power” – a verbal warning not to mess with our awesome t

Introduction: Chapter fifteen in Mark’s Gospel contains a series of “handing over.” “Jesus is handed over to Pilate by the duplicitous chief priests, elders, and scribes (15:1). Later . . . the crowd asks Pilate to hand over the prisoner Barabbas (15:11), a longstanding [Roman] tradition of political appeasement (15:6). Pilate asks the crowd if they want him to hand over Barabbas, a convicted murderer, or this Jesus. The crowd tells Pilate to hand over Barabbas for freedom an

A few years ago, I had the privilege of preaching the graduation sermon for my alma mater, Union Presbyterian Seminary. Not having preached a graduation sermon and not knowing exactly what approach to take, I decided to offer the graduates one piece of unsolicited advice. I told this group of gowned and hooded graduates that as they go out to serve as educators, pastors, professors, chaplains, counselors, and prophets my one piece of unsolicited advice is this: “Get a life!”