Joe Barnett

Be kind and compassionate to one another.                           —Ephesians 4:32 He was on the median at FM 1960 and Cutten Road, holding a cardboard sign: Vietnam Veteran. Out of work. When a stalled car created gridlock, he limped through the chaos, got behind […]

He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all.          —Romans 8:32 Remember when you left your child at school that first day? And the day she backed out of the driveway and headed off to college? Gulp! Every year you had to give up a

Come down from the cross and save yourself!       —Mark 15:30 “Those who passed by hurled insults at him . . . ‘save yourself! Come down from the cross, if you are the Son of God!’” (Mt 27:39, 40). “In the same way the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the

Set your hope fully on the grace to be given you.         —1 Peter 1:13 Bible scholars are nearly unanimous in the belief that Mark’s gospel is a record of Peter’s preaching. If so, the source of the gospel account of Peter’s denial of Jesus was Peter himself. We are more inclined

He began to be deeply distressed and troubled.        —Mark 14:33 Three times in Gethsemane Jesus prayed for deliverance. Mark inked powerful verbs to describe his angst: distressed . . . troubled . . . overwhelmed. But after submitting to his Father’s will, he awakened his sleeping disciples and serenely said: “The hour

Not what I will, but what you will.                   —Mark 14:36 Is your will ever at odds with the will of your Father? If so, Jesus understands, for he faced that disparity of wills: in Gethsemane his will and the Father’s were not in sync. He prayed

(He) made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.                             —Philippians 2:7 Danish philosopher and theologian Søren Kierkegaard spun a tale entitled The King and the Maiden that went something like this . . .

Of all the commandments, which is the most important?         —Mark 12:28 Jewish Teachers of the law concocted 613 commandments out of the original ten: 248 Dos and 365 Don’ts. A lawyer asked Jesus to comb through them and single out the most important one. The most important one, answered Jesus, is

She did what she could.        —Mark 14:8 When Mary anointed Jesus, “the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume” (Jn 12:3). Not just that house—the whole wide world has sniffed that scent, for Jesus said, “Wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be

What she has done will also be told, in memory of her.         —Mark 14:9 Today we play a part in fulfilling a promise of Jesus—the promise that a certain dear lady would never be forgotten. Her name was Mary. She did a lovely thing when she anointed the body of Jesus