Growing up, my church never celebrated Christ’s ascension on a special day, nor did I think too much about its importance. On Palm Sunday, I paraded with the other kids up the aisle singing Hosanna and waving palm branches as trumpets blared. Holy Thursday and Good Friday we were somber. On Easter morning, we gathered on the church patio to wait for sunrise and then we sang to a small brass band composed of any church members who could play a brass instrument; it didn’t sound very good,...

Are you weary from doing too much during Lent? Or did it rush by too fast, leaving you wishing you had done more? Somehow, I seem to fit into both categories. Now that Holy Week is here, I'm trying to remind myself of what Lent is really all about. These words from the Lord strike me: "They have turned to me their back and not their face; and though I have taught them persistently they have not listened to receive instruction" (Jeremiah 32:33). I don't want to be like that, and Deuteronomy...

Preparation. It is one of the tougher things in life. It requires both working hard and waiting for the finished product. For most of us, either one or the other of those is really difficult. But imagine going to a concert, a retreat, or a wedding, where the preparation had been skimpy: the sound system is off, the slideshow has misspellings, the dip has no chips, the cake has no plates, and a key person is missing. Or imagine attending without doing your own personal preparation: you...