In Gennesaret

During his radio broadcast on Friday, Alistair Begg (love him) brought up the fact that the gospel accounts of Jesus’ death don’t talk about the physical suffering he endured. And isn’t that interesting, folks? I mean, they mention that he was flogged, of course. They mention the crown of thorns and being struck on the head with a staff while being mocked. They mention that he was thirsty. But the final act of execution is generally tossed off with a simple unmodified clause: “They crucified him.” We can probably assume that the first readers of the accounts were familiar enough with what was involved in these heinous acts that detailed description was not necessary. However, in our times, we seem to obsess a bit about the physical suffering. I blogged last year about watching The Passion of the Christ . There we see the blood and gore and ripped skin and piercing nails and agonizing facial expressions in all their glory. It almost seems like we need the gory description these ...

On spring break last week, I watched this movie called Lars and the Real Girl . And I’ve been trying to decide if I liked it or not. Ryan Gosling plays Lars, a mentally ill man who buys a life-sized doll and believes she is his girlfriend. Yeah, it’s a bit disturbing – but it’s also pretty funny. It’s kind of remarkable how you can be so sad for this troubled man and still giggle so much at the situation. But what fascinates me most is the way his people embrace him through this. I mean, the whole town. The psychologist recommends to his family that they go along with the delusion for now; there is apparently a reason “Bianca” has shown up in Lars’ life, and they need to patiently wait for him to resolve that. So everyone – all of his friends, co-workers, neighbors, people at church – everyone pretends that Bianca is real and makes her a part of their community. They invite her to parties, get her involved in volunteer work . . . there’s even (spoiler alert) a funeral for her when ...

So, I was driving to school on the Friday before spring break and happened to be looking at myself in the rearview mirror for some reason. And I looked odd. I mean, more odd than usual. It took me a minute – I kept glancing back at myself trying to figure out why I didn’t look right today. And I thought through my morning routine to see if there was something I missed. Ohhhh, wait. Did I put eyeliner on? Another quick glance: nope. I did not. Oh, well. I’d like to say that was my response: Oh, well. I tried to offer that response to the situation. But try as I might, I couldn’t oh-well my unadorned eyes. I looked weird. At least I looked weird to myself. No one will notice, I thought. I bet half the time my eyeliner all wears off before the end of the day anyway. No one will notice, and no one will care. But I kept glancing at the mirror and being annoyed at my eyes. I don’t have time to go back home now. Besides, it is ridiculous to go home for eyeliner. No one will...