April 3, 2026

Holy Week has a way of forcing the church back to its center. This week that center is the cross and the empty tomb — what they mean, what they cost, and whether the church actually knows how to talk about either. Desiring God pauses imitation language at the cross entirely: we don't copy what Christ did there, we receive it. The Gospel Coalition treats the betrayal and crucifixion as the hinge on which God's love is revealed — not illustrated, revealed. Meanwhile Christianity Today is pushing back on cheap Easter framings: the resurrection is not a ghost story or a supernatural comeback. It is a new creation claim. First Things runs a piece on Judas that reads the betrayal politically — not to flatten it into ideology, but to ask what kind of kingdom Jesus was actually building, and why that disappointed so many who followed him.

That question about what kind of kingdom Jesus came to build is everywhere right now. Scot McKnight argues the Sermon on the Mount makes peacemaking the posture of discipleship — not self-protection. Daniel K. Williams offers a Reformed critique of imprecatory prayer language coming out of the Pentagon, asking whether the church has the theological grammar to name what's wrong there. The Supreme Court handed down a First Amendment win for a Christian counselor — a real legal story with real stakes about whether faith-formed speech has public protection. Underneath all of it is a question the church has been circling all week: what do we actually believe about transformation — in a person, in a culture, in a tomb? The liturgical calendar is pressing that question hard right now. The church's answer, if it has one, has to be more than sentiment.