Jesus | Cindy Wity

In Deep

July 28, 2024 Leave a comment

One day, Peter sat down with Mark and told him about the challenges of being a disciple of Jesus and what he witnessed.

“Jesus called the twelve of us together, gave us instructions, and sent us out in pairs to several areas in Galilee. We announced that the kingdom of God had arrived, and that people should repent. We cast out unclean spirits. And we anointed many sick people with oil and cured them. We were doing what he had been doing.

“When we returned from our mission, we were anxious to share with him all that we had done and taught. We must have looked tired and hungry. He said we all needed a break. People were constantly coming and going around us. So much so that we didn’t have time to eat.

“We got in the boat and sailed to a deserted spot. But the crowd saw us going, realized what was happening and arrived there first. When Jesus got out of the boat and saw the huge crowd, I could tell that he felt deeply sorry for them. He said they were like a flock without a shepherd. So, he began to teach them many things.

“There was nothing to eat at that deserted place and it was getting late in the day. We wanted the Teacher to send the crowd away so they could buy food in the countryside or in the villages. But then he said “We don’t need to send them away. Why don’t you give them something.”

“We looked at each other wondering what in the world he was suggesting. Was he serious? Philip said “It would take more than half a year’s wages to buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!”

“Then he said “Well, how many loaves have you got? Go and see.”

“My brother Andrew found a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish. But we were standing in front of thousands of people.

“Jesus had us sit everyone down, group by group, on the green grass. So, we made everyone sit in companies of hundreds and fifties. Then Jesus took the five loves and the two fish, looked up to heaven, and blessed the bread. He broke it and gave it to us to give to the crowd. Then he broke the fish into pieces and handed to it to us to give to the crowd. Everyone ate and had their fill including me and the others of our group. Over five thousand people were fed.

“We gathered up the leftovers and there were twelve baskets of broken pieces and of the fish. Everyone was full and tired.

“And then, just like that, Jesus told us to get into the boat and sail toward the opposite shore. He dismissed the crowd and then went off up the mountain to pray.

“Mark, you won’t believe what happened. We had rowed about three or four miles and were in the middle of the sea. It had been hard rowing all night. A stiff wind coming down from the mountains on the eastern shore of the lake was working against us.

“Then, in the dead of night, we all thought we saw a ghost walking on the water. It was about to go past our boat. We were scared out of our wits. We were yelling “Who goes there?!” And then, just like that, we hear “Cheer up! It’s me. Don’t be afraid.” When the figure came closer, we could see that it was Jesus. He was walking on the water!

“I said “if it’s really you, Master, then give me the word and I’ll come to you on the water.” And he said “Come along, then.”

“So, I got out of the boat, and would you believe it Mark, I walked on the water. But then I saw the wind chopping the waves and the chaos at my feet and I began to sink just like that. I called out to the Teacher. He put his hand out and caught me before I went under. He looked at me and said “A fine lot of faith you’ve got! Why did you doubt?” I was shivering and feeling pretty low, so I said nothing as we walked to the boat and climbed in.

“As soon as we got in the boat the wind stopped blowing just like that. And just like that we reached the shore. And just like that we went from being scared out of our minds to being thunderstruck by what had taken place, just like before.

“I told you, Mark, about the last storm we faced on the Sea of Galilee. It came up suddenly from the West. Waves beat against the boat and it quickly began to fill with water. That time Jesus was with us. He was asleep and we woke him up to help us bale out water. He got up, scolded the wind, and said to the sea “Silence! Shut up!” Things went to a dead calm, just like that. Then he said “Why are you scared? Don’t you believe yet?”

We were terrified when we saw this. We looked at each other and said “Who is this? Even the wind and the sea do what he says.”

This time we fell down and worshipped Jesus saying, “You are really God’s son!”

“We made landfall at Gennesaret and tied the boat up. As soon as we landed people recognized Jesus. They began to bring sick people on stretchers to where they heard he was.

“And Mark, wherever Jesus went, in the villages, towns or open country, people brought their sick to the marketplace and begged him to let them touch the edge of his cloak. And whoever touched the hem became well. The healed were getting up from their stretchers and were running around praising God. You should have seen it.”

(The above is an imagined retelling of Mark chapter 6 referencing Matthew chapter 14, Luke chapter 9, and John chapter 6)

~~~

Did Jesus have Peter and the other apostles wade into waters over their heads to remove the scales from their eyes? Did he put them through the wringer to squeeze out unbelief? It would seem so.

The Twelve – fishermen, a tax collector, and other regular guys – are sent to districts of Galilee on a kingdom of God mission well outside the range of their experience. This while earthly kingdoms get word of their kingdom message and of the power at work in them. And this while there is news of the arrest and beheading of John the Baptist by Herod.

When the Twelve return to Jesus, he has the group sail to a deserted area for a break away from the constant flow of people. But upon arriving they are met by an enormous crowd that had figured out where they were going. Then the Twelve are asked to provide food for the thousands listening to Jesus.

Having no resources other than a meager five loaves and two fish, the Twelve are assigned by Jesus to have everyone sit down in groups, to pass out the baskets of bread and fish that he hands them, and to collect the leftovers. Menial labor after a lofty mission and no rest for the Twelve.

That evening, Jesus sends the Twelve rowing across a sea that was known for its challenges. (Nature is no respecter of persons except for Jesus.) And on that sea, in the early morning hours, they encounter a ghost-like figure that scares the beJesus into them.

We don’t always get the inner perspective of the disciple’s thoughts and feelings in the gospel of Mark. But in at least two accounts we learn that the Twelve were “terrified” (Mk. 4:41) and “astounded” (Mk. 6:51) by the Who of “Who is this?” and “Who goes there?”

It is one thing to hear about divine revelation in the synagogue, to hear the words He made known his ways to Moses, his deeds to the people of Israel (Ps. 103:7). It is quite another to encounter God’s ways and deeds in person. And what the “terrified” and “astounded” Twelve experienced was God’s favor, care, and protection for those he chose to be with.

Peter, a fisherman who spent most of his time on the water in a boat, walked on the water with the Son of God right there urging him to do so and ready to catch him. For, faith is more than floating along on what you think you know.

The Twelve, schooled by each unsettling situation the Teacher had them face – strong winds and a sudden storm at sea, a scary specter, a supply shortage, and steady streams of the sick and sheep without a shepherd – discovered God’s power, His presence, His plenty, and His pity.

To their uncertainty, their fears, their inadequacy, and their helplessness, God’s presence was revealed.

“Who is this?” “Who goes there? “

“Cheer up! It is I AM.

~~~

Isaac, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Gideon, Saul, David, Solomon, Jeroboam, Asa, Jehoshaphat, and Jeremiah were promised the presence of God. The Presence was promised to Jacob:

“Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” (Genesis 28:15) (Emphasis mine.)

Jesus made the same promise to his followers before he ascended into heaven:

“I am with you, every single day, to the very end of the age.” (Matt. 28:20)

And beyond . . .

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. (Rev. 21:3) (Emphasis mine.)

The Real Presence is with you in the Holy Eucharist. Jesus is literally and wholly present—body and blood, and divinity—in the elements of bread and wine.

The age-to-age continuum of God’s promise of presence with us, expressing His covenant faithfulness, is the premise of our faith. He will not abandon us. The praxis of knowing that – living by faith – operates within The Presence continuum.

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The time the Twelve spent with Jesus was eye-opening – but not always mind’s eye opening.

After Mark tells us that the apostles were overwhelmed with astonishment (having just watched Jesus walking on the water) he adds a comment (Mk. 6:52): they didn’t understand what Jesus had done with the fishes and loaves – their hearts were hardened.

Mark doesn’t explain this last note. Maybe, when presented with the existential reality of what took place that afternoon, the Twelve chose to ignore it or had no place in their imagination for it. Or maybe, their hearts were hardened by God.

Recall that during the Ten Plagues of Egypt, Pharoah’s heart was hardened by God and remained that way even after Pharoah’s magicians threw in the towel when they couldn’t fabricate further “miracles”:

The magicians said to Pharaoh, “This is God’s doing.” But Pharaoh was stubborn and wouldn’t listen. Just as God had said

Exodus 9:15-16 gives us the reason why Pharoah’s heart was hardened. God tells Moses to confront Pharaoh and tell him the following:

You know that by now I could have struck you and your people with deadly disease and there would be nothing left of you, not a trace. But for one reason only I’ve kept you on your feet: To make you recognize my power so that my reputation spreads in all the Earth. You are still building yourself up at my people’s expense. (Emphasis mine.)

We don’t know why the Twelve couldn’t take in what had happened that afternoon. But I wonder: did they later recollect that experience and understand the multiplication of loaves and fishes in the context of the Exodus? God fed thousands in the wilderness.

Did they later recollect their experiences (walking on water, Jesus intending to pass by the boat, disclosure of God’s presence with them, a healing hem) and understand them in context of the Exodus?

God controlled nature (the Red Sea) so that Israel can walk through/on it.

God passing by Moses (Ex. 33:22)

God revealed Himself to Moses as “I Am” in a physical phenomenon (a burning bush).

Israelites were healed by a physical object – by looking at a snake made of fiery copper (Num.21-4-9),

With the events described by Peter in Mark’s gospel and the events of Israel’s history, Jesus’ kingdom mission for the world is equated with the Exodus mission of rescue and redemption for Israel.

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Podcast: Three books by O.T. scholar Iain Proven

The Old Testament is often maligned as an outmoded and even dangerous text. Best-selling authors like Richard Dawkins, Karen Armstrong, and Derrick Jensen are prime examples of those who find the Old Testament to be problematic to modern sensibilities. In his new book Seriously Dangerous Religion: What the Old Testament Really Says and Why It Matters (Baylor UP, 2014), Iain W. Provan counters that such easy and popular readings misunderstand the Old Testament

Discussed in this podcast are three books authored by OT scholar Iain Proven:

A Biblical History of Israel, Second Edition

Convenient Myths: The Axial Age, Dark Green Religion, and the World that Never Was

Seriously Dangerous Religion: What the Old Testament Really Says and Why It Matters

I’ve read Convenient Myths and Seriously Dangerous Religion. I recommend both books.

Iain W. Provan, “Seriously Dangerous Religion

Iain W. Provan, “Seriously Dangerous Religion: What the Old Testament Really Says and Why It Matters” (Baylor UP, 2014) – New Books Network

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Filed under Bible, Christianity, faith, The Gospel of Mark Tagged with Bible, Christianity, faith, God, Jesus, Jesus feeding the five thousand, Jesus walking on the water, The Gospel of Mark

Easter Morning

March 31, 2024 Leave a comment

Easter morning me and father are down in the basement brushing shoes. We put polish on them last night with a rag father keeps with his shoe shine kit on a shelf over the washing machine. I used the rag but brown polish came through on my fingers. We polish our shoes every Sunday but I know this Sunday is Easter because we went to church on Friday and we died eggs and my mother set the dining room table and there’s a lily in the front room and ham in the refrigerator and yellow jello with something in it and plastic eggs in a basket on the kitchen table and the sun shines like this only on Easter. I woke up cold this morning. I put on clean pajamas and put the wet ones in the clothes basket. Then I went into the kitchen and ate cereal. Father woke up. He got the Sunday paper off the front porch and came into the kitchen to make coffee. He waits for me to finish eating and scratches his belly and yawns. He tells me to let mum sleep in. She works too he says. After I’m done with my cereal we go downstairs to polish our shoes. We go back upstairs and father sits at the kitchen table drinks coffee. He opens the Sunday paper and gives me the funnies. We wait for mum and my brother to wake up. They wake up. My mother has coffee and my brother eats cereal. My mother says something to father in his ear. He tells us kids to go into the front room so he and mum can talk. We go. I share the funnies with my brother. We sit there for an hour. We look out the picture window and see father walking around the bushes with a basket of plastic eggs. We know what he is doing. We run to the back door. I hold the door handle and my brother bites his nails. Father comes to the door and says there are fifteen eggs hiding in our yard. See what you can find he says. We run to the front yard and look through the bushes and behind trees and in the mail box. The grass is wet and sparkly we find eggs but there are more we run to the back yard and find more. We pull up the bottoms of our PJ tops and hold the eggs there. We count them I have eight and my brother has seven we go back inside and see what’s inside Jelly beans gum tootsie rolls mother says to have only a couple she doesn’t want us bouncing around in church she says. Father is in the kitchen peeling sweet potatoes. Mother is washing goblets. I don’t know why she calls them goblets. They are not scarry to me. Me and my brother get ready for church. The clothes feel stiff but I wear them to look nice mother says. Father combs my hair and my brother’s hair. We wait in the front room and read the funnies. Finally it is time to go. We get in the car and drive to our church. I’ve never seen so many people. Mother wants to get a seat before they are gone we sit next to my friend Jeremy’s parents I smell flowers. People are talking a lot. Mothers are telling kids to be quiet. My friend Jeremy is sitting on the other side of his parents. Hes kicking the pew in front of him. The lady in front of him with a flower hat turns around looks angry but she smiles when Jeremys mom puts a hand on Jeremys knee and makes him stop. My best friend Billy isn’t here his family doesn’t go to church. We have to stand up and sit down a lot and listen a lot the seat is hard and I can’t sit still and I can’t listen a big woman is singing a high song that hurts my ears. I want to draw. I take the pencil in front of me and a card I draw Easter eggs and the face of the big woman I show it to Jeremy and he laughs. The man up front walks back and forth and then he stops and says o death, where is thy sting o grave, where is thy victory and I think about bee stings and moms gravy. Finally he stops and we stand up again and my pencil and card fall under the seat. A man behind me picks them up and gives them to me and smiles. Everyone smiles today even the woman at the organ who made a big burp sound when the music fell. Father and mother talk and talk and talk and finally we get back into the car and go home. On the counter is a strawburry pie. Mother puts on her apron and puts the ham in the oven. Father mashes the sweet potatoes. I tell them don’t forget to put marshmallows on the sweet potatoes. Mother takes a bag off the shelf and gives me and my brother a marshmallow. She tells us to go watch TV while they make dinner. We go downstairs. I turn on the TV and only Charlie Chan is on. Finally mother calls us and we go upstairs to eat we have to wash our hands before we sit down. Mother lights two candles on our table before the food comes father prays he thanks God for the food and Jesus and empty tomb abundant life heaven and earth sea and dry land family and friends those present and not present wonders great and small and mother says amen. Finally mother brings out the ham and the sweet potatoes and something green. Everything is hot she says. When the rolls come out me and my brother grab one. My mother asks me if I washed my hands. I look at them and my fingers are brown. They smell like polish it’s shoe polish soap and water and some scrubbing will take it off father says I tell them I better eat first because scrubbing is a lot of work. The end of what we did special on Easter Mrs Meyers your student Micheal M Skokram.

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Filed under Christianity, Short Story, short story, Writing Tagged with Christianity, Easter, family, FICTION, holidays, Jesus, Short Story

The Unbroken Chain of Truth in the Lives of Broken People

March 30, 2024 Leave a comment

Our common understanding of what Peter’s betrayal of Jesus meant. Our shared history of misery and redemption. Our interrelated human experience of being guided by truth and beauty. Each of these connections are considered by a twenty-two-year-old clerical student named Ivan Velikopolsky in the very short story The Student (1894) by Anton Chekhov.

Things start out fine for hunter Ivan on Good Friday. The weather is agreeable. But when it begins to grow dark the weather turns cold and stiff winds blow. He starts to walk home.

On the path, he feels that nature itself is “ill at ease” by the change in weather and that darkness in response is falling more quickly. He senses overwhelming isolation and unusual despair surrounding him and the village three miles away where he spots the only light – a blazing fire in the widow’s garden near the river.

As he walks, he remembers what is waiting for him at home – a miserable situation that he sees as the desperation, poverty, hunger, and oppression of what people have dealt with over time and that it’s always been this way no matter the secular changes by those who come along. He doesn’t want to go home. Instead, he walks over to the campfire at the widow’s garden.

There, by the fire, are two widows – Vasilisa and her daughter Lukerya. He greets them and they talk.

Ivan relates the gospel events to the two widows. This has an acute effect on them. As he heads home, Ivan reflects on the implications of this and has an epiphany.

“At just such a fire the Apostle Peter warmed himself,” said the student, stretching out his hands to the fire, “so it must have been cold then, too. Ah, what a terrible night it must have been, granny! An utterly dismal long night!”

. . .it was evident that what he had just been telling them about, which had happened nineteen centuries ago, had a relation to the present — to both women, to the desolate village, to himself, to all people.

He returns home with a different outlook. He sees the “same desperate poverty and hunger, the same thatched roofs with holes in them, ignorance, misery, the same desolation around, the same darkness, the same feeling of oppression” differently – with an attitude of “unknown mysterious happiness”. There’s a sense of resurrection in Ivan’s attitude as he rises out of the despondency of dark winter’s return to a new life of hope based on the human connection to enduring truth and with Easter on the horizon.

Was Ivan’s new attitude born out of the women’s reaction that signaled an age-old inherent understanding of what the betrayal of truth produces?

It seems to me that Ivan is more than just a clerical student. He’s also a student of history and cultural anthropology. And he knows scripture. He is able to see our common plight and our common redemption through the broken lives of others.

I’m not going to share any more of this gem of a very short story (2 min. read). Ivan has more to say to us from his epiphany. I recommend reading the story before listening to the audio version of it with commentary at the end.

The Student was written 130 years ago. Chekhov’s realist fiction hands to readers today one end of an unbroken chain of truth.

Will the human condition improve with Progressivism or when humans stop betraying the truth and seek what is above instead of materialism?

John Donne wrote “No man is an island entire of itself”. Certainly, no man is a context entirely of himself.

And Thomas Dubay said

The acute experience of great beauty readily evokes a nameless yearning for something more than earth can offer. Elegant splendor reawakens our spirit’s aching need for the infinite, a hunger for more than matter can provide.

The Student – Anton Chekhov Download

Reading Chekhov’s The Student

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Beauty out of brokenness?

“Poetically translated to “golden joinery,” kintsugi, or Kintsukuroi, is the centuries-old Japanese art of fixing broken pottery. Rather than rejoin ceramic pieces with a camouflaged adhesive, the kintsugi technique employs a special tree sap lacquer dusted with powdered gold, silver, or platinum. Once completed, beautiful seams of gold glint in the conspicuous cracks of ceramic wares, giving a one-of-a-kind appearance to each “repaired” piece.”Kintsugi, a Centuries-Old Japanese Method of Repairing Pottery with Gold (mymodernmet.com)

“The aesthetic that embraces insufficiency in terms of physical attributes, that is the aesthetic that characterizes mended ceramics, exerts an appeal to the emotions that is more powerful than formal visual qualities, at least in the tearoom. Whether or not the story of how an object came to be mended is known, the affection in which it was held is evident in its rebirth as a mended object. What are some of the emotional resonances these objects project?

“Mended ceramics foremost convey a sense of the passage of time. The vicissitudes of existence over time, to which all humans are susceptible, could not be clearer than in the breaks, the knocks, and the shattering to which ceramic ware too is subject. This poignancy or aesthetic of existence has been known in Japan as mono no aware, a compassionate sensitivity, an empathetic compassion for, or perhaps identification with, beings outside oneself. It may be perceived in the slow inexorable work of time (sabi) or in a moment of sharp demarcation between pristine or whole and shattered. In the latter case, the notion of rupture returns but with regard to immaterial qualities, the passage of time with relation to states of being. A mirage of “before” suffuses the beauty of mended objects.”

Christy Bartlett, Flickwerk: The Aesthetics of Mended Japanese Ceramics (12/51

“What kind of a church would we become if we simply allowed broken people to gather, and did not try to “fix” them but simply to love and behold them, contemplating the shapes that broken pieces can inspire?”
― Makoto Fujimura, Art and Faith: A Theology of Making

Mending Trauma | Theology of Making (youtube.com)

Online Conversation | Art + Faith: A Theology of Making, with Makoto Fujimura | The Trinity Forum (ttf.org)

https://makotofujimura.com

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Filed under Art, Chekhov, Christianity, Easter, Easter, Literature, Russian Literature, Russian Literature Tagged with Chekhov, Easter, faith, God, Jesus, kintsugi, Life, short story Christianity, The Student

Your Best Lent Now

February 18, 2024 Leave a comment

“Be All You Can Be” is not just the Army’s recruiting slogan. It is the appeal of self-help books, magazines, videos, seminars, and podcasts. It is the allure of prosperity gospel and the appeal of bucket lists. It is also the speculative assurance of transhumanism, the technological heir of evolutionary progressivism. There are plenty of gurus, gimmicks, and gizmos ready to give you Your Best Life Now.

We can live at full potential by taking seven steps. We can name-it-and-claim-it wealth, health, and total victory over circumstances. We can choose to have incredible experiences and to do incredible things before we die. And we can, one day, live with boosted cognition and become a radically enhanced superhuman. Why, we can conquer the whole universe by human will and consciousness and with a little help from my “Be All You Can Be” friends.

Certainly, such offerings have purchase. People want to be healthy, financially secure and control outcomes. And people want to “feel” alive.

Just as certain, “Be All You Can Be” taps into a fear of missing out on Your Best Life Now before you kick the bucket. “You Only Live Once” is the high-octane fuel in the motivator engine – get busy and live full throttle. The FOMO messaging comes from all corners, including from the expected self-help speakers both secular and Christian and from celebrities.

“Go for it now. The future is promised to no one.”
Wayne Dyer, self-help author and a motivational speaker.

“A life of adventure is ours for the taking, whether we’re seven or seventy. Life for the most part is what me make it. We have been given a responsibility to live it fully, joyfully, completely, and richly, in whatever span of time God grants us on this earth.
Luci Swindoll, author and speaker with Women of Faith

Dream as if you’ll live forever. Live as if you’ll die today.
James Dean

The possibility of “A New You” born out of the intensity of experiences and the dramatic are oft portrayed as producing “real” life, while the prosaic life of simple acts of truth, goodness, and beauty are deemed ho-hum and therefore not worth exploring and exploiting. (The dramatic life vs. the prosaic life is found in a close reading of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina.)

The self-improvement racket has spawned cottage industries such as “biblical manhood” and “biblical womanhood”. Such topics, that get at our core identities and callings, are prone to scams, as Karen Swallow Prior writes in her Opinion: The ‘Biblical Manhood’ Industry Is A Scam:

In my recent book, “The Evangelical Imagination,” I devote an entire chapter to the notion of “improvement,” showing how this early modern concept contributed to the rise of the self-help movement in the 19th century and has spilled over into Christian thinking and practice today.

Many of the publications centered on “biblical manhood” and “biblical womanhood” are just a continuation of this Victorian (and secular) movement.

As you reflect on how to be within the time you have, do you envision having a multiplicity and intensity of experiences – 101 Incredible Things to Do Before You Die? Do you hear yourself speaking the “it” you want and believing you will receive “it” and “it” will come to pass? Do you see yourself embracing a you-can-have-it-all “Be All You Can Be” life? Is the bucket list of your now filled to the brim with FOMO activity?

Does submission to digital technology effect how to be within the time you have?

An interesting concept, noted in the context of the digital revolution suddenly increasing
“the rate and scale of change in almost everyone’s lives,” is presented by the Lionel Trilling Professor in the Humanities Edward Mendelson in his essay “In the Depths of the Digital Age”:

In Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow (1973), an engineer named Kurt Mondaugen enunciates a law of human existence: “Personal density … is directly proportional to temporal bandwidth.” The narrator explains:

“Temporal bandwidth” is the width of your present, your now…. The more you dwell in the past and future, the thicker your bandwidth, the more solid your persona. But the narrower your [bandwidth] sense of Now, the more tenuous you are.

The genius of Mondaugen’s Law is its understanding that the unmeasurable moral aspects of life are as subject to necessity as are the measurable physical ones; that unmeasurable necessity, in Wittgenstein’s phrase about ethics, is “a condition of the world, like logic.” You cannot reduce your engagement with the past and future without diminishing yourself, without becoming “more tenuous.”

As I read this: if you’re just constantly in the moment rushing from one thing to the next without the context of the past and future, your personal density becomes diffuse and unsupportable.

Alan Jacobs, the Distinguished Professor of Humanities in the Honors Program at Baylor University, provides his insight into Mondaugen’s Law, in his web article To survive our high-speed society, cultivate ‘temporal bandwidth’. He writes that a . . .

. . . benefit of reflecting on the past is awareness of the ways that actions in one moment reverberate into the future. You see that some decisions that seemed trivial when they were made proved immensely important, while others which seemed world-transforming quickly sank into insignificance. The “tenuous” self, sensitive only to the needs of This Instant, always believes – often incorrectly – that the present is infinitely consequential.

It seems to me, and your own experience will bear this out, that This Instant is the impetus of Your Best Life Now and that self-help schemes produce the thinness and self-deception of a tenuous now.

(The wicked thrive in the tenuous now. The wicked want nothing to do with the past or the future. The narcissistic now is all the wicked care about.)

Is there a better way to address our frailty, finitude, imperfection, and self-esteem and produce a thicker bandwidth?

As a follower of Jesus, I look to him for affirmation and not from the world’s gurus, gimmicks, and gizmos.

As a follower of Jesus, I’ve seen that for the world, the drive to succeed is paramount and can be all-consuming. But I’ve come to understand that I can’t have it all and be it all in my mortal life. I am content with that. I have no fear of missing out. The Lord knows the desires of my heart and what I need. (See Psalm 37 & Matt. 6:32)

As a follower of Jesus, I’ve come to understand that the density of my “Temporal bandwidth” does not consist in an abundance of possessions (Luke 12:15) nor in the abundance of experiences (Luke 10: 20).

As a follower of Jesus, I’ve learned from Job to not be deceived into thinking of life in terms of “what’s in it for me”. Nor will I be incentivized by a Retribution Principle that has God prospering the “righteous” with material gain and health while inflicting suffering on the wicked.

As a follower of Jesus, I understand, contrary to the world’s notion of acquiring power, that I am a sheep cared for by the Good Shepherd. (See Psalm 23 & John 10: 1-30) My Temporal bandwidth is within his care. My personal density is being thickened; my persona becoming more solid. Seven decades into life and I know this to be true.

And, there’s the realization that unmeasurable moral aspects of life are as subject to necessity as are the measurable physical ones. They’re a condition of the world, like logic.

Ash Wednesday: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” With these words and the ash-cross marked on our foreheads we are engaged with our past and our future.

Ash Wednesday and Lent, the 40-day season of prayer, fasting and of giving up things, addresses our frailty, finitude, imperfection, and self-esteem. This Lent Be All You Can’t Be before the Lord and He will lift you up.

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The Blessing of Imperfect Days with Kate Bowler – February 21, 2023

In this conversation, Kate shares about her work detailing the Prosperity Gospel movement from an academic standpoint, and how her own setbacks and health catastrophe in a cancer diagnosis both deepened her sense of being loved by God and softened her toward those desperate for a miracle.

Kate and Cherie’s conversation goes through deep waters, but does so with much humor and heart. We hope you’ll listen and share it with your friends and loved ones.

The Blessing of Imperfect Days with Kate Bowler

Episode 56 | Blessings for Imperfect Days with Kate Bowler | The Trinity Forum (ttf.org)

Blessings for Imperfect Days – YouTube

I WAS ON THE TODAY SHOW (youtube.com)

Kate Bowler, in her dissertation and later book Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel argues that these diverse of Christian faith-fueled abundance can be understood as a movement, for they stem from a cohesive set of shared understandings. First, the movement centered on Faith. It conceived of faith as an “activator,” a power given to believers that bound and loosed spiritual forces and turned the spoken word into reality. Second and third respectively, the movement depicted faith as palpably demonstrated in wealth and health. It could be measured in both in the wallet–one’s personal wealth–and in the body–one’s personal health–making material reality the measure of the success of immaterial faith. Last, the movement expected faith to be marked by victory. Believers trusted that culture held no political, social, or economic impediment to faith, and no circumstance could stop believers from living in total victory here on earth.

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Escaping the Prosperity Gospel

In this episode Mikel Del Rosario and Costi Hinn discuss the prosperity gospel, focusing on Hinn’s spiritual journey out of the religious movement. This interview was recorded before March 2020.

Escaping the Prosperity Gospel – The Hendricks Center (dts.edu)

~~~~~

For those committed to human flourishing, absorbing that transhumanism is a scientific nonstarter would be a major boon. But a singular focus on information is not limited to this arena. It increasingly pervades our day-to-day existences, in terms of how we proceed in our professional and social lives, as well as when others decide what counts about us (or even who we “are”), often without our awareness. Prospects for societal improvement depend, in part, on our becoming more conscious of this informational frame, especially where it is a mismatch with the nonlinear and richly contextual nature of what matters most to us as human beings.

Why transhumanism is fundamentally wrong. (slate.com)

~~~~~

Filed under Christianity Tagged with ash wednesday, Bible, Christianity, faith, God, Jesus, lent, prosperity gospel, Self-help

2024: “Don’t You Care?”

December 31, 2023 Leave a comment

What do we talk about when we talk about apocalypse?

Are we talkin’ Steppenwolf and his legions of Parademons attempting to take over the Earth using the combined energies of the three Mother Boxes?

Are we talkin’ nuclear war? World War Z?

Are we talkin’ The Late Great Planet Earth?

Are we talkin’ a supposed climate change catastrophe prophesied as either a meltdown or an ice age?

In popular use, “apocalypse” tags something with the worst possible outcome usually in terms of an end-of-the-world scenario and mankind’s role in events much bigger than himself. But the Greek word apokálypsis, from which “apocalypse” is derived, means an uncovering or revelation.

In terms of scripture, “apocalypse” is a genre in which God reveals His point of view. Such are the books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Joel, Zechariah, Daniel and Revelation. The “apocalypse” as an author’s vision of the end times or the end of the age became a distinct literary genre during the Second Temple period and into the Common Era.

Apocalyptic “non-canonical” literature helped pave the way for the Jesus movement in the first century CE. Many in Israel, based on these writings and OT texts (Psalm 146:7-8, Isaiah 61: 1-2), held a belief in a Messianic Apocalypse – the anointed one, a divine messianic agent, revealed at the end time who executes justice for the oppressed, gives food to the hungry, sets prisoners free, opens the eyes of the blind, and lifts up those who are bowed down.

Within this millenarist writing context and using explicit connections to the Old Testament via quotes, and with accounts of eyewitness testimony, the four gospels record God’s revelation in Jesus Christ as the Messianic Apocalypse. And, they record the apocalyptic pronouncements of Jesus, including Matthew 24 (The Destruction of the Temple and Signs of the End Times) and in Matthew 25 (The Sheep and the Goats; Judgement). Jesus’ words and works throughout the four gospels disclose God’s POV.

Near the end of the John’s gospel account we are given the reason why John wrote to reveal Jesus:

“Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may believe that the Messiah, the son of God, is none other than Jesus; and that, with this faith, you may have life in his name.” (Jn. 20:31)

The gospel according to Mark, written from a Petrine perspective, recorded what Jesus did and said in the presence of his disciples so that with the centurion standing watch at the cross, we might say “Truly this man was God’s Son!” (Mark 15:39)

Throughout the first six chapters of the gospel according to Mark, chapters I am memorizing, I find Jesus over and over again revealing who he is to the Twelve and the group of disciples around him. Yet, they are not making the connection. They consider him a great prophet and a maybe-Messiah Apocalypse but nothing more.

When Jesus is in the synagogue teaching, the gathered are astonished by his teaching. He speaks with authority. Then a man with an unclean spirit reveals Jesus’s identity:

“What business have you got with us, Jesus of Nazareth?” he yelled. “Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are: you’re God’s Holy One!”

Jesus commands the unclean spirit to be quiet and then casts out the unclean spirit. The buzz begins.

“What’s this?” they started to say to each other. “New teaching – with real authority! He even tells the unclean spirits what to do and they do it!”

Before chapter one ends, Jesus has healed many people suffering from all kinds of diseases and cast out many demons – exactly what Psalm 146 and Isaiah 61 talk about.

I learn from Mark that Jesus won’t let the demons speak. They would reveal his identity. I understand this as Jesus wanting each person to come to grips with who he is on their own.

In chapter two, Jesus heals a paralyzed man. But first he recognizes the faith of those who bring the man to him. He tells the cripple that his sins are forgiven. Upon hearing this the legal experts in the room start grumbling “Its’ blasphemy! Who can forgive sins except God?” They are so ready to pounce that they don’t understand who is standing before them. And why would they?

Who would expect the invisible God to be incarnate, to be physically present? And who would expect a consuming fire (Deut. 4:24) to be in their midst?

Chapter Four: After teaching a huge crowd about the kingdom of God, Jesus and the disciples set sail across the sea. A big wind storm comes up. Waves beat against the boat and it quickly begins to fill up. Jesus, however, is asleep on a cushion in the stern. Very anxious disciples wake him up and say “We’re going down. Don’t you care?”

Now, I don’t believe that any of the disciples were thinking that Jesus would get up and end the storm. They were likely thinking that they needed another hand to bail water out of the boat (kind of like my prayers at times).

Jesus gets up. He scolds the wind and says to the sea, “Silence! Shut up!”. Nature calms down but not the sailors. They had been ‘apocalypsed’. Someone in their boat just took control of the cosmic order. Someone in their boat just revealed God-like properties.

Great fear stole over the crew (survivors in the mini-Noah’s arc). “Who is this?” they said to each other. “Even the wind and sea do what he says!”

Jesus had looked at them and said “Why are you scared?” Don’t you believe yet?” That was his response to the disciple’s “Don’t You care?”

Jesus’ response to the disciples was not to shame them. It was to reveal their unbelief in what has been revealed to them: God was walking among them; God was in the boat with them; God’s love as demonstrated would see them through.

“Don’t you care?” is the corporate expression of anxious Israel waiting for Messianic Apocalypse.

“Don’t you care?” is the corporate expression of an anxious world that, with chronic uncertainty, is focused on a coming the-ship-is-going-down apocalypse and not on the certainty of the revelation of Jesus.

What do I talk about when I talk about apocalypse? This: what’s been revealed of Jesus is greater than what could ever possibly be revealed – whether in nature or alien or made-made or imagination-made.

2024: “We’re going down. Don’t you care?”

“Don’t you believe yet?”

~~~~~

Hope in an Age of Anxiety with Curtis Chang and Curt Thompson

We are in an anxious age. By some estimates, a third of all Americans will struggle with anxiety in their lives, and nearly 20% currently suffer from an anxiety disorder. For those suffering the mental distortions of anxiety, life can be difficult, and hope elusive. And for many Christians who have tried and failed to stop their slide into fear and worry by simply “laying down their burdens,” they may feel an added sense of spiritual failure as well.

We’re joined on our podcast by psychiatrist Curt Thopmson and theologian Curtis Chang who help us explore a counterintuitive approach to understanding our anxiety:

Hope in an Age of Anxiety with Curtis Chang and Curt Thompson – the Trinity Forum

Episode 70 | Hope in an Age of Anxiety | The Trinity Forum (ttf.org)

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Beauty from Darkness with Curt Thompson

How do we seek, find and share hope and healing in hard times?

Psychiatrist and author Curt Thompson and Trinity Forum President Cherie Harder discuss healing, grace, and reintegration — both for our individual and spiritual lives, and our shared life together. Together they consider how being known and believing what is true about our stories can transform our perspective and bring hope and healing:

“Shame is the antithesis and is that force that evil wants to use to undermine not only our ability to be known by one another deeply, which we were made for, we were made to be known, but we were also made to be known on the way to creating artifacts of beauty, whether those artifacts are relationships, whether they’re new pieces of music, art, businesses, and so forth.”
– Curt Thompson

Episode 45 | Beauty from Darkness with Curt Thompson | The Trinity Forum (ttf.org)

~~~~~

Must have been all those Venusian women with SUVs . . .

Filed under 2024 Election, apocalypse, Christianity, Eschatology, Gospel of Mark, Gospels, New Year's Eve Tagged with apocalypse, Christianity, Climate change, end of the world, end times, faith, Jesus, New Year’s Eve

You and Euaggélion

November 26, 2023 Leave a comment

We are entering a season of celebrating Good News. But hold on. There are some, the same some since before 2016, who are now heralding a disastrous 2024.

Today, at the top of media’s Richter scale of catastrophic “Oh Nos!” and bumping “climate crisis” to number TWO is word of a disastrous new year as speculated in The Economist magazine article Donald Trump poses the biggest danger to the world in 2024 !!!!

To add to the hysteria known as Trump Derangement Syndrome, unhinged Joe Scarborough of MSNBC’s Morning Joe said that Trump “will end democracy as we know it.” Wow!!! What a power calculus!!

Joe, hyperbolizing on a New York Times Op-Ed [“Trump’s Dire Words Raise New Fears About His Authoritarian Bent”] went beyond calling Trump an authoritarian. He implied that Trump’s a murderous fascist: “he will imprison” “he will execute” enemies if reelected. Scarborough knows this because of “his past”. (I’d like to see those press clippings. Anyone?)

N.B.: MSNBC is where people go to completely lose all touch with reality because Orange Man Bad.

Here’s Mika man:

Joe Scarborough:

"Trump will imprison, he will execute whoever he is allowed to imprison, execute, drive from the country. Just look at his past. It’s not really hard to read.” pic.twitter.com/NC0vo48xAe
— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) November 21, 2023

Trump Acquitted of Inciting Insurrection, Even as Bipartisan Majority Votes ‘Guilty’ – The New York Times (nytimes.com)

And there’s more from the ‘sound and fury, signifying nothing’ MSNBC:

“Former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson said Tuesday on MSNBC’s “Inside” that “everybody should vote for” President Joe Biden if they wanted democracy to survive.” Wow!!! Again!!!

Before we exit the land of the unhinged, there’s another unbalanced MSNBC political contributor who weighs in on Trump: former Democrat U.S. Senator of Missouri, the very rich Claire McCaskill.

McCaskill claims that Donald Trump is “even more dangerous” than dictators Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler!!! In the process of loathing Trump, McCaskill also has to mock MAGA supporters. You should know that the schtick of MSNBC contributors – our hoity-toity betters – is making their viewers feel superior to the deplorable hoi polloi.

The above insanity should tell you that the Left – Wokes, LGBTQ+ mafia, Antifa, the climate overwrought, BLM, race hustlers and all – are terrified of Trump. And they want you to be terrified of him, too. They see their world, supported by the vast administrative State that sustains their power and control over America, as threatened by Trump. For, in Trump’s next term, he will begin to pull apart the leviathan deep state apparatus that destroys Democracy and America itself.

That and the Left’s constant lawfare against Trump is an indicator to me that Trump is the right man for the job. He’s about saving what’s left of our Republic – namely, the Constitution, free speech, the right to bear arms, religious freedom, and due process which prohibits the states from depriving “any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” (14^th Amendment).

The Left, on the other hand, want to abandon all that. The Left wants to seize life, liberty, and property and create a system of producing and distributing collectively owned goods via a centralized government that plans and controls the economy. The left’s economic reforms increase centralized state control to the extent that private ownership becomes virtually impossible.

See Mao’s Great Leap Forward for one example of the effects of collectivization. A Progressive’s collective communist State means that all labor, money, and production go to the State and the State determines who benefits and who must go without based on political loyalty.

And see North Korea for the Left’s brand of “Democracy!” which the braying MSNBC crew says is under threat and not because of their dictatorial ways but because of the guy who wants to keep them from their dictatorial ways.

Trump has also shown that he wants to ensure our country’s sovereignty. And that means a closed border with legal immigration. He also wants to safeguard America from another war. The Left, under the Biden regime, has shown us that open borders with constant war and anarchy are its will.

Another indicator that Trump is right for the WH job is that there are those, not just domestically but internationally, who want Trump and those around them out of the picture, e.g., Iran-linked hitmen. Trump is bothering all the right (evil) people.

Going forward, I sure don’t want someone representing me in the WH who folds or capitulates under pressure. I sure don’t want appeasers and accommodationists like members of Congress. I sure don’t want someone who, at one time in Indiana, looked the part of a respectable Christian leader but turned out to be a squish: Don’t Ever Forget That Mike Pence Threw Religious Liberty Under the Bus | National Review

Results, not presentation, earn my respect.

And though New Yorker Trump could always pick out better words and phrasing to explain his thoughts and his frustrations with the stolen 2020 election, he wasn’t chosen to be president in 2016 and 2020 and once again in 2024 because he’s a poet laureate or a pastor or a prefab politician. Trump’s a producer for the American people.

The firing-on-all cylinders low-inflation economy (before the subterfuge of COVID) and the strong dollar Trump delivered – both are being destroyed by the Biden administration’s willful neglect of the American people as are the times of peace Trump fostered.

But MSNBC stands by their man Biden . . .

Since President Biden took office in January 2021, Americans have faced increasingly higher prices for food, gasoline, and other common household items. And while prices have been going up, wages have been going down, placing additional stress on family finances. This, per The Biden Inflation Tracker. This per Full-Time Nurse and Mother Breaks Down as She Discusses Tough Financial Struggles Under Bidenomics — Family Living ‘Paycheck-to-Paycheck’ Despite Decent Income (VIDEO) | The Gateway Pundit | by Jim Hᴏft

Since Biden took office Home sales fell to a 13-year low in October as prices rose (cnbc.com),

Since the illegitimate President took office in January 2021, our southern border has been invaded. Biden-Mayorkas have allowed in (6 million +) all kinds of illegal immigrants including narco-terrorists, gangs, CCP migrants, Hamas terrorists, and more unsavory types along with fentanyl and disease. 2024 will be disastrous as the effects of the open border hit home.

Under the corrupt, compromised, incompetent, and incorrigible Joe Biden, Americans now risk getting pulled into wars on three major fronts: Europe, the Asia Pacific and the Middle East. That didn’t happen under Trump.

But MSNBC stands by their man Biden . . .

Unlike those who are “ashamed” or “embarrassed” by Trump and want to condemn his unrefined ways as being beneath them, my working life was spent in the real world outside the cloisters of academia, religious organizations, and armchair punditry. I learned which people get things done and what needs to get done.

As a business partner in a multi-million-dollar manufacturing enterprise for many years, I found out who was needed and what was needed to bring success to both employees and the bottom line. The things that Trump got done during his first term allowed me to get things done in the Kingdom of God.

N.B.: There are imperfect people like Trump and tax-collector Matthew in the kingdom of heaven. (Mk. 2:15-17). So, it is best for the offended and the ‘high-minded’ to stick with the gospels and to stay away from tea leaves.

Consider a Trump economy. With a thriving economy, I am able to support myself and give to help others in need in a closely tied relationship. But under a Leftist Joe Biden economy, disposable personal income shrinks. Financial survival kicks in. And worse.

You should be aware that Leftists are intent on neutralizing Christianity and its charity. As mentioned above, the Left wants everything to be funneled through the State and the State to be the only effect on society. This is what Progressives do. They make everyone and everything dependent on ruling class ‘good will’. And that is the substance of State media’s MSNBC and their ilk.

So, while the prophets of Baal, enflamed with Trump Derangement Syndrome, shout louder and slash themselves with swords and spears in the hope that viewers will pay attention to their frantic prophesying and let their fire rain down on Trump, let’s turn to the Good News that has already come down from the heavens with its fire poured out through the Holy Spirit.

The beginning of Mark’s Gospel (εὐαγγέλιον or euaggélion – literally, “God’s good news.”):

This is where the good news starts – the good news of Jesus the Anointed King, God’s son.

Everything in Scripture (and specifically Isaiah 40-55) up to this time pointed to the Kingdom of God on earth. Mark writes (vs.14-15):

After John’s arrest, Jesus came into Galilee, announcing God’s good news.

“The time is fulfilled!” he said; “God Kingdom is arriving! Turn back and believe the good news!”

“Turn back”? When Jesus launched the long-promised kingdom of God on earth, allegiances and lifestyles began to change direction, as he began to talk about and show what that meant.

Jesus spoke of kingdom of God in parables and directly, as in Matthew 5-7. He showed what the kingdom of God meant – unclean spirits are cast out (Mk. 1:39), people are healed (Mt. 4:23), there is restoration (Lk. 15) and resurrection (Jn. 11:38-44). And, that the kingdom of God on earth was a fulfillment of the Law and Prophets (Mt. 5:17-18).

When he taught his disciples how to pray, he prayed

May your kingdom come,

May your will be done

As in heaven, so on earth

I wonder. Is that prayer being realized? Instead of allegiance to King Jesus the ultimate restorer and to the kingdom of God on earth, have the followers of Jesus become accommodationists of the world to fit in and find ease?

Have the followers of Jesus understood what the good news is? Have they reduced the gospel (euaggélion) to the formulaic four spiritual laws and an escape from the world into heaven?

Below are two podcasts that offer an understanding of the Good News and the kingdom of God on earth. Download and listen as you enter the season of celebrating the birth of a King who brought us good news and a kingdom.

But the holy ones of the Most High shall receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever—forever and ever. Daniel 7:18

We, the King’s holy ones, are to herald the good news of God’s Kingdom with a new way of life to a world that sees answers in profoundly short-sighted ways rather than in the Way of King Jesus. And then . . .

Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, saying,

“The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord
and of his Messiah,
and he will reign forever and ever.” Rev 11:15

~~~~~

On Earth as it is in Heaven

Anglican Bishop, and New Testament scholar, N.T. Wright makes clear, Jesus’ good news wasn’t about giving advice, or founding a new religion, or even where a soul goes when the body dies. Jesus was inviting his hearers into a new way of understanding Israel’s ancient story and the cosmic significance of its sudden fulfillment.

Reading Scripture with N.T. Wright

Trinity Forum Conversations | Reading Scripture with N.T. Wright (transistor.fm)

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Jesus and the Kingdom of God

Jesus bringing the Kingdom of God to the world looks much different than what his friends, family members, and Jewish community thought.

Jesus and the Kingdom of God

Jesus & the Kingdom of God (bibleproject.com)

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Informed Dissent:

A year of determination, the help of world-renowned doctors, and this mother’s research exposed the world to the known toxins in the Covid-19 vaccines that nearly killed her son.

“In 2021, after my then 21-year-old son went from running miles a day to walking with a cane, diagnosed with a rare, catastrophic blood disorder, this mom knows it is time for vaccine injury victims & families to ignite an intelligent, rational conversation about what the mRNA vaccines put into our bodies. We don’t buy food or health products without reading the labels and knowing the ingredients, and it’s time we do the same with the vaccines for our children.”

The Shot Heard Around The World – A Mother’s Anthem (substack.com)

Livestock raised in confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) are routinely given a range of veterinary drugs to prevent disease, and some of those drugs could potentially impact the health of those who eat their meat.

Common Drug Used by Pork Industry Has Human Cancer Risk (mercola.com)

Thousands of vials of biological substances — including some labeled “HIV” — and a freezer marked “Ebola” were found inside a secret Chinese-owned biolab in California which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and FBI initially refused to investigate, according to a House committee report released Wednesday.

Pathogens labeled ‘HIV’ and ‘Ebola’ found inside illegal Chinese-owned biolab in California (nypost.com)

“This is really a massive cover-up. And I suspect it’s because there’s many more links to the funding, and there was probably discussion of the funding,” says Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky).

HHS and NIH More Secretive Than CIA on COVID Origin Documents: Sen. Rand Paul | EpochTV (theepochtimes.com)

~~~~~

Brace Yourself For What’s Coming in 2024 – Victor Davis Hanson – YouTube

Victor Davis Hanson Warns America: ‘Brace Yourself for What’s Coming in 2024’ (VIDEO) | The Gateway Pundit | by Mike LaChance

Filed under 2023 current events, 2024 Election, Christianity, cultural Marxism, Gospel of Mark, Gospels, Kingdom of God, media, Political Commentary, Politics, Progressivism, social commentary Tagged with democrats, Jesus, Joe Biden, media, MSNBC, politics, progressives, the Gospel, The Kingdom of God, Trump

The Way We Live and Die Now

May 7, 2023 Leave a comment

“According to the report “Martyred Christians in Nigeria” issued by Intersociety, over the past 14 years at least 52,250 Nigerian Christians have been brutally murdered at the hands of Islamist militants.’

Over 50,000 Christians killed in Nigeria by Islamist extremists – Vatican News

5,068 Citizens Massacred For Being Christians In Nigeria In 2022, 1,041 Slaughtered In First 100 Days Of 2023 – InterSociety (intersociety-ng.org)

“The attackers targeted the St Francis Xavier Catholic Church in the town of Owo as the worshippers gathered on Pentecost Sunday, according to local officials. They gunned down parishioners and detonated an explosive device, local media reported.”

Nigeria: gunmen kill dozens in ‘satanic’ attack on Catholic church | Nigeria | The Guardian

The world hates and crushes those not in conformity to its prescribed world-order manifestations.

A prescribed world-order? Above, Islamic extremism carried out genocidal attacks. Here’s another example from the last century:

“Although the Bolsheviks called for the abolition of private property, their real goal was spiritual: to translate Marxist- Leninist ideology into reality. For the first time, a state was created that was based explicitly on atheism and claimed infallibility. . . In countries where communism came to hold sway, it hollowed out society’s moral core, degrading the individual and turning him into a cog in the machinery of the state. Communists committed murder on such a scale as to all but eliminate the value of life and to destroy the individual conscience in survivors.”

100 Years of Communism—and 100 Million Dead | Hudson

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn chronicled the dehumanizing and destructive force of a prescribed world-order – Marxist-Leninist Stalinism – with its relentless steamroller of conformity.

The same crusade to exact conformity to the prescribed world-order is present today. We see this in calls for “Diversity”, conformity in drag. “Diversity” is one of the ruses used to sort out those who conform from those who do not conform to the prescribed world-order.

COVID mandates – lockdowns, masks, social distancing, vaccines, etc. – were all done by edicts to bring about conformity to a prescribed world-order. Turning over America’s sovereignty to the World Health Organization (WHO) is meant to enforce conformity to a prescribed world order.

A system of spying on people is meant to enforce conformity to a prescribed world order.

New WHO Pandemic Initiative Uses ‘Listening Surveillance Systems’ To Identify ‘Misinformation & Rumors.’ – Stephen K Bannon’s War Room

A digital currency is meant to enforce conformity to a prescribed world order.

Digital Dollar: When You Don’t Own Money – In The Tank #395 – The Heartland Institute

Steamroller conformity measures – executive orders, regulations, etc. – are now being rolled out for the “climate crisis”. Any who do not conform will be dealt with one way or another.

The same spirit of the world, with its drive to conformity, existed in the first century.

In the gospel according to Mark, we read that religious and political authorities did not like what was Jesus was saying and doing. Jesus had posed a question to a sabbath synagogue group, which by their non-answer, exposed their hard-heartedness. In spite of their conformity-based silence (who would dare speak out with religious authorities in the room?), Jesus went on to heal a man with a withered hand on the sabbath. Offense was taken, for Jesus didn’t conform to the pre-scribed world-order. He didn’t play by the rules.

“The Pharisees [religious authorities] went out right away and began to plot with the Herodians [political authorities] against Jesus, trying to find a way to destroy him “(Mk. 3:6).

Bearing faithful witness, as the early Christians did when they accurately reported what they had seen and heard of Jesus including what they witnessed during his post-resurrection appearances, is a costly commitment of life as it stands up against the prescribed world-order. Some called the witness subversive and divisive. Others alluded to it as misinformation. What the early Christians testified to did not conform to the pre-scribed world-order and so they had to be put down. Many such witnesses proved the fortitude of their faith in Christ by undergoing a violent death.

“. . . all fortitude has reference to death. All fortitude stands in the presence of death. Fortitude is basically readiness to die or, more accurately, readiness to fall, to die, in battle. . . “man must be ready to let himself be killed rather than to deny Christ or to sin grievously.” Readiness to die is therefore one of the foundations of the Christian life.””
Josef Pieper, The Four Cardinal Virtues (University of Notre Dame Press, 1966) 117, 118

“Just like the early church, we are being persecuted. When I became bishop years ago, I inherited a persecuted church. I had no intention then to let the church lose steam, and I don’t want that happening now. We must not be afraid or lose confidence, but plow ahead with mission in the midst of persecution. Courage only comes from God. Outside of Jesus, your own courage will fail you. When you see the gospel at work saving lives, you count your suffering for nothing.”
Benjamin Kwashi, Archbishop of the Province of Jos, Nigeria

(From the Greek word martus (a witness) comes the English derivation “martyr”.)

“If the world hates you,” Jesus went on,” know that it hated me before it hated you. If you were from the world, the world would be fond of its own. But the world hates you for this reason: that you’re not from this world. No: I chose you out of this world.”
Jesus, in the gospel according to John 15: 18-19

This world hates and crushes those not in conformity to its prescribed world-order manifestations. It hates any exposure of its diabolical machinations working to conform people to the ruler of this world. And that is what the Christian life does – exposes world-order lies.

One testifies that one is not loyal to the prescribed world-order as one embodies new creation-ordered reality – Christ in you – and lives that reality out in the home, in the church, and in the community of creation. As spirit-filled Christians we live in the new creation-ordered world. And that puts us in opposition to any conformity to a spirit-voided prescribed world-order.

Some will mock and jeer those not conformed to their prescribed world-order. Others, as history has shown, may gun down those who do not conform (Listen to homily below). For, unlike Christians who take new creation life from the True Vine (Jn. 15), those of the world-order take their life from the fallen, dried up, and withered branch of ideology. For them, adhering to the ideological life is everything. And so, their scripture might read . . .

“Do not be shaped by new creation-order but be fundamentally transformed by the renewing of your mind with prescribed conformity. Then you and others will be able to disapprove of and resist God’s authority and accept the authority of the world-order.”
Antichrist’s Letter to the church in Media 12:2

*****

“If one part of our body hurts, we hurt all over. If one part of our body is honored, the whole body will be happy.” -1 COR. 12:26

The Crisis of Christian Persecution in Nigeria Download

*****

Mass for Persecuted Christians

Music: Paul Jernberg

Theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven – YouTube

Homilist: Fr. Benedict Kiely (founding director of Nasarean.org)

0:33 – Introit: Look to Your Covenant, O Lord

4:38 – Confiteor / I confess to Almighty God

5:54 – Kyrie / Lord, have mercy

6:37 – Gloria / Glory to God in the Highest

9:39 – Responsorial Psalm: Let the Nations Know

12:45 – Alleluia (traditional Melkite)

14:09 – Homily

31:32 – Universal Prayer / Great Litany (Roman Hurko)

35:15 – Offertory antiphon: You Will Save the Humble People, O Lord

39:51 – Sanctus / Holy, Holy, Holy

41:31 – Pater Noster / Our Father

43:22 – Agnus Dei / Lamb of God

44:32 – Communion antiphon: That Which I Tell You in the Dark

48:15 – The Beatitudes

52:10 – Marian Hymn: We Fly Unto Your Heart of Compassion

53:38 – Closing Hymn: Praise, My Soul, the King of Heaven

Nasarean.org | Aid & Advocacy for Persecuted Christians in the Middle East

The Voice of the Martyrs (persecution.com)

VOM Radio – LAOS PASTOR: “God is Real and He Healed Me”

******

Josiah Lippincott, a Hillsdale college alum and former page for Devin Nunes, has an essay at American Greatness: Conservatives Lost the Culture War and the Trump Agenda Is the Only Path Forward. Here are a few excerpts:

“COVID-19 made the weakness of American Christianity painfully clear. Protestant and Catholic churches alike overwhelmingly declared themselves nonessential during the spring of 2020. That was, sadly, merely an acknowledgement of a longstanding reality. . .

The vague admonitions to “have faith” and “follow Christ” that pepper the Sunday morning pastoral exhortations from America’s pulpits generally lack any practical core. America’s pastors, with few exceptions, shy away from fighting for the faith they supposedly love. They lack the sternness and fidelity of their forebears. Compare a St. Augustine to a Pope Francis or a Martin Luther to a David French. Our Christian forebears had iron in their souls. The modern pastor is generally soft. . .

America is awash in men’s groups, Bible studies, discipleship training, women’s seminars, and worship conferences. Yet divorce is through the roof, abortion is common, and homosexuality lauded from the very centers of American financial and political power. Whatever utility all this frenetic religious activity has had for the private faith lives of ordinary Americans, it is abundantly clear it has not had any real benefit for the moral and spiritual health of the nation as a whole.”

Josiah makes the point that “Political power doesn’t flow from scoring debate points in the “free marketplace of ideas.” It comes from the willingness to impose one’s beliefs on others and possessing the resources to do so.

All morality requires enforcement.”

*****

Subversive podcast with Josiah Lippincott

*****

Informed Dissent:

“A new pandemic prevention initiative by the World Health Organization will rely on “social listening surveillance systems” to identify “rumors and misinformation,” War Room can reveal.

The initiative – Preparedness and Resilience for Emerging Threats (PRET) – seeks to “guide countries in pandemic planning” while “incorporat[ing] the latest tools and approaches for shared learning and collective action established during the COVID-19 pandemic.””

“Module one of the initiative’s blueprint describes how the spread of content deemed “misinformation” amounts to a new “health threat” called “infodemics.”’

New WHO Pandemic Initiative Uses ‘Listening Surveillance Systems’ To Identify ‘Misinformation & Rumors.’ – Stephen K Bannon’s War Room

*****

Live from the Darian Gap: Chinese Communists Plan to Take Over the United States Exposed (banned.video)

Global warming is the largest scam in human history. pic.twitter.com/NDxwVbBPMG
— Cernovich (@Cernovich) May 5, 2023

After listing off Ms. Furchtgott-Roth's extensive history of expertise as though it were a bad thing, @SenWhitehouse went on a completely baseless tirade about Heritage's funding.

Unfortunately for him, @DFR_Economics was prepared with the facts. pic.twitter.com/wB1AwHRhEH
— Heritage Foundation (@Heritage) May 3, 2023

‘Net Zero is taking the world’s population backwards’ | Neil Oliver issues grave Ulez warning – YouTube

Filed under 2023 current events, Christianity, Persecution, Political Commentary Tagged with Christianity, Intersociety, Jesus, martyrs, Mass for Persecuted Christians, Nigeria

The Nature of Things

February 5, 2023 Leave a comment

I wonder what sort of a tale we’ve fallen into?

-Samwise Gamgee to Frodo Baggins, reflecting on their journey

The twelve of us are in fishing boats anchored just offshore. Four of us – me, Andrew, James and John – are fishermen and the rest, landlubbers.

Jesus, the one who called us together to be with him, is standing on one of the fishing boats facing a huge crowd on the shore. He is teaching about the kingdom of God in parables.

At the end of the day Jesus says, “Let’s go over to the other side.”

Our boats leave the crowded shore and head across the sea toward the land of the Gerasenes. On the water, wind in our sails, we have downtime. Jesus is asleep on a cushion in the stern of my boat. I guide the craft with oar and sail and reflections. Where have we been and where are we headed?

I look around. The twelve of us come from small villages in Galilee. Most of us have attended synagogue. The tax collector hadn’t shown his face there until Jesus called him to follow along. We each share some common knowledge about God and our world. Is that why Jesus called us to follow him?

In synagogue we recited Hear O’ Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One. We were taught that our God brought order out of chaos when He formed the world. We were taught that God gave the created order functions and promised As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall not cease. We learned that our God is involved in our world.

We were taught that we are made in the God’s image and that we are to function as God’s image in this world.

We learned the history of our people. The law, the prophets, and psalms were read.And there was talk of someone that would save Israel from her oppressors.

Jesus came along and announced that the kingdom of God has arrived. He began teaching us to understand things in kingdom of God ways. I cast a net into the sea and I catch fish and men. I plant a grain of wheat and wheat grows and the kingdom of God grows.

We’ve heard Jesus say astonishing things in synagogues across Galilee. We’ve witnessed Jesus casting out demons and healing all kinds of afflictions. Right before our own eyes we saw him restore order and function. It is exciting and daunting to be with Jesus. What’s next in our journey?

Suddenly, the wind starts whipping our sails back and forth. A big storm is upon us. Monster surface waves are beating on the boats. Can we stay afloat? Each boat is quickly taking on water and with it the fear of the destructive power of nature. What are twelve men and a carpenter-teacher against such a storm on open water?

Andrew rouses Jesus.

“We’re going down! Don’t you care?”

Jesus gets up, his garment soaking wet. He scolds the wind and says to the sea “Silence! Shut up!”

At once, the wind died and there was a flat calm. Order was restored. Jesus looks at our terrified faces. “Why are you scared? Don’t you believe yet?”

A great fear washed over us. Believe what? Hair on the back of my neck stood up. We looked at each other trying to comprehend who and what just happened. “Who is this? Even the wind and the sea do what he says!”

After that, thoughts came flooding in. How could they not?

In synagogue we had heard that the earth was complete chaos, and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God^] swept over the face of the waters and that God created great sea monsters. We heard that God brought order and function to the churning, chaotic primordial deeps.

The deep, the wind, the storm, the great sea monsters – everything serves God.

As a fisherman, how could I forget the words of the Psalm I heard in synagogue last Sabbath?

Some went down to the sea in ships,
    doing business on the mighty waters;
they saw the deeds of the Lord,
    his wondrous works in the deep.
For he commanded and raised the stormy wind,
    which lifted up the waves of the sea.
They mounted up to heaven; they went down to the depths;
    their courage melted away in their calamity;
they reeled and staggered like drunkards
    and were at their wits’ end.
Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble,
    and he brought them out from their distress;
he made the storm be still,
    and the waves of the sea were hushed.
Then they were glad because they had quiet,
    and he brought them to their desired haven.
Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love,
    for his wonderful works to humankind.
Let them extol him in the congregation of the people
    and praise him in the assembly of the elders.

And the Sabbath before that . . .

You rule the raging of the sea;
when its waves rise, you still them.

And the Sabbath before that . . .

At your rebuke the waters flee;
at the sound of your thunder they take to flight.

And the words of Job, the Sabbath before that . . .

The pillars of heaven tremble
and are astounded at his rebuke.
By his power he stilled the Sea;
by his understanding he struck down Rahab

Could that mean . . .?! Whoa whoa whoa! I lived to tell this!

Adapted from the gospel according to Mark, chapter four.

Additional Texts: Psalm 89, 104, 107; Job 26

*****

You and I are in a tale of cosmic proportions. It’s a tale of the unseen as more real than the seen and where mysteries are revealed. For God is always active in the world in countless and often undetectable ways.

It’s a tale of learning to practice the presence of God. It’s a tale of life in sacred space. For God is with us. And should we then be presumptive of God and domesticate him with our theology? Or, should we learn to be practitioners of his presence come what may?

*****

Mark Chapter 5: when the boats reached the land of the Gerasenes, Jesus and the group of twelve are met by a man with an unclean spirit. The demoniac, feared by everyone around, brought disorder to God’s creation. People tried to bring about order by restraining him with chains and shackles. But he tore up the chains and snapped the shackles.

Jesus sent the Legion of demons into a herd of pigs. The herd rushed down the steep slope into the recently “ordered” sea and drowned. He restored order in that district.

Only God is able to bring order out of cosmic disorder. (The World Economic Forum cannot no matter how many shackles and chains they apply.)

*****

Order and function in all that is:

As Kingfishers catch fire

By Gerard Manley Hopkins

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves — goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying Whát I dó is me: for that I came.
I say móre: the just man justices;
Keeps grace: thát keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is —
Chríst — for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men’s faces.

“Each of these objects does exactly what its nature dictates, in a kind of (unwilled) self-assertion. More generally, every “mortal thing” might be thought to do the same: to express that essence that dwells inside (“indoors”) of it.”

Hopkins’s Poetry “As Kingfishers Catch Fire, Dragonflies Draw Flame” Summary & Analysis | SparkNotes

*****

John H. Walton (Ph.D. Hebrew Union College) is Professor of Old Testament at Wheaton College and Graduate School where he has taught for almost twenty years

*****

Informed Dissent:

“What of the vaccine damaged and dead”?”

Speaking for the Dead – by Robert W Malone MD, MS (substack.com)

And who is Martha Stewards’ audience?

Whoa! Pfizer’s Latest Ad with Martha Stewart Claims the COVID Booster Shot will Take Out the COVID Virus – A COMPLETE LIE (thegatewaypundit.com)

Bill Gates concludes that mRNA shots aren’t actually useful, warns of ‘next pandemic’ (substack.com)

BREAKING: @Pfizer Director Concerned Over Women's Reproductive Heath After COVID-19 Vaccinations

"There is something irregular about their menstrual cycles…concerning…The vaccine shouldn't be interfering with that…It has to be affecting something hormonal…"#Pfertility pic.twitter.com/XAuMPJNShD
— Project Veritas (@Project_Veritas) February 2, 2023

Project Veritas massive #Pfertility bombshell… going viral online now… – Revolver News

Science vs. religion as Greek priests lead the anti-vax movement – POLITICO

Dr. Naomi Wolf on COVID Vaccine: “A Bioweapon – Manufactured in Concert with the CCP – In a Slow Way to Debilitate If Not Kill Off the Population of North America and Western Europe” (VIDEO) (thegatewaypundit.com)

Project Veritas has broken Pfizer’s Gain-of-Function Research Program Wide Open. (substack.com)

The Lancet, which scammed the world by publishing a rigged study against ivermectin, now says climate change is a “medical emergency” – NaturalNews.com

Risk-Benefit-Final Download

Prof. Retsef Levi from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) warned about the risks associated with experimental mRNA COVID vaccines.

Renowned MIT Professor and Drug Safety Analytics Specialist Calls for Immediate Suspension of all mRNA COVID Vaccines (thegatewaypundit.com)

Top Insurance Analyst Finds a 7% Increase In Aggregate Mortality for Each C19 Dose Received [VIDEO] (redvoicemedia.com)

THE PLAN – WHO plans for 10 years of pandemics, from 2020 to 2030 (rumble.com)

Pfizer reports $100 billion haul, with vast majority of profits looted from US taxpayers (substack.com)

It is the most expensive “free” product of all time.

Pfizer colluded with the federal government to siphon off $100 billion dollars from the American taxpayer last year, in filings announced Tuesday by the drugmaker. $31 billion of that massive haul amounted to pure profit, which was up 43% from 2021. (Emphasis mine.)

EXCLUSIVE: The Federal Government Is Tracking Unvaccinated People Who Go To The Doctor And To The Hospital Due to CDC-Designed Surveillance Program – National File

CDC Plot To Track The Unvaccinated Revealed At September 2021 ICD-10 Coordination and Maintenance Committee Meeting pic.twitter.com/0E5AaCmDAm
— National File (@NationalFile) February 1, 2023

Nothing to see here, only Sudden (Slab Jab) Deaths and the culling of the human population to save the planet:

18-Year-Old Freshman Dies Suddenly After Collapsing During Workout (thegatewaypundit.com)

Famed Olympic athlete and rugby player dies suddenly at 35 (wnd.com)

Jessie Lemonier dead at 25: Ex-Detroit Lions and LA Chargers linebacker, news confirmed by team | Daily Mail Online

19-Year-Old WSU Student Found Dead in His Dorm – No Evidence of Foul Play Involved (thegatewaypundit.com)

32-Year-Old Firefighter and Marine Corps Veteran Dies Suddenly (thegatewaypundit.com)

(READ) Autopsy analysis of 2 teen boys who died days after 2d Pfizer Covid-19 shot | Sharyl Attkisson

Former NFL linebacker dies suddenly at 25, no cause of death given – LifeSite (lifesitenews.com)

BREAKING: Beloved Tennis Player Dies Suddenly After Collapse On Summerlin Court – [your]NEWS (yournews.com)

Tragic: 14-Year-Old Israeli American Girl Suffers and Dies from COVID Vaccine – Makes a Video of Her Story Five Days Before Her Death (thegatewaypundit.com)

Search Results from the VAERS Database (medalerts.org)\

Vaccine Caused Excess Deaths?

Do you want to be free from medical tyranny?

Health Freedom Advocacy Center | Stand For Health Freedom

Bills to watch:

Representative Andy Harris’ HR118 – No Vaccine Passports Act
Representative Andy Biggs’ HR72, which prohibits the use of federal funds to maintain or collect information that can be used to identify any individual to whom a COVID-19 vaccine is administered, as well as for other purposes.
Representative Thomas Massie’s HR185, which will terminate the COVID vaccine mandate on foreign travelers flying to the United States.
Representative Chip Roy’s HR343 – No Taxpayer Funding for the WHO Act
Representative Andy Harris’ HR79 – WHO Withdrawal Act

More wealth transfer:

Filed under Christianity, Gospel of Mark, Short Story Tagged with Christianity, Gospel of Mark, Immanuel, Jesus, Jesus calms the sea

Claim We Can Believe In

July 24, 2022 Leave a comment

Have you tried out claims that promise a change for the better and then found that they fall short of their ballyhooed benefits? Have you tried, say, using tooth whitening strips and gels and find that your teeth didn’t whiten as advertised? Did you lose the weight promised through a much-hyped weight reduction program? Has the COVID vaccine proven to be “safe and effective” and a protection against COVID as claimed by the CDC, Anthony Fauci and the media?

Have you given in to high-pressure sales such as the latter? Did you act without sufficient information as to the risks and benefits? According to the FDA, when drugs are advertised A product claim ad names a drug, says what condition it treats, and talks about both its benefits and its risks. An ad must present the benefits and risks of a prescription drug in a balanced fashion. Balance depends on both the information in the ad itself and how the information is presented. In this ad, the benefits and risks are presented to give a balanced impression of the drug. Did you see any of the required FDA ad information for the COVID vaccine crusade?

Have you voted for the ostentatious claims of political campaigns? A few recent examples include “Change We Can Believe In”, “Hope and Change”, “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for”, “This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal”, and “We can Build Back Better”.

If you are into audacious claims and a Claim We Can Believe In, then here’s one:

“I am the Alpha and Omega, the first and last, the beginning and the end.” -Jesus, The Revelation of John 22:13

Before this claim is made by the risen-from-the-dead Jesus and before any of the seven “I am” claims stated in John’s gospel account, Jesus revealed empirical proof to eyewitnesses and taste-witnesses that would substantiate his incredible claim.

The revelation came about during a wedding feast. Without much ado (Jesus didn’t blow smoke about himself like so many have done to draw attention to themselves.), Jesus revealed himself to be the first and last of any sequence. The account is recorded in John’s gospel chapter 2:

On the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’s mother was there, and Jesus and his disciples were also invited to the wedding.

The wine ran out.

Jesus’s mother came over to him.

“They haven’t got any wine!” she said.

“Oh, Mother!” replied Jesus. “What’s that got to do with you and me? My time hasn’t come yet.”

His mother spoke to the servants. “Do whatever he tells you”, she said.

Six stone water-jars were standing there, ready for use in the Jewish purification rites. Each held about twenty or thirty gallons.

“Fill the jars with water,” said Jesus to the servants. And they filled them, right up to the brim.

“Now draw some water out,” he said, “and take it to the chief steward.” They did so.

Biblical vector illustration series, Jesus turns water into wine

When the chief steward tasted the water that turned into wine (he didn’t know where it had come from, but the servants who had drawing the water knew), he called the bridegroom.

“What everybody normally does,” he said, “is to serve the good wine first, and then the worse stuff when people have had plenty to drink. But you’ve kept the good wine till now!”

This event, in Cana of Galilee, was the first of Jesus’s signs. He displayed his glory, and his disciples believed in him.

-The gospel according to John (the Elder) 2: 1-11

Water into wine. The first and last of a sequence and the transubstantiation of one substance into another. The sequence bypassed grapes, sunlight, soil, a winepress, and fermentation. We logically expect the process to explain things. How could science explain this? H₂O changed from a simple formula into a complex mixture of chemical compounds in an instant.

John records empirical proof substantiating Jesus’s first-last claim – the wine-tasting done by the chief steward. We learn from the steward that the wine Jesus produced wasn’t the “worse stuff”. It wasn’t sour grape water. It was, in fact, “good wine”. The chief steward had no idea the “good wine” was sourced from the First and Last Vineyard.

“Ask any winemaker and they’ll tell you that winemaking is a complex business. . . the chemical profile of the grapes can also vary depending on how much sunlight and water they are exposed to, how quickly they ripen, their ripeness when picked, and on conditions such as the climate and the soil.”

Scripture gives insight to Christ’s threefold claim Alpha and Omega, first and last, beginning and the end. Psalm 91:1 is an example of the parallelism used in the claim.

You who live in the shelter of the Most High,
who abide in the shadow of the Almighty

The coupling of words deepens and expands the meaning of the words. “Abide” has a deeper sense of belonging than “live”. “Shadow” has a greater sense of comfort than “shelter” and “Almighty” has a greater sense of omnipotence than “Most High”.

Jesus claims to be A to Zed and more. Jesus claims to be the first and last of any sequence and not just what is a readily known sequence. Jesus claims to before the beginning as the beginning and after the end as the end. He claims to be the arché and telos. Jesus claims to be the source of a sequence and the goal of a sequence. The most extraordinary deed ever recorded substantiates his claim.

John wants the readers of his gospel account to know that this most extraordinary deed of Jesus is archetypal of what Jesus will do and is sourced in who he is.

This event, in Cana of Galilee, was the arché of Jesus’s signs.

Colossians 1:15-17

Now Christ is the visible expression of the invisible God. He existed before creation began, for it was through him that everything was made, whether spiritual or material, seen or unseen. Through him, and for him, also, were created power and dominion, ownership and authority. In fact, every single thing was created through, and for him. He is both the first principle and the upholding principle of the whole scheme of creation.

The first and last sequence, the beginning and end, the sustaining principle and destiny of all things is a person. The arché and telos of every level of reality is a person. Living water and new wine is a person.

NB: John opened this account with “On the third day . . .”, a reference to another extraordinary sequence completed in Christ – the resurrection.

More than a Claim to Believe In was confirmed at the Cana wedding. I see the love of Christ demonstrated. Without calling attention to himself, Jesus acted to bless the wedding and keep the bride and groom as the focus of the celebration. He acted behind the scenes to uphold the whole scheme of creation.

*****

‘Atheism too lives by an indemonstrable faith; whether it is faith in human nature (Feuerbach), or faith in the future socialist society (Marx) or faith in rational science (Freud). The question then can be asked of any form of atheism whether it is not itself an understandable projection of man (Feuerbach), a consolation serving vested interests (Marx) or an infantile illusion (Freud).’ Hans Kung, Why I am still a Christian (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1987), 229-30.

*****

Informed Dissent:

Dr. Birx Praises Herself While Revealing Ignorance, Treachery, and Deceit ⋆ Brownstone Institute

Send in the HHS clowns – by Robert W Malone MD, MS (substack.com)

“An accomplished litigator, Kennedy seeks to persuade jurors who purchased his book that the “real” Anthony Fauci is a “serial liar,” a “corrupt,” “vindictive,” and “disingenuous” “fraud,” who ingratiated himself to a “servile” press as well as all seven presidents who took his public health advice. According to Kennedy, Anthony Fauci remains the undisputed “ringmaster” presiding over a “Ministry of Fear” whose “tentacles” now reach into almost every powerful organization in the world.”

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Takes on Fauci in ‘Most Important Book’ of our Times – UncoverDC

“The World Health Organization (WHO) has been pushing forward with preparations for an agreement to create a global health governance. Although it has been referred to as a “pandemic treaty,” it’s been openly discussed that the agreement should cover much more. . .

Nowhere has this been described as an agreement that would only be in effect in case of a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC), but it would instead set up standing surveillance methods in attempts to prevent another pandemic.”

Read this article – WHO Update | Stand for Health Freedom – and see the steps you can take to ward off WHO intrusion into our lives.

Fully vaccinated account for 91% of COVID deaths in one country (wnd.com)

W.H.O. declares Monkey Pox a ‘global health emergency’… – CITIZEN FREE PRESS

Monkeypox:

Don’t dare call them groomers…. 98% of cases are among gay or bisexual men and 95% of cases are suspected to have been transmitted during sex. Now children are infected.

CDC Reports First Two Cases of Monkeypox in Children, Both ‘Adjacent’ to the Gay Community (thegatewaypundit.com)

Monkeypox or Moneypox? – by Robert W Malone MD, MS (substack.com)

Marxism:

Carrying Water For The Revolution – by Sam Faddis (substack.com)

Courage Update:

Pastor Artur Pawlowski at Rebel News

Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 on Twitter: “🚨BIGGEST ALBERTA NEWS STORY OF 2022. The Alberta Court of Appeal just destroyed Jason Kenney’s two-year persecution of Pastor Artur Pawlowski. They ruled that the injunction against him, his arrest, his jail time, the censorship order and fines against him were illegal.” / Twitter

“A scared world needs a fearless church.” – AW Tozer

Jan 6^th political prisoners:

Prosecutors didn’t want this Jan 6 footage to come out. Now it was 1.5 million views. Why is that? pic.twitter.com/n0MQICC0HL
— Jack Poso 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) September 23, 2021

Climate Change in the Dock:

Don’t mess with the man from MIT… – CITIZEN FREE PRESS

Filed under Christianity, Political Commentary, The Gospel of John Tagged with advertising claims, Alpha and Omega, Christianity, Jesus, Obama, Political Campaigns, the wedding at Cana, water into wine

The Eyes Have It

April 15, 2022 Leave a comment

At the cross. At the burial. At the empty tomb. Three wait-and-see days. Three women.

The gospel according to Mark begins with the ushering in of “the good news of Jesus the Messiah, God’s son” (Mk. 1:1). Composed of short narratives that could be easily visualized by those who heard its reading, Mark’s terse and unembellished gospel clears a straight path so that the reader can see and perceive Jesus as the fulfillment of God’s promises (Mk. 1:3).

For example, Mark uses literary bracketing (inclusio) to focus in on that fulfillment. Two accounts of blind men receiving their sight bracket Jesus telling his disciples (three times) that he will be rejected, handed over to the authorities, killed and then rise from the dead after three days. (Beginning Bracket: Mark 8:22-26; End Bracket: Mark.10:46-52.)

Because of their own unwillingness to really really look at Jesus (cf. Mk.8:25) the disciples do not perceive Jesus as the fulfillment of God’s promises through death and resurrection.

At a mission critical point in the gospel account -Mark chapter 8 – Jesus reproaches his disciples for their lack of understanding. We learn from the brutally honest account that those closest to Jesus, each with two good eyes and two good ears, still did not grasp that the Messiah had to be crucified and then rise again. We hear that in Peter’s repudiation of that mission (Mk. 8:32).

Peter is Mark’s principal eyewitness source of what Jesus said and did and of the disciple’s reactions. But after the end of Mark chapter 14, where Peter’s denial is recorded, Peter and the male disciples are nowhere to be seen or heard from.

Three women are introduced into the passion narrative (Mk 15). They are the source for Mark’s passion account. They are eyewitnesses of what occurred at the cross, at the burial and at the empty tomb.

Earlier in the text, Mark wrote of the blind gaining sight, of those with two good eyes not seeing and not perceiving what was taking place. Mark now places emphasis on seeing that would lead to perceiving and, hopefully, to belief. He records the seeing of the women seven times:

At the cross. Some of the women observed from a distance. They included Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of the younger James and of Joses, and Salome. They had followed Jesus in Galilee, and had attended to his needs. There were several other women, too, who had come up with him to Jerusalem. (Mk. 15: 40-41).

(Note that Mark added that these women had also been with Jesus for most of his ministry. He is telling us that they had observed Jesus from his early ministry to the empty tomb. These women likely heard Jesus teach his disciples new things: about him being handed over to be killed and his rising from the dead after three days. (Mk. 8:31-32; 9:31-32; 10:32-45)

At the burial. Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses observed where he was buried. (Mk. 15:47)

At the empty tomb. After the Sabbath, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they could come and anoint Jesus …” who’s going to roll the stone away for us?”

Then, when they looked up, they observed that it had been rolled away. (It was extremely large.) (Mk. 16: 1-4)

So they went into the tomb, and there they saw a young man sitting on the right hand side. He was wearing white. They were totally astonished.

“Don’t be astonished,” he said to them. “You’re looking for Jesus of Nazarene, who was crucified. He has been raised! He isn’t here! Look – this is the place where they laid him.

“But go and tell his disciples – including Peter – that he is going ahead of you to Galilee. You will see him there, just like he told you.” (Mk. 16:5-7)

The earliest manuscripts of Mark’s gospel account end at 16: 8:

They [the three women] went out, and fled from the tomb. Trembling and panic had seized them. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.

This is a curious ending for a gospel that begins with “the good news of Jesus the Messiah, God’s son”. Mark clearly wanted the readers to perceive Jesus as the Messiah, God’s son. He clearly wanted the reader to take in the crucifixion of the Messiah and his bodily resurrection. Why end good news with fear and trembling?

Mark’s gospel account may have had a longer ending. If the original manuscript was written on a scroll (likely), the edge of the scroll containing his ending may have deteriorated. This also happened to many dead sea scrolls.

Later copies of Mark contained appended text (Mk. 16: 9-20). This text may have been added by a scribe in the second century who was familiar with Luke’s gospel account. There are similarities. Mark’s promise of “the good news of Jesus the Messiah, God’s son” has been restored- fulfilled – with the added text. And so was Mark’s emphasis of those not perceiving what is taking place.

Mark’s narrative emphasis on hardness of heart leading to unbelief – rejecting what has been seen and heard by eyewitness accounts– is reinforced in the added text:

When Jesus was raised, early on the first day of the week, he appeared to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons. She went and told the people who had been with him, who were mourning and weeping. When they heard that he was alive, and that he had been seen by her, they didn’t believe it.

After this he appeared in a different guise to two of them as they were walking into the countryside. They came back and told the others, but they didn’t believe them.

Later Jesus appeared to the eleven themselves, as they were at table. He told them off for their hardness of heart, for not believing those who had seen him after he had been raised. (Mk. 16: 9-14)

At the cross. At the burial. At the empty tomb. Three wait-and-see days. Three women seeing seven times. Eleven hard-hearted disciples. And you? You still don’t get it? (cf. Mk.8:21)

All God’s promises, you see, find their yes in him: and that’s why we say the yes, the “Amen,” through him when we pray to God and give him glory (2 Cor. 1:20)

The eyes have it. Amen.

****

“Nowhere in early Christian literature do we find traditions attributed to the community as their source or transmitter, only as the recipient. Against the general form-critical image of the early Christian movement as anonymous collectivity, we must stress that the New Testament writings are full of prominent named individuals . . . Compared with the prominence of named individuals in the New Testament itself, form criticism represented a rather strange depersonalization of early Christianity that still exercised an unconscious influence on New Testament scholars.”[i]

[i] Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony (William B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., Grand Rapids, MI), 2017), 297

Filed under Christianity, Easter, resurrection, The Gospel of Mark Tagged with Christianity, Easter, Holy Week, Jesus, resurrection, The Gospel of Mark, women in ministry

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THIS SIDE OF PARADISE

“We have entered, as I see it, a spiritual limbo. Our educational institutions are no longer the bearers of high culture, and public life has been deliberately moronised. But here and there, sheltered from the noise and glare of the media, the old spiritual forces are at work” Roger Scruton

*****

“When a common culture declines, the ethical life can be sustained and renewed only by a work of the imagination.”-Roger Scruton
*****
“Jesus prayed, “This is eternal life, that they may know You . . .” (John 17:3). The real meaning of eternal life is a life that can face anything it has to face without wavering. If we will take this view, life will become one great romance— a glorious opportunity of seeing wonderful things all the time. God is disciplining us to get us into this central place of power.” Oswald Chambers
*****
“No power on earth or in hell can conquer the Spirit of God in a human spirit, it is an inner unconquerableness.” Oswald Chambers
*****
To those who have had no agony Jesus says, “I have nothing for you; stand on your own feet, square your own shoulders. I have come for the man who knows he has a bigger handful than he can cope with, who knows there are forces he cannot touch; I will do everything for him if he will let Me. Only let a man grant he needs it, and I will do it for him.” The Shadow of an Agony,Oswald Chambers
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“If we wish to erect new structures, we must have a definite knowledge of the old foundations.” John Calvin Coolidge
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Atheism is a post-Christian phenomenon.
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If social justice looks like your hand in someone else’s pocket then you are stealing.
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“In Sweden, giving to charity, absurdly, came to be considered a lack of solidarity, since it undermined the need for the welfare state.” – Roland Martinsson
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“…to love democracy well, it is necessary to love it moderately.” Alexis de Tocqueville
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Capitalism seeks to help others through a servce or product it provides. Free Market Capitalism is the most moral and fair economic system available to man. Capitalism augments personal growth, responsibility and ownership. Charity flourishes under capitalism. Charity dies under subjective “fair share” government confiscatory policies. Socialism redistributes ambivalence and greed.
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“We are to regard existence as a raid or great adventure; it is to be judged, therefore, not by what calamities it encounters, but by what flag it follows and what high town it assaults. The most dangerous thing in the world is to be alive; one is always in danger of one’s life. But anyone who shrinks from that is a traitor to the great scheme and experiment of being.” G.K. Chesterton
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Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent.
It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction. Albert Einstein
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“You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you odd.” Flannery O’Connor
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“There is but one good; that is God. Everything else is good when it looks to Him and bad when it turns from Him.” C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce
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“Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him” (Job 13:15).
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God’s grace is not about the allowance for sin. God’s grace is about the conversation God allows regarding sin.
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From the book of Proverbs: We are not to favor the rich or the poor. We are to pursue justice.
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“Always keep in contact with those books and those people that enlarge your horizon and make it possible for you to stretch yourself mentally.” Oswald Chambers
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One goldfish says to another, “If there is no God who keeps changing the water?”
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“The truth is always there in the morning.”
From Cat On A Hot Tin Roof script – playwright Tennessee Williams
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God blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be satisfied.
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“America’s greatness has been the greatness of a free people who shared certain moral commitments. Freedom without moral commitment is aimless and promptly self-destructive.” John W. Gardner
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“Men of integrity, by their very existence, rekindle the belief that as a people we can live above the level of moral squalor. We need that belief; a cynical community is a corrupt community.” John W. Gardner
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“In the world it is called Tolerance, but in hell it is called Despair, the sin that believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing, and remains alive because there is nothing for which it will die.” Dorothy L. Sayers
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“Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.”
G. K. Chesterton
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“The battle line between good and evil runs through the heart of every man.” Alexander Solzhenitsyn
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This is what the LORD says:

“Stand at the crossroads and look;
ask for the ancient paths,
ask where the good way is, and walk in it,
and you will find rest for your souls.
But you said, ‘We will not walk in it.’

-The prophet Jeremiah, 6:16
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“…our common task is not so much discovering a truth hiding among contrary viewpoints as it is coming to possess a selfhood that no longer evades and eludes the truth with which it is importunately confronted.” James McClendon, Ethics: Systematic Theology, Vol. 1
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