Some of us like to read a book backward—the end first, before the beginning. Others are on the look out for spoiler alerts and enjoy the experience of not knowing how the story is going to turn out in the end. The Gospel writer Matthew had learned to read the Scriptures of Israel both forward […]
A Christmas weekend marked by unseasonably violent weather and the emotions of caring for the needs of loved ones reflect, as Regina and Steve wrote yesterday, a realism we cannot escape. The embodying of the God of the universe in the flesh of a baby can sound so much like a child’s story—vaguely related to the […]
In past Christmases I’ve written about how much I love listening over and over to “Mary Did You Know” by Kenny Rogers and Wynonna Judd. This year one of my co-workers asked me if I’d heard the Pentatonix version also on You Tube. Once again we’ve all come to this day from many places. Some of our […]
We’ve talked in the past about riddles. I think my favorite is: The poor have it. The rich need it. If you eat it you die. What is it? As we all know, riddles work by play on words; by layers of double meaning or ambiguity understood by the speaker but not revealed to the hearer. […]
In the beginning, Genesis describes a God who was mysteriously wonderful, creative, loving, strong, wise, present, personal, and generous. When the son and daughter of his likeness opened the one gift marked “Do Not Open”— only to suddenly feel as if they had been locked out of the house without their clothes on— he came […]
It’s been called the first hint of the Gospel. God says to the Serpent: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” Reading our Story backward, we know that it was the Great Accuser who shows […]
Those of us who have seen and felt the horrific impact of Mel Gibson’s 2004 “The Passion of the Christ” may recall the dark opening scene of Jesus groaning in the Garden of Gethsemane; the Satanic whisper that One cannot bear the sins of all; the troubling image of a snake slithering out from beneath […]
