The gospel text for the day was Mark 16:1-20 or the ending of the gospel. The non-scripture reading that was paired with it just bowled me over to the point that you wonder if it was just another “preacher story” – truthfully I would hope that it was a pious fiction, but sorrowfully knowing . . . → Read More: Born in a grave…]]>

The gospel text for the day was Mark 16:1-20 or the ending of the gospel. The non-scripture reading that was paired with it just bowled me over to the point that you wonder if it was just another “preacher story” – truthfully I would hope that it was a pious fiction, but sorrowfully knowing that it was real because our fiction doesn’t imagine stuff like this. I’m probably breaking 50 copyright laws (although the readership is not so great that even on the internet it might be considered private use ), but I’m just going to type it out.

From Paul Tillich:

In the Nuremburg war-crime trials a witnes appeared who had lived for a time in a grave in a Jewish grave-yard in Wilna, Poland. It was the only place he – and may others – could live, when in hiding after they had escaped the gas chamber. During this time he wrote poetry, and one of the poems was a description of a birth. In a grave nearby a young woman gave birth to a boy. The eighty-year old gravedigger, wrapped in a linen shroud, assisted. When the new-born child uttered his first cry, the old man prayed: ‘Great God, has Thou finally sent the Messiah to us? For who else than the Messiah Himself can be born in a grave?’ But after three days the poet saw the child sucking his mother’s tears because she had no milk for him…When I first read it, it occured to me more forcefully than ever before that our Christian symbols, taken from the gospel stories, have lost a great deal of their power…it has been forgotten that the manger of Christmas was the expression of utter poverty and distress before it became the place where the angels appeared and to which the star pointed. And it has been forgotten that the tomb of Jesus was the end of His life and His work before it became the place of His final triumph. We have become insensitive to the infinite tension which is implied in the words of the Apostle’s Creed: ‘suffered…was crucified, dead and buried…rose again from the dead.’ We already know, when we hear the first words, what the ending will be: ‘rose again;’ and for many people it is no more than the inevitable ‘happy ending.’ The old Jewish gravedigger knew better. For him the immeasurable tension implicit in the expectation of the Messiah was a reality, appearing in the infinite contrast between the things he saw and the hope he maintained.

Text: Deuteronomy 4:25-31

Dangerous territory the later days. Especially when you ponder the Jewish people. Over and over again in history Christians have looked for the wholesale “return” of the Jews to belief. It is one of those thoughts that is just too tantalizing. And when it doesn’t happen in a person’s . . . → Read More: In later days you will return…]]>

Text: Deuteronomy 4:25-31

Dangerous territory the later days. Especially when you ponder the Jewish people. Over and over again in history Christians have looked for the wholesale “return” of the Jews to belief. It is one of those thoughts that is just too tantalizing. And when it doesn’t happen in a person’s lifetime the results are not often pretty (see Martin Luther’s late writings on the Jews). There it is in today’s text – “in later days, you will return to the Lord your God and hear his voice…” Paul in Romans ponders the question and answers “all Israel will be saved.” (Romans 11:26) What both this text and Paul have in common is disobeidience. Moses says, “that the people will be few in number amoung the nations and there you will serce other gods of wood and stone….” Paul writes (romans 11:32), “God has bound all men over to disobeidience so that he many have mercy on them all.”

Becoming infatuated with the hereditary Jews misses Paul’s and Moses’ distinction. All Israel will be saved. The elect, the chosen, Israel – not the hereditary line, but the line of faith. “When you are in tribulation and all these things come upon you in the later days, you will return to the LORD your God and obey his voice, for the Lord your God is a merciful God.” The disobeidient will hear the voice and repent. All have fallen short. All have been disobeidient. All have been called by the Gospel. All Israel hears the Good Shepherd’s voice. (John 10:5, John 10:27)

And how is Israel chosen? “Oh the depths of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable his judgements, and his paths beyond tracing out… (Romans 11:33-36)”