No peace, no gain.
B. Unabashed Christian:
Holy One,
Like a morning cloud in a mountain valley, you sneak into our lives during the night.
When we awake, we think we see you and might even be able to touch you. But it satisfies just to know you are there.
Amen
C. Unquoting Jesus:
“Guys, we need a symbol, a logo, to identify our movement. What do you think about a cross?”
[Never would have crossed His mind...]
D. Blog: Prophesying the End
“The End is Near” vs. “The End is Here”
Prophecy movements have prophesied a cataclysmic end to worldly affairs since before the time of Jesus. Their prediction schemes and schedules never work out, even though they claim to have biblical support for them. Jews in the time of Jesus, based on their interpretation of Hebrew prophets, looked for a Messiah who would free them from Roman domination and restore the nation of Israel to the glory they imagined it had known centuries before in the time of David. Because they held that supposedly biblically-based belief in how God would act on their behalf, most Jews did not accept a nonviolent Jesus as Messiah, and when he was killed, they continued looking for a triumphant warrior-Messiah.
Christians believe those end times prophesiers missed the Messiah because they misread scripture. God’s dominion does not equate with Israel. God’s Messiah does not need military victory. The demise of proud empire comes not through force of arms. What matters instead of all those misreadings is the Spirit of God at work in the world, not in some future climactic event. The climactic event has already happened, most Christians believe, when Jesus brought the message of God’s dominion coming on Earth and unleashed it at his resurrection. The Jesus event marks the end of the control of worldly empires and the beginning of God’s dominion coming about on Earth.
The images of Armageddon and rapture are symbolic truth for now, not literal projection into the future. A battle is indeed underway between worldly empires and the God’s dominion. When we claim allegiance to God’s dominion, we are “raised” into life with God. When the Spirit of God brings us under God’s dominion, the power of earthly empires to control our lives is at an end. The Spirit of God raises us, elevates our vision so we see that we dwell in another commonwealth that claims our ultimate loyalty. Thus, empire’s power is at an end. Jesus’ resurrection seals that truth. Empire could not end Him.
The end, is, paradoxically, always near, because God’s dominion is always near. The question Christians need to answer is: Have we sworn our allegiance to it here on Earth?
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