Mary visits Elizabeth

The Galatian heresy amounted to do-it-yourself religion. And Paul countered it with the image and metaphor of maternity. The Jerusalem which is above is free and she is the mother of us all. And each of us, as citizens of that city, bear her image--each of us is like a mother--Christ is to be formed within us. "My little children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth, until Christ is formed within you..." Gal. 4:19 So we are like Mary and Elizabeth. Like Mary because we are called to the formation of Christ within. Like Elizabeth because we are called to encourage the formation of Christ in our brother or sister in the Lord, and honor him/her, who like Mary, has been highly favored.

Agur's Riddle

What do you think of Agur's Riddle? I think it is delightful that in the process of using the kind parallelism common in wisdom literature, Agur stumbles into the mysteries of the Trinity!

Heaven and Nature Sing

Tuesday, Dec. 9. Psalm 96. I was impressed by Isaac Watt's "Joy to the World" which we sang on Sunday. He drew his inspiration from Psalm 98, a kingdom psalm with a very similar emphasis to our Psalm 96. Heaven and Nature sing at the coming of the Lord. We see the beginnings of this rejoicing not only at Jesus' birth in Bethlehem, but in the praises of Elizabeth and Mary while they are still just expectant mothers, bearers of an impossible knowledge, knowledge of what is in the works, knowers of what God is up to, knowing more than anyone else in the world, knowing it with their heads and hearts and bodies, knowing it with the new life stirring in their wombs. Heaven and nature are singing within them. I think as heaven and nature awake within us, we become more adept at hearing from afar, amidst the present groan of creation, the rejoicing that took place when Christ came the first time and this tunes our hearts so that we may hear from however near or far away it is, the rejoicing at his Second Coming.

Dear Believers into the Story,
I am stumbling around in this blog and cannot read anything else anyone has written so far. Carol says she has, but I don't know where it is. I hope that in time we will get the hang of it.
Tom

Conversations in Luke

• This web log will be a venue where those of us participating in the Luke Project will be able to share with one another. I suggest some guidelines.
• Please list the chapter and verse in Luke to which you are referring or the page number in your Kingdom Come, Kingdom Go edition.
• Feel free to make a comment, observation or ask a question.
• Feel free to share a prayer or a meditation.
• The rest of those participating will respond to these.
• Let's see what happens.