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Showing posts from December, 2012

2012

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Today is December 21, 2012. My guess is if you can read this the whole global meltdown has not happened and…well…this is one more false prediction of the worlds end that never panned out. It really can cone to no surprise in that such prognostications are wrong 100% of the time. All the hype surrounded speculations made about the Mayan Long Count calendar, which ends a “Great Cycle” lasting 5125.36 years, which was one of several ways those ancient Mesoamericans reckoned time, the others being the Haab , the Lords of the Night, and the Tzolk’in [1]. Did the ancient Mayan culture that flourished in Central America between AD250 and AD800 really have anything to say about the twenty-first century? Unlikely! The equating of the completion of the “Great Cycle” with the end of the world is a “modern invention” and whatever the Maya believed about the future, they expected life to go on pretty much the same forever [2]. Sandra Noble, executive director of the Foundation for the

Coming to Grips with Newtown Deadly Shooting

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Coming to Grips with Newtown Deadly Shooting. December 14, 2012 is a day very few would forget. The senseless violent murder at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, 26 victims, 20 of them children, how do we come to grips with that? We must certainly never forget the names all those in Newtown we lost—Charlotte Bacon; Daniel Barden; Rachel Davino; Olivia Engel; Josephine Gay; Dylan Hockley; Dawn Lafferty Hochsprung; Madeleine F. Hsu; Catherine V. Hubbard; Chase Kowalski; Nancy Lanza; Jesse Lewis; Ana Marquez-Greene; James Mattioli; Grace McDonnell; Anne Marie Murphy; Emilie Parker; Jack Pinto; Noah Pozner; Caroline Previdi; Jessica Rekos; Avielle Richman; Lauren Rousseau; Mary Sherlach; Victoria Soto; Benjamin Wheeler; Allison N. Wyatt. May our memories of them never fade! When I got news of the initial reports of the incident, I was speechless. One might invent words to describe great injustices and tragedies, like “genocide,” but they never really come clo

Hanukkah and Divine Faithfulness

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December 8 to December 16, according to Jewish reckoning, marks to eight day timeframe of Hanukkah for the year 2012, which is also called the Feast of Dedication. It is a festival of lights for each day a candle is lit upon a menorah the cleansing of the temple after it had been defiled by Antiochus IV “Epiphanes” in the second century BC. According to Jewish tradition, while the temple was being restored, only a single day’s worth of sacred oil was found to keep the menorah burning, and none would be available for another eight days, but miraculously the sacred oil kept the flames burning for eight days. Hanukkah is above all things a time of remembering Yahweh’s faithfulness to His people. How did all of this come about? Solomon built the first temple to the Lord (1 Kings 6:1-38; 7:13-9:9, the glory of the Lord filled the place (2 Chron. 7:1-3), but in time the people sinned, the glory of the Lord departed (Ezek. 10:1-22), and in 586 BC Solomon’s temple was destroyed by Nebu

A Final Lamentation

There was once a great city built to be a light to the world, the salt of the earth, blessed to be a blessing to others, the center of all life. Yet, something went terribly wrong. The people of the great city forsook the source of their greatness. They became wretched and something the world could do without. There were righteous souls who tried to save the great city but to no avail. Jesus lamented for the great city: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her!” (37a). The city became so evil that even the messengers sent by God for correction were executed, not to mention that the very incarnation of God would likewise be betrayed and crucified. The religious leaders who were to lead the people of Jerusalem in the ways of God failed to do what they were telling others to do (vv. 2-4). They love to use their religion to gain places of honor, but they missed what it meant to be God’s servant (vv. 5-12). Seven woes were spoken against th