|
|
|
33d Sunday of the year Mark 13/24-32 |
||
| Background: There is considerable debate about whether Jesus ever used the apocalyptic style of rhetoric which we find in the year end gospels. Some scholars believe that the evangelists used this rhetoric which was very popular in those days to convey Jesus's message of the great change in the world caused by the coming of the kingdom of Jesus's father. Note that the rhetoric in its origins hailed the coming of a new world. It used the imagery of the creation stories to tell the story of a new creation. The "end of the world" fears that this rhetoric stirs of today (especially with the millenium at hand) is a perversion of the goals of both the Gospel and the apocalyptic rhetoric. |
read the padre |
|
 |
Story: Once upon a time there was a little girl who was afraid of the dark. The trouble with the dark, she pointed out not unreasonably, was that it is dark. You can't see anything when it is dark. You look out the window of your house and there are all kinds of scary shadows. They go away in the daylight. In your bedroom at night when the lights are out you can't see anything at all, not even your dolly who might not be there. When you wake up at night, you're not even sure you're in your bedroom. You might be in a cave somewhere. There might be other people in your room beside you and your dolly. They might be bad people. They might be good people too, but how are you to know in the dark. Sure they might be angels, but I've never seen an angel, have you? That little girl especially disliked this time of the year when the sun comes up late and goes down early and never shines anyway because it is always raining or snowing, right? Her parents were never afraid of the dark. What, NEVER? Well, hardly ever. But they put up a Christmas tree just the same. The light of the tree seeped under the door into the little girl's room. And then she wasn't afraid of the dark any more. If Christmas is coming, she said, why be afraid of the dark? |
|
