[Propertalk] Quotables - 2 Advent Gospel - Luke 3:1-6 - Part 3

[Joe Parrish]

The imagery of mountains being flattened and valleys raised, the crooked straight and the rough tracks, roads, is the imagery of radical change and movement. The citation now reaches its climax in the words: 'and all flesh shall see the salvation of God'. 'Salvation' is a key word in Luke. If we had just a few moments before heard the opening chapters of Luke, we would be likely to make the connections immediately. 'Saviour' language was common in the political 'speak' of Luke's day. He was portraying an alternative saviour, an alternative peace. 
 
http://wwwstaff.murdoch.edu.au/~loader/LkAdvent2.htm
 
William Loader
- - - - -
 
The ravines and valleys, which represent the lowly and the poor, will be raised up to a life of justice and peace. The crooked and distorted realities of life, resulting from the injustices that human beings perpetrate against each other will be rectified. The hindrances that prevent human beings from realizing the fullness of their potentiality will be removed. The new road that will be constructed will be a superhighway into life. 
 
http://www.goodpreacher.com/shareit/readreviews.php?cat=28
 
Herman C. Waetjen
- - - - -
 
Tiberius became Caesar after the death of Caesar Augustus (Octavian) in AD 14.  Tiberius was a step-son of Octavian, and was later adopted by Octavian, which brought Tiberius into the Julio-Claudian line.  This Julio-Claudian line of leadership would continue until the death of Nero (AD 68).  
Not long after the death of his son Drusus in AD 23, Tiberius exiled himself, first to Campania, and then to the isle of Capri (AD 26).  Daily administration of the government passed to Lucius Aelius Sejanus, and not to good effect.  Since he controlled virtually all information reaching Tiberius, Sejanus was in a position of great power.  He used it to purge people at the highest levels of the government whom he perceived to be his enemies or rivals.  (Sejanus may also have been involved in killing Tiberius' son.  What did Sejanus have on Tiberius?, one wonders.)  
Sejanus' downfall came in AD 31.  Exactly how he was deposed is unclear.  The most common theory is that Tiberius was informed by someone about Sejanus' true activities and plotted against him.  The theories are many and the arguments long, but the upshot was that Sejanus wound up being arrested, tried, and put to death all on the same day--October 18, 31.  
Tiberius' later years are marked by a decline in his own mental health.  He died in AD 37.  "In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar," which would have been 28 or 29, Rome was enduring Sejanus' "reign of terror" while Caesar himself was all-but-retired, out of the loop, and probably clinically depressed besides.  
 
http://www.progressiveinvolvement.com/progressive_involvement/2009/11/lectionary-blogging-luke-3-16.html
 
John Petty,  2009
- - - - -

  In the movie Life or Something Like It (2002), every day at the corner of Fourth and Sanders in downtown Seattle, Prophet Jack scrambled onto his crate, dramatically thrust his arms into the air, arched his back, threw back his head, gazed into the sky, and then prophesied: "I see and I say," intoned Jack.
           One day the television reporter Lanie Kerrigan happened by Jack's pulpit. She tossed a few coins into his coffer, and in return received a disturbing message. Prophet Jack prophesied that the Seahawks would beat the Broncos 16-13, that it would hail the next day, and that on Thursday Lanie would die. She dismissed Jack as outrageously loony, until he looked her straight in the eye and with utmost seriousness said, "prophets don't joke." Lanie was a bottle blond, but she was not a dumb blond, so when Jack's first two prophecies came true, she repented of her ways and reformed her life.

http://www.journeywithjesus.net/Essays/20061204JJ.shtml

Daniel B. Clendenin
- - - - -

Archeologists have an ossuary that is inscribed with the name of Caiaphas. Archeologists also have a stone inscription about Pilate. 
<>
There is a sermon illustration of a zoo that was trapping monkeys. The zoo trappers placed coconuts underneath a coconut tree, and these coconuts had holes drilled in them. The holes were about the size of a tightly-squeezed-fist of a monkey. The monkey would squeeze its hand through the hole and grab the white coconut inside. The monkeys would find more coconuts and would do the same thing with their other hand and then their two feet. By doing so, their hands and feet became larger and they could not withdraw their hands and feet through the coconut holes. The only way to become free was to "let go." To let go of the white coconut inside the coconut shell. 

Similarly with us. The only way to emotional freedom in life is to "let go." To "let go" of what our mothers or fathers did to us in childhood. To "let go" of all the mistakes that we have made in our lives. To "let go" of the accidents or tragedies that have happened to us or that we have caused. We never become free until we "let go.

http://www.sermonsfromseattle.com/series_b_john_the_baptistGA.htm

Edward F. Markquart
- - - - -
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://stsams.org/pipermail/propertalk_stsams.org/attachments/20091205/981af402/attachment.htm>