[Propertalk] Quotes for Luke 21:25-36 for 1 Advent - Part 4

[Joe Parrish]

Today's cosmologists put up fascinating & compelling scenarios (scary, too!) for the way things may one day end. In a frontispiece to his 'God & the New Physics' (reprinted in Penguin, '90) Paul Davies quotes Einstein's saying: 'Religion without science is blind. Science without religion is lame.' Those of us who preach do well to take that on board, and with it the 'signs' such physicists read in those same skies Jesus talks of. 

http://www.angelfire.com/journal2/laterallyluke/LLK212538ADV1.html

Brian McGowan
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Justice and Righteousness show up in all manner of guises. Here we are faced with an image of Jesus on a cloud with Power and Glory [a reference to Moses and Elijah from Mt. Transfiguration?]. Another way to speak of this would be one who appeared with energy to do something about which one has a perspective. Even though the Greek has these both to be feminine nouns, we might yet translate them as Justice and Righteousness.

http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2006/12/first-sunday-of-advent-c4.html

Wesley White, 2006
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Today, at the start of the Liturgical Year the church invites us to set out on a great journey - to follow the footstep of Christ in all of his mysteries so that we can live as he lived. St. Luke gives us the last address of his public ministry where Jesus is clearly fretful about the future as he paints a bleak picture of the end of the world. There is talk of nations in fear and of people dying in agony. Yet Jesus' advice is "Stay awake, praying at all times for the strength to survive all that is going to happen." In Jesus' view there is a far side to disaster. The good news is that final liberation and resurrection comes out of the disaster. 

Like the prophets before him Jesus is painting a grim view of the future in order to influence the present. He does not want to paralyze them with fear but to energize them into action. The real purpose of speaking about the last days is to affect the present ones. Be awake, look reality in the eye and then act accordingly.

http://www.bible.claret.org/liturgy/daily/sundays_pierse/cycleC/C_1stSunAdv.htm

Gerry Pierse
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"Christmas is coming!" What is your reaction when those words come from the mouths of children? Do you see the joy of the season? Or do you see the red of mounting debt? (Honestly, most of us see both!)...When Jesus pointed to his coming, he realized there would be anxiety. But he wanted anticipation. He wanted his people to stand tall and raise their heads. He wanted them to have hope.


http://www.word-sunday.com/Files/c/1Advent-c/A-1Advent-c.html

Larry Broding
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We live in between the first coming of Jesus Christ and his second coming, and most of us feel a lot better about the first one. Christmas is about a baby, after all, and that makes everything easier. We know about babies, and so we know how to domesticate Christmas. 
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If you are a woman in modern India (it doesn't matter what caste you belong to) and your husband or fiancé doesn't think your family has come up with a big enough dowry, and if he locks you in a closet for three months or calls up his buddies and threatens to have them rape you and then kill you -- I say, if you are a modern Indian woman in such a predicament, you want redemption from wicked sexism, and you want it with every fiber of your being.
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According to a story that Os Guinness tells, 220 years ago the Connecticut House of Representatives was in session on a bright day in May, and the delegates were able to do their work by natural light. But then something happened that nobody expected. Right in the middle of debate, there was an eclipse of the sun and everything turned to darkness. Some legislators thought it was the second coming. So a clamor arose. People wanted to adjourn. People wanted to pray. People wanted to prepare for the coming of the Lord.

But the speaker of the House had a different idea. He was a Christian believer, and he rose to the occasion with good logic and good faith. We are all upset by the darkness, he said, and some of us are afraid. But "the Day of the Lord is either approaching or it is not. If it is not, there is no cause for adjournment. And if the Lord is returning, I, for one, choose to be found doing my duty. I therefore ask that candles be brought."

And men who expected Jesus went back to their desks and resumed their debate.

http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=2020

Cornelius Plantinga Jr., 2000
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