Ancient Anglican

In the Cross, however, we see a radical flattening of society so that even the difference in the power structures between slave and free disappear.

When have you felt abandoned by God? Jesus experiences this abandonment when he quotes Psalm 22 and that abandonment is visibly manifested when the sky darkens as he hangs on the Cross.

When we look at the nature of evil, we see the ultimate sacrifice of the Son. Him who is pure light is handed over to and assumes our darkness. Him though whom all things came to exist, is handed over to and assumes our non-existence.

As a foretaste of the following chapters, begin to think through how the great political issues of today look different through the lens of the cross.

Everything looks different in this world through the lens of the Cross. Tomlin allows us to deeply explore the meaning of the Cross and how it does and should impact our lives.

The appearance of the shepherds, therefore, brings to mind both Jesus’ earthly and heavenly origins. They also given confirmation to confirmation to Mary and those with her (e.g., her in-laws) that the child is who Gabriel said he was.

An alternative way of reading the encounter between teh angelic hosts and the shepherds is that the army of God is making an announcement of war and rebellion against the powers of this world and specifically against Caesar Augustus. 

Read through the concluding chapter of Luke’s gospel and see how Luke brings his opening full circle. Luke begins and ends in the Temple, and begins and ends with the understanding of Jesus as the fulfillment of the Scriptures. 

These first two chapters in Luke provide a bridge between the Old Testament and the life of Jesus. Therefore, these first two chapters are written in the style and motif of various stories in the Old Testament creating this continuity.

God is not an “It” whose essence is to be metaphysically dissected and studied, but a “who” to be known and encountered.  Our task, as Heschel says, is not to make God the object of our thinking, but to discover ourselves as the objects of his thinking.  

Think about the issue of divine wrath. Is it an idea to be explained away or to be avoided? Is it simply part of the manifestation of God’s love and concern for his creation?

Think about not only how our worship, but also how our reading of Scripture, our theology, our church politics, and our allegiance to institutional structures and dogma interfere with and prevent us from seeing the world as God sees the world and from carrying out those actions necessary to create and maintain the just and righteous society envisioned by the prophets and by Christ himself.