Our text for today is a battle between the conventional wisdom of the day & the ancient story of a God who comes for his people in the form of a little child. And we’re encountering this idea that… Part of what it means to be the people of God is that we agree to throw in our lot with God over & against conventional wisdom of the day.
Read MoreThe way God has been leading us toward since the days of Jacob & Esau… Is a way of answering hate with love... Meeting hostility with hospitality… answering violence with peace… answering the grudge with forgiveness.
Read MoreYou can’t get cute when you read Isaiah 11. We live in a world with a dreadful abundance of human predators of all kinds. Predator nations, individuals, institutions, and societies … bent on destroying the vulnerable. When we make ourselves vulnerable, we are going to get hurt.
To those stuck inside a closed system it seems completely unrealistic, but Jesus came from outside the system… a new frame of reference.
And as Christians we cling to God’s vision of the kingdom… but we know what we are living w/some wild beasts… teeth & everything.