"[I]t is the very transcendence of God - in the ascension of the Son who now reigns from heaven, and in the futurity of the coming kingdom for which we pray - that disciplines and disrupts and haunts our tendency to settle for 'this world.' It is the call of the Son from heaven, and the vision of the new Jerusalem descending from heaven, that pushes back on our illusions that we could figure this all out, that we could bring this about." - James K. A. Smith, Awaiting the King
The Last Judgment - Rev. Chris Currie | 11.10.24
"For believers, the last judgment is not so much a process by which the moral quality of human deeds is made unmistakably manifest and appropriate rewards and punishments apportioned, but rather, and above all, an event in which sinners are forgiven and justified. Christ the final judge is none other than Christ the merciful savior." - Miroslav Volf, Against the Tide: Love in a Time of Petty Dreams and Persisting Enmities
The Marriage Supper of the Lamb - Dr. Cyndi Parker | 11.3.24
Am I a paragon of faith? (The honest answer is no.) While I once thought that I should labor to look and act and believe just like the other "successful" Christians in my life, I've been freed up by something Thomas Merton once wrote: "For me to be a saint means to be myself." Noth that godly person I greatly admire, but myself. I see now that I'm engaged in a creative, enlivening, one-of-a-kind work of God in me, redeemed by Christ for good things. Who knows what kind of saint I, as myself, am becoming? - Karen Wright Marsh, Vintage Saints & Sinners