Union Church

The Seven Churches: Laodicea

Listen in as we wrap up our series looking at the seven churches of Revelation.

Notes//Quotes:

Revelation 3:14-22

2 Cor 1:20-22

Its wealth was based on three things. First, it was a banking center. The banking arrangements for that part of the world were made there, and coins were minted there. It was a combination of Wall Street and Fort Knox. Second, it was also a garment center. The hills around Laodicea were famous for a certain breed of black-wooled sheep. From this wool, garments and carpeting were manufactured in Laodicea. Fashions were created there, in this mixture of a Paris salon and New York's Fifth Avenue.Third, it was a medical center. There was a medical school there, which had a worldwide reputation for two locally produced medicines. One was an ointment of nard, which was used to cure sore ears. But above all, it was famous for a certain eye powder. It was exported in tablet form, and the tablets were ground down and applied to the eyes as a cure for ophthalmia. It was a Johns Hopkins Hospital and Mayo Clinic to the ancient world. Money, fashion, medicine-these three successes brought the Laodiceans affluence and prosperity. They were so completely successful in these material blessings that they quite forgot about any other aspects of the world or existence. They were anesthetized by their affluence, and they lost all sense of God.  They were lukewarm.Lukewarmness is the special fault of the successful. Those who have achieved or inherited are particularly prone to it. It is a basic threat to our church and our Christian faith in these times. - Eugene Peterson

What does Jesus mean by rejecting the “lukewarm” Laodiceans and wishing for hot or cold? Koester suggests that the imagery has to do with hospitality. Chilled and warm wine were both popular drinks. When a guest arrived, his host might offer him wine chilled with snow, or wine mixed with warmed water. To be offered lukewarm wine was an insult to the guest and a mark against the host. In short, “The Laodiceans are unlike the hot or cold drink that a banqueter might desire. They are tepid, objectionable, and something to be vomited out of the mouth.” That fits with the overall imagery of the message to Laodicea, which ends with an explicit reference to a banquet. The Laodiceans have not welcomed Jesus as an honored guest. Even when they don’t leave Him outside the door knocking to get in, they haven’t been good hosts. - Peter Leithart

Counterfeits of Repentance (Tim Keller)
Blame Shifting
White Washing
Self Pity
Self Flagellation

What repentance is:
Confessing Sin
Forsaking Sin

In Proverbs 28:13 we read: “Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.” First, we must “confess”—a word that is helpfully contrasted in the proverb with the word conceal. To confess is to make a full, clean admission of what you have done wrong, without qualification or excuse, without minimizing or relativizing. It is to take full responsibility. The Hebrew word “yadah”, translated here as “confess,” always has the sense of praising and thanking God. So confessing a sin is not merely telling the truth, nor is it an abstract “I deserve punishment of some kind.” Rather, it is admitting that you have been failing to love and honor God, and at this moment you begin to glorify him by admitting how you have wronged him and others.
However, Proverbs 28:13 moves on and says it is not enough to confess or admit a sin—you must also forsake it. To forsake is to make a full renunciation of the sinful behavior, both in your heart attitude and in practical action. When John the Baptist led people to the brink of repentance, they asked, “What then shall we do?” He answered, “Bear fruits in keeping with repentance” (Luke 3:8), and by that he meant practical action that reversed their wrong behavior. - Tim Keller

What is received in repentance? 
Free grace which leads to joy.

“In summary, repentance begins when blame shifting, white washing, self-pity, and self-righteous despair end. It begins when confession, renunciation, and the acceptance of free grace take place. Then the clouds of guilt and shame can lift—and we can sing: Finally, there is one thing to receive. After repenting must come rejoicing—rejoicing in the free mercy of God. Repentance without rejoicing leads to despair.” - Tim Keller

Nor will God force any door to enter in. He may send a tempest about the house; the wind of his admonishment may burst doors and windows, yea, shake the house to its foundations; but not then, not so, will he enter. The door must be opened by the willing hand, ere the foot of Love will cross the threshold. He watches to see the door move from within. Every tempest is but an assault in the siege of love. The terror of God is but the other side of his love; it is love outside the house, that would be inside, love that knows the house is no house, only a place, until it enter home, but a tent, until the Eternal dwell there. George Macdonald 

The Seven Churches: Philadelphia

Listen along as Anthony teaches on the church of Philadelphia.

Notes//Quotes:

Revelation 3:7-13 - Kim J. Reading

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." 
- Matthew 5:8

“But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”
- 2 Corinthians 12:9

“For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.”
- Romans 8:13 

“32 And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets— 33 who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, 34 quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight.”
- Hebrews 11:32-34

“At 4:1 the ‘open door’ will provide John with privileged access to the heavenly throne-room, and with it to heavenly mysteries otherwise hidden from him. The same privileged access is offered to the faithful Philadelphians, and indeed all who heed the words of this message, enabling them to see their own difficult situation from God’s perspective, and thus make sense of it. When one is privileged to glimpse through the opened door, what originally appeared to be a defeat is transformed into a glorious vision of victory.”
- Ian Boxall

“Will play the role of the heathen and acknowledge that the church is the Israel of God.” 
- William Mounce

“Some commentator have affirmed that the way in which Christ will protect believers from the coming tribulation of 3:10 is by physically “rapturing” then from earth into heaven. This is primarily argued on the basis that this best accords with the most logical and literal force of (“keep from”). However, Gundry has shown the improbability of this understanding by demonstrating parallels between Rev. 3:10 and John 17:15, which is the only other NT occurrence of (“keep” with “from”: there Christ prays, “I ask not that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one.” Thus Jesus denies a physical removal from tribulation and affirms a spiritual protection from the devil. In Prov. 7:5 and Jas 1:27 has the same idea of protection from evil for those living in the midst of evil.”
- G.K. Beale

“...Small, mostly overlooked things, over a long  period of time with Jesus." 
- Zach Eswine

Question:
Where are we truly drawing our strength from?

“What blazes up on Golgotha is God’s embrace of contradiction: weakness as power, foolishness as wisdom.”
- Jen Pollock Michel

The Seven Churches: Sardis

Listen along as we look at Revelation 3:1-6.

Notes//Quotes:

Revelation 3:1-6

Psalm 19:1-2, Ps 24:1-2
Hebrews 4:11-13, 2 Tim 3:16-17
Acts 1:8, Matt 5:13-16

Temptations for the church:
Imitate
Dominate
Isolate 
(David Cassidy)

Incarnate: the Body Christ sent on mission in the world, distinct in holiness, humble in service, with clarity in the truth & charity towards all. - David Cassidy

Formation Image

“You may never see the fruits of your labor in this life, but it doesn’t matter. God did not call you to be successful. He called you to be faithful.” Alan Noble

“Our task is not to spend time pondering this success but to obey our orders.” Jacques Ellul

“Keep in mind that it is not enough that we should just read the Word. The object is that the words that are printed on the page would become indelibly written on our hearts. God never intended that we should merely get onto His Word-His intent is that the Word should get into us. - Nancy Leigh DeMoss

1 Kings 19:9-18

The Seven Churches:Thyatira

Listen along as we continue our series through the seven churches of Revelation.

Notes//Quotes:

Revelation 2:18-29

If God is holy, then he can’t sin. If God can’t sin, then he can’t sin against me. If he can’t sin against me, shouldn’t that make him the most trustworthy being there is? Jackie Hill Perry

 

To ask God to redeem Jerusalem but not cast sin outside the city walls is like asking a doctor to heal your body without excising the disease. Like asking the light to arise without casting out the darkness. Like asking for restoration to come and destruction to remain. It is to ask for a contradiction. God excludes sin from his kingdom because of his goodness, not in opposition to or in spite of it. - Joshua Ryan Butler

 

Holiness is the habit of being of one mind with God, according as we find His mind described in Scripture. It is the habit of agreeing in God's judgment, hating what He hates, loving what He loves, and measuring everything in this world by the standard of His Word. - JC Ryle

 

Does this teaching return you to the God revealed in Christ—His words, His acts—or does it excite you with what you’ll get, acquire, feel? Does this teaching return you to yourself—who you are, where you are—or does it incite ambition, discontent, a desire to be someone else, somewhere else? Eugene Peterson

 

And as He spoke, He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before. - CS Lewis, The Last Battle

 

7 Churches of Revelation: Pergamum

Listen along as we look at the third church addressed in the book of Revelation.

Notes//Quotes:

Revelation 2:12-17 - Larry and Jorgen

Hebrews 4:12-13

“The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.”Flannery O’Connor

“The throne of Satan” in Pergamum is a way of referring to that city as a center of Roman government and pagan religion in the Asia Minor region. It was the first city in Asia Minor to build a temple to a Roman ruler (Augustus) and the capital of the whole area for the cult of the emperor. Furthermore, Pergamum was also a center of pagan cults of various deities. For example, the cult of Asclepius, the serpent god of healing, was prominent in Pergamum; the serpent symbol of Asclepius also became one of the emblems of the city and may have facilitated John’s reference to “the throne of Satan” (cf. 12:9; 20:2). Zeus, Athene, Demeter, and Dionysus were also gods receiving significant cultic attention. Satan works through the ungodly, earthly political power in Pergamum to persecute God’s people.” G.K. Beale

Numbers 22:28-35

“The people of Israel, after 40 years of austerity in the desert, were seduced by the smell of roasted rams and the smiles of perfumed girls. They had been true to God in matters of life and death but failed to be true in matters of eating and drinking. Opposition didn’t work. Cursing didn’t work. But clever lies did.”
Eugene Peterson

“Satan’s lie is to separate what we say from the way we live. To make a division between our confession in worship and our conduct at work. Truth is lived truth. Truth is not simply what we say but what we live…Sometimes it is easier to die for the truth in a crisis than to live the truth through a dull week at work.” Eugene Peterson

“You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you odd.” Flannery O’Connor

Growth equals change; change equals loss; loss equals pain; so inevitably, growth equals pain. Pain is a part of progress. Anything that grows experiences some pain. If I avoid all pain, I’m avoiding growth. Samuel Chand

Don't worry about being effective. Just concentrate on being faithful to the truth. - Dorthy Day

The Seven Churches: Smyrna

Listen along as Anthony Garcia teaches through Revelation 2:8-11 and gives a glimpse into the church of Smyrna.

Notes//Quotes:

Revelation 2:8-11 - Kim

“We must remember the paradox of grace: the gospel announces both leniency and violence; mercy and judgment; rescue and death. What blazes up on Golgotha is God’s embrace of contradiction: weakness as power, foolishness as wisdom.” — Jen Pollock Michel

“From what we know of late first-century Asia Minor we can speculate about how these Christians were being persecuted. Until the latter part of the first century Christianity enjoyed a degree of protection under the umbrella of Judaism, which was tolerated by Rome. The Jews were not forced to worship Caesar as a god, but allowed to offer sacrifices in honor of emperors as rulers and not as gods. But after the Neronian persecution Christianity came under suspicion, since new religions were not acceptable in the empire. And Jews, who sometimes had no qualms in semi-revering other deities along with their OT God, often were only too willing to make the Roman authorities aware that the Christians were not a Jewish sect. Perhaps Jews were motivated to inform on Christians because they were irritated that some of their Jewish brethren or Gentile “godfearers” were converting to Christianity (Ignatius, Smyrneans 1:2).” — G.K. Beale

“He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.” (1 Peter 2:24)

“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20)

“Are you willing to die for your faith? And are you willing to give up anything along the way in order to pursue it—those little deaths that sometimes seem as difficult as the final one, dying to impulses of ambition, of lust, of pride, of security, of comfort? …Here we have one of those paradoxes that are strewn all through the Christian’s life of faith. Until we pass the martyr test, we live neither deeply or widely. Until we are ready to die for Christ, we can’t live for him freely, openly, and exuberantly. If we spend all our energies trying to protect our interests, to preserve our safety, and to negotiate and compromise with the opposition in order to keep what we have at all costs, we will live meagerly. But if we live at risk, giving up all in witness and commitment and love, we are released from death to live in the power of the Resurrection.” 
—Eugene Peterson

 

The Seven Churches of Revelation: Ephesus

Listen in as we begin a news series looking at the seven churches of Revelation.

Notes//Quotes:

Revelation 2:1-7
“The book of Revelation really is about the future, but what is says does not satisfy our curiosity or match what we think are the obvious things to say. It is not a disclosure of future events but the revelation of their inner meaning. It does not tell us what events are going to take place and the dates of their occurrence; it tells us what the meaning of those events is. It does not provide a timetable for history; it gives us an inside look at the reality of history. It is not prediction but perception. It is, in short, about God as he is right now. It ups the veil off our vision and lets us see what is taking place. - Eugene Peterson

The Pattern:
Who He is (Character)
How it’s going (evaluation)
Promises made (conquering/overcoming)

I have set eyes on the wall of lofty Babylon on which is a road for chariots, and the statue of Zeus by the Alpheus, and the hanging gardens, and the colossus of the Sun, and the huge labour of the high pyramids, and the vast tomb of Mausolus; but when I saw the house of Artemis that mounted to the clouds, those other marvels lost their brilliancy, and I said, "Lo, apart from Olympus, the Sun never looked on ever so grand.” - Antipater of Sidon

Rev 2:2-3

“The theology that matters is not the theology we profess but the theology we practice.” - Francis Chan

“Jesus’s command to follow him is a command to align our loves and longings with his—to want what God wants, to desire what God desires, to hunger and thirst after God and crave a world where he is all in all.” - James K.A. Smith

Matthew 24:12

Jesus is a teacher who doesn’t just inform our intellect but forms our very loves. He isn’t content to simply deposit new ideas into your mind; he is after nothing less than your wants, your loves, your longings. - James K.A. Smith

“In any relationship, there will be frightening spells in which your feelings of love dry up. And when that happens you must remember that the essence of marriage is that it is a covenant, a commitment, a promise of future love. So what do you do? You do the acts of love, despite your lack of feeling. You may not feel tender, sympathetic, and eager to please, but in your actions you must BE tender, understanding, forgiving and helpful. And, if you do that, as time goes on you will not only get through the dry spells, but they will become less frequent and deep, and you will become more constant in your feelings. This is what can happen if you decide to love. Actions of love lead to feelings of love.” Tim Keller

On Love and Loss: Job 13:13-16

Listen along as Anthony shares some reflections on grief and the love of God.

Notes/Quotes:

Job 13:13-16

Miles picture

“It is hard to have patience with people who say, ‘There is no death’ or ‘Death doesn’t matter.’ There is death. And whatever is matters. And whatever happens has consequences, and it and they are irrevocable and irreversible. You might as well say that birth doesn’t matter. I look up at the night sky. Is anything more certain than that in all those vast times and spaces, if I were allowed to search them, I should nowhere find her face, her voice, her touch? She died. She is dead. Is the word so difficult to learn?”
- C.S. Lewis 

“My idea of God is not a divine idea, it has to be shattered time after time. He shatters it himself…He is the great iconoclast. Could we not almost say that this shattering is one of the marks of his presence. The incarnation is the supreme example. It leaves all previous ideas of the Messiah in ruins…and most are offended by the iconoclasm and blessed are those who are not." 
- C.S. Lewis 

The Story of God: Revelation

Listen along as we wrap up our series through the Bible.

Notes/Quotes:

Revelation 1:1-20

 

Transcendence

Tribulation

Tears (no more)

 

“somewhere between the two extremes of preoccupation with and the avoidance of eschatology, we must take our stance. For eschatology is neither an unimportant and optional topic nor the sole subject of significance and interest to the Christian.” - Millard Erikson

 

4 popular perspectives on Revelation:

Futuristic

Preterist

Historical

Symbolic or idealist.

 

"‘Apocalypse’ is a genre of revelatory literature with a narrative framework, in which a revelation is mediated by an otherworldly being to a human recipient, disclosing a transcendent reality which is both temporal, insofar as it envisages eschatological salvation, and spatial, insofar as it involves another, supernatural world.” JJ Collins

 

“It is generally recognized that Revelation contains more OT references than does any other NT book, although past attempts to tally the total amount have varied. The variation in statistics is due to the different criteria employed to determine the validity of an OT reference and the fact that some authors include echoes and parallels of a very general nature together with allusions and citations.” - GK Beale

 

“John has his favorite books of scripture: Ezekiel, Daniel, Zephaniah, Zechariah, Isaiah, Exodus. But there is probably not a single canonical Old Testament book to which he doesn’t make at least some allusion The statistics post a warning: no one has any business reading the last book who has not read the previous sixty-five. John does not merely repeat [scripture]–it is recreated in him. He does not quote scripture in order to prove something; rather, he assimilates scripture so that he becomes someone.” Eugene Peterson

 

An approach to eschatology:

Emphasizing the Savior and salvation, minimize speculation

Eschatology must be connected to the entirety of the story

Eschatology is meant to provide clarity and eliminate confusion. 

Any vision of the future is meant to root and reorient in the present.

 

“The effect of John’s visions, one might say, is to expand his readers’ world, both spatially (into heaven) and temporally (into the eschatological future), or, to put it another way, to open their world to divine transcendence. The bounds which Roman power and ideology set to the readers’ world are broken open and that world is seen as open to the greater purpose of its transcendent Creator and Lord. It is not that the here-and-now are left behind in an escape into heaven or the eschatological future, but that the here-and-now look quite different when they are opened to transcendence. The world seen from this transcendent perspective, in apocalyptic vision, is a kind of new symbolic world into which John’s readers are taken as his artistry creates it for them. But really it is not another world. It is John’s readers’ concrete, day-to-day world seen in heavenly and eschatological perspective.” - Richard Bauckham

 


“The end result of the act of worship is that our lives are turned around…The self is no longer the hub of reality, as sin seduces us into supposing.” - Eugene Peterson

 

Paul says, “Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted…” 2 Timothy 3:12 and Peter says, “don’t be surprised at the fiery trial that has come upon you…” 1 Peter 4:12.

 

 

“The church universal is called to maintain a faithful witness in the midst of persecution, following in the footsteps of the Lamb, who died to free them from their sins. Having conquered through faith, they are promised the blessing of eternal life in the presence of God in the new heaven and new earth, all with the purpose that they worship him and that he receive the glory forever.” —G.K. Beale 

 

We choose: we follow the dragon and his beasts along their parade route… taking on whatever role is necessary to make a good show and get the applause of the crowds in order to get access to power and become self-important. Or we follow the Lamb along a farmyard route… in order to become, simply, our eternal selves in an eternal city.” – Eugene Peterson

 

“Every exodus in scripture is incomplete, except the last one. The patriarchs leave the land and come back wealthy, but their descendants are enslaved. Moses leads the people out out of Egypt, but they die in the wilderness. Joshua takes them into the Land, but the Canaanites remain. David and Solomon secure the Land and build the temple, but Israel divides. Exile is followed by return, but idolatry continues. Jesus goes into the depths and emerges victorious, but leaves when the conquest of the Land has hardly started. The church marches out in the power of the Holy Spirit, but as the Epistles clearly show, the church is still in the wilderness, awaiting its final rest, looking to the day when “death of death, and hell’s destruction, land me safe on Canaan’s side.” Every time we think the melody is complete, there is a final complication, another discordant note. Exodus, but. Exodus, but.”

—Alastair J. Roberts & Andrew Wilson

 

“Many people want to go to heaven the way they want to go to Florida—they think the weather will be an improvement and the people decent. But the biblical heaven is not a nice environment far removed from the stress of hard city life. It is the invasion of the city by the City. We enter heaven not by escaping what we don’t like, but by the sanctification of the place in which God has placed us. There is not so much as a hint of escapism in St. John’s heaven. This is not a long (eternal) weekend away from the responsibilities of employment and citizenship, but the intensification and healing of them. Heaven is formed out of dirty streets and murderous alleys, adulterous bedrooms and corrupt courts, hypocritical synagogues and commercialized churches, thieving tax-collectors and traitorous disciples: a city, but now a holy city.” - Eugene Peterson

 

“ The Bible is a redemption story. It is a cosmic exodus, stretching from Eden to the new Jerusalem. All the exodus narratives we have seen in this book—political, geographical, spiritual, liturgical—are contained within a global one that only comes to completion at the return of Christ. So if, at times, it has seemed like we were going round in circles, making bricks without straw, trapped in slavery to sin and death for century upon painful century, and crying out for someone to help us, that is because we have been. When Adam sinned, we left our homeland, fell into captivity, and have been hoping to get back ever since.

So have the oceans. So have the forests. Paul's teaching in Romans 8 is remarkable here: it is not just human beings who are awaiting redemption, but "creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (v.21). We are looking forward to the exodus of everything. When we left Eden and headed into Egypt, we took the Cedars and the sword fish and the puffins with us. The physical world, over which we were given dominion, suffered the consequences of exile and ruptured shalom. Like a woman in labor, creation as a whole is crying out in anguish, straining toward the day when her labor pains will be over and the new creation will break out from inside the old.

And when our true and better Joshua returns to lead us across the Jordan, creation will come too. We will rise up from the riverbed followed by a multicolored menagerie of flora and fauna, like a latter-day Noah emerging from the depths and blinking at the brightness, to find that the waters have receded and there is no longer any sea. There is a new heaven and a new earth, not just a new Jerusalem. The labor pains were worth it. Paul was right: the weight of glory makes our light and momentary afflictions seem trivial. Tolkien was right: everything sad has become untrue. Lewis was right: the dream has ended, and this is the morning. Dostoyevsky was right: in the worlds finale, at the moment of eternal harmony, something so precious will come to pass that it will suffice for all hearts, for the comforting of all resentments, for the atonement of all the crimes of humanity, for all the blood that they've shed; that it will make it not only possible to forgive but to justify all that has happened.” —Alastair J. Roberts & Andrew Wilson

 

“He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon. Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!” (Rev. 22:20)

 

The Story of God: Jude

Listen along as we look at Jude's letter on Christmas Eve.

Jude:1-3 - Jeff Orsburn
Jude 1:1-3

In the church, this is the season of Advent. It’s superficially understood as a time to get ready for Christmas, but in truth it’s the season for contemplating the judgment of God. Advent is the season that, when properly understood, does not flinch from the darkness that stalks us all in this world. Advent begins in the dark and moves toward the light—but the season should not move too quickly or too glibly, lest we fail to acknowledge the depth of the darkness. Advent bids us take a fearless inventory of the darkness: the darkness without and the darkness within. - Fleming Rutledge

“Every time you feel hurt, offended, or rejected, you have to dare to say to yourself: “These feelings, strong as they may be, are not telling me the truth about myself. The truth, even though I cannot feel it right now, is that I am the chosen child of God, precious in God’s eyes, called the Beloved from all eternity, and held safe in an everlasting embrace.” Henri Nouwen
 
Jude 1:17-23

We think of him as safe beneath the steeple,
Or cosy in a crib beside the font,
But he is with a million displaced people
On the long road of weariness and want.
For even as we sing our final carol
His family is up and on that road,
Fleeing the wrath of someone else’s quarrel,
Glancing behind and shouldering their load.
Whilst Herod rages still from his dark tower
Christ clings to Mary, fingers tightly curled,
The lambs are slaughtered by the men of power,
And death squads spread their curse across the world.
But every Herod dies, and comes alone
To stand before the Lamb upon the throne.
Malcom Guite

Jude 1:24-25

The entire thrust of this season at the end of the church year is designed to bring us face-to-face with reality—reality about sin and death, reality about the human race, reality about God. Something ultimate has entered our world, something or Someone that calls us to attention, calls us out of our daily preoccupations and our routine points of view. That is what this season with its special biblical readings is designed to reveal - Fleming Rutledge