Will the water bring death or life?
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An embodied ideal Jeremiah 31 7 14 John 1 1 9 10 18
Interrupted Luke 1 26 38 47 55
Whether Mary was reading or spinning or planning her wedding, the annunciation came as an interruption.
Christmas and the cross Luke 2 22 40
Simeon offers a subtle instruction to Mary: remember the cross.
Messianic complex John 1 6 8 19 28
John the Baptist baptized Jesus of Nazareth. The synoptic Gospels all say so, and the kerygma in Acts connects the beginning of Jesus’ ministry with that baptism. But although Mark seems to find it quite right that Jesus should have been among those who heeded John’s preaching, all the other evangelists seem discomfited by the suggestion that Jesus was somehow a disciple of this other preacher.
On your mark Mark 1 1 8
The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” Like a starter’s pistol, this brief first verse rings out and Mark’s narrative is off and running.
We may take the chain of phrases in this verbless sentence simply as an announcement of what is next—a title that is followed immediately by the headlong story.