Böcker av Ronnie McBrayer

Some five centuries before Christ, the biblical narrative travels east, out of Israel to the kingdom of Persia-modern-day Iran. King Ahasuerus, or Xerxes, ruled the Middle East and the Persian Gulf at the apex of world domination. God's people, the Jews, were in exile, yanked violently away from their homeland. There, in a foreign land, one of the great stories of Jewish deliverance unfolds, precipitated by a beautiful young woman named Esther. The account that bears Esther's name is one of the more enigmatic books of the Old Testament. Once part of the Kethubim or "miscellaneous writings" of Judaism, it was one of the last books admitted into the canon of Scripture, and only then with editorial adjustment. Why the delay? First, a clear candidate for authorship has never emerged. More importantly, God is not mentioned anywhere in the entire volume. This is a unique characteristic of Esther when compared to the other biblical writings. Nevertheless, this appears to be the author's intent, whoever he or she may have been: invoked or not invoked, God is present. The book of Esther is not a record of historical facts as such. Rather, it is a magnificent narrative that refuses to interpret life as being driven by coincidence or happenstance. While the silence of God is all too normative for life, this does not mean God is not nearby or actively at work behind the scenes. In the otherwise unknown characters of Esther, Haman, and Mordecai, we trace the movement of the divine hand as God collaborates with God's risk-taking people to rescue them from the hand of their enemies. At the conclusion of the book of Esther, the reader is introduced to the Jewish festival of Purim. This was a national celebration honoring the Jewish deliverance from extermination. The word Purim means "chance" or "lot" the rolling of the dice. Yet, this escape from destruction was not the accomplishment of a lucky political wager. It was through the providence of God and the courage of the Jewish queen Esther.

We operate under the notion that America belongs to us Christians and that we belong to it. We believe the preaching of the Kingdom of God and the rallying around the red, white, and blue are always compatible, but if you are like a growing number of Jesus followers, you've had this splinter in your mind for a while now that tells you there is something suspicious about attaching a national flag-any national flag-to the cross. With the Sermon on the Mount as the constant reference point, The Jesus Tribe begins to flesh out the implications, possibilities, contradictions, and complexities of what it means to live within the Jesus Tribe in the shadow of the American Empire.

On December 17, 1927, the crew of the Navy submarine S-4 trolled beneath the waters of Cape Cod Bay, engaged in routine testing of their vessel. At the same time, the Coast Guard cutter Paulding traveled across the surface. Those traveling on the two craft never saw each other. The submarine broke the surface just in time to receive a death blow from the Paulding. The submarine, with its crew of forty, sank in less than five minutes. It came to rest more than one hundred feet below on the ocean floor.Rescue attempts began at once. Due to inclement weather, it took twenty-four hours for the first diver to descend to the wreckage. As soon as the diver's feet hit the hull, he heard tapping. Survivors were trapped inside. Pounding out Morse code on the hull with a hammer, the diver discovered that six crewmen had survived the collision. With renewed efforts, the rescue crew struggled to reach these men before it was too late. Again, the weather would not cooperate. Every attempt failed. With their air supply dwindling, the six survivors tapped out in Morse code a final haunting question, "Is there any hope?"This provocative question echoes across the craft we call Earth. By our own experience, we agree with the New Testament's words that all of creation groans for renewal and relief. The world hopes for something better. As part of this expectant world, we do the same. We hope for a better future for ourselves, our children, and our families.Hope is the intangible fuel that moves the human spirit along when life appears untenable; when marriages fail; when sickness invades; when we face difficult decisions; or when we encounter inexplicable suffering in our lives and in our world. We need hope to live on this planet the same way we need oxygen in our lungs.In our faith tradition, all hope is fastened to the child we find lying in a Christmas manger. Christians gather in houses of worship and around Advent wreaths to reflect upon the implications of his birth and to anticipate the day when hope will become certainty, when what we can only pray for now will become definite. Advent is a season to remember, but it is also a time to renew our lives of hope in the One born in Bethlehem.