"They will seize and persecute you,
they will hand you over to the synagogues and to prisons,
and they will have you led before kings and governors
because of my name.
It will lead to your giving testimony.
Remember, you are not to prepare your defense beforehand,
for I myself shall give you a wisdom in speaking
that all your adversaries will be powerless to resist or refute." -Luke 21:12-15
11/26/2014 Wednesday of the Thirty-fourth Week of Ordinary Time
Wow! Does that Jesus know how to sell himself or what?
"Follow me and I can almost guarantee that after being poor and wandering around trying to explain your relationship with me to other people, many of whom don't have time for me or even despise me, I can just about guarantee you that you will die a torturous awful death!" Sign me up!
Yes, following Jesus was not going to be a bowl of cherries. I suppose he figured he should tell them right off so that they wouldn't be surprised later on. The persecution that Jesus spoke of was not the 'Oh my Gaawwd! Did you hear that the school board put "Holiday" break on the calendar instead of Christmas break?". It was a persecution leading to a slow and a painful death
I sometime think that our culture and the media therein, are set on fomenting so much conflict that it all gets out of hand. And soon people are dying or there are businesses burned down or looted because their faaaaaavorite news station happened to come on the air and that guy.... you know, that guy...... the guy with the awesome hair! He just told us that we should be outraged! Soon, someone gets hurt or someone dies and the next cycle of the outrage factory begins again. In the end, nothing is solved. When our outrage has such a low threshold or is so wildly out of perspective, we only damage ourselves and real persecution when it comes along. Actual issues that need fixing are marginalized as 'those people' just wanting to complain again and in the end, as I said, nothing gets solved.
God Bless,
P.D.O.
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