Dear Friends

Greetings, Faithful People of God,

The end is near. The end of the church year, that is. In two weeks, we begin Advent, the new calendar year for the church.

This next week, we will be looking at Mark 13:1-8 – “The Destruction of the Temple Foretold.”  (ominous music cue)

In these “end of times,” David Lose – Senior Pastor of Mount Olivet Lutheran Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota – classifies this passage as Apocalyptic Literature. He shares that “apocalyptic literature stems from a worldview that believes that everything happening on earth represents and correlates with a larger, heavenly struggle between good and evil. It therefore reads into earthly events cosmic significance and anticipates future events on earth in light of the coming battle between the forces of God and the devil. Hence, it often tries to make sense of current events and experiences by casting them in a larger, cosmic framework and in this way give comfort to people who are currently suffering or being oppressed.”

What are your thoughts? How do you make sense of these times?

Let’s begin the examination together this coming Sunday.

Yours on the journey,
Rev. Michael Cronin