December 2004: Nine

See December 2002 for explanation of the format.

these are the nine readings we used this year:

1. Genesis 3:8-15, 17-19 (Sue Baker-Donnelly)
2. Genesis 22:15-18 (Holmes’)
3. Isaiah 9:2, 6-7 (Andrew)
4. Isaiah 11:1-3a, 4a, 6-9 (Rebecca)
5. Luke 1:26-35, 38 (Steve)
6. Luke 2:1, 3-7 (Mike)
7. Luke 2:8-16 (Joel/Simon)
8. Matthew 2:1-12 (Wadds)
9. John 1:1-14 (Ben Cohen)

And these are the tracks people chose:

1. Adam Lay I-Bounden Anon 15th c
2. No title - Welk
3. At the Centre’ - Lies Damned Lies
4. It Hurts So Good - Millie Jackson
5. Boulevard of Broken Dreams - Green Day
6. Personal Jesus - Johnny Cash
7. Untitled – Joel Baker and Simon Burrell (aka twotone)
8. Sound effects of a journey – Mark Waddington
9. As I Went Down - Lies Damned Lies
10. To Be Alone With You - Sufjan Stevens

Lesson 4: Isaiah's vision of the kingdom

Here we have Isaiah's vision of an ideal future world -- call it "heaven" if you like. And this picture, the Plains of Heaven by the Victorian artist John Martin, is another vision of heaven.

What is your vision of heaven? And what do you think will need to happen for that vision to be realised?

Isaiah's vision is of a world without conflict.

What would it take to stop humans fighting with each other (never mind animals)?

Here are a couple of possibilities:

Give people all the resources they could possibly want -- be it living space, time, oil, carbon credits... and they won't have anything to fight over. I call this the George Bush model.

Or change people so that they are incapable of fighting -- the Brave New World model.

I'm sure you can think of other possibilities.

Now let's get back to Isaiah. He makes it clear that this is the Jesus model. Jesus will lead the world to the vision of heaven. This is Jesus who healed people -- and who promised to bring fire to the world.

I really don't know how he will bring heaven about. But we can be sure that it will be alive.

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Photos

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