BEIRON'S WAY: THE WAIT WATCHER

Then fixing his eyes on his disciples he said: “How blessed are you who are poor: the kingdom of God is yours. Blessed are you who are hungry now: you shall have your fill.” Luke 6:20-21 In Luke’s gospel, Jesus spoke these when he approached a level ground where many people had gathered, to hear him and to be cured. Because of its similarity to the familiar words we know as Matthew’s Beatitudes, which were taught by Jesus on a mountain when he saw the crowds (Matthew 5:1), we tend to read one text over the other. But the subtleties in difference between the text are sufficient for us to take a look at Luke’s version of events, and see if he intends to inform his readers of something else. We know he wrote in beautiful Greek, and therefore this makes it unlikely that the variance was an accident, even if he had the same source (which in French is Quelle , a reference to the missing “Q” gospel from which all the synoptics share a commonality). Jesus according to Luke goes on to immediat...

Saturday, 25 March 2006 Today, the universal church celebrates the Annunciation to the blessed Virgin Mary, an event which in the Gospel of Luke heralds the coming of the Messiah for the Jewish nation. In the Quran, it is also an epic event, in which the Prophetic Traditions explain that God's Word created the nabii Isa (prophet Jesus, to the Muslims), in a miracle birth which marks the immaculate conception. To Christians, it is not merely the miraculous nature of the event, where God has sent one of his own angelic messengers named Gabriel, to announce the birth of one to come. This has happened before, where angels took human form to mingle among the Children of Israel, and make specific revelations. To Abram, as visitors from the heat of the desert, who enjoyed his hospitality and promised the birth of his son; and in another instance, the story of Gideon, who was to lead the Israelites. Yet in none of these instances, did the angelic messenger seek the willing participation a...