magic

January 29, 2019

The healing power (Lk 6:19-6:19)

“All the crowd

Were trying

To touch him.

Power

Came out

From Jesus.

He healed

All of them.”

 

καὶ πᾶς ὁ ὄχλος ἐζήτουν ἅπτεσθαι αὐτοῦ, ὅτι δύναμις παρ’ αὐτοῦ ἐξήρχετο καὶ ἰᾶτο πάντας

 

Luke said that all the people in the crowds were trying to touch Jesus (καὶ πᾶς ὁ ὄχλος ἐζήτουν ἅπτεσθαι αὐτοῦ).  Power came out from him (ὅτι δύναμις παρ’ αὐτοῦ), as he went around healing all of them (ἐξήρχετο καὶ ἰᾶτο πάντας).  Mark, chapter 3:10, said that Jesus had cured many people, so that everyone pressed or crushed around him.  All the people with diseases hoped to touch him to be healed of their illness.  Jesus had a magic like healing power.

February 23, 2018

Christian Sacraments

Christian sacraments have the power to enact what they symbolize.  These are outward signs instituted by Christ to be efficacious, to do what they symbolize.  The power of a ritual is more than the actual physical baptismal or sharing of the bread and wine event.  We remember and enact the experience of Jesus Christ.  This is not magic.  We do not need to be like a sports fan (fanatic) at a sporting event that goes crazy into the event.  Yet our involvement demands an expressing and deepening of the sense and experience of the mystery of God, as expressed in Jesus Christ.  Jesus is the sacrament of God.  His Christian Church is the sacrament of Jesus.  The individual Christian sacraments are the expression of Jesus and his Christian community.  The sacramental symbols of the Christian churches effect what they symbolize.  They do what they say they are doing in a special graced filled moment.