The Joshua Victor Theory

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. In today’s Gospel we hear the last words of Jesus’ public teaching, before He goes to celebrate His last Supper with the disciples, and to be betrayed, arrested, and crucified. The topic of Jesus’ last public teaching was the end of the world and His return as the judge of the living and the dead. Jesus says that He, the Son of Man, will return on “ a cloud with power and great glory.” It’s an interesting contrast. Jesus uses the title Son of Man to convey His role of suffering and death on the cross. But here, right before all that happens, He shifts to using this title to describe His coming glory from God, for all that He has done for us. The Son of Man turns from His suffering to His glory. Jesus teaches about His Second Coming and the end of the world so that we would be warned and ready. Jesus knows that people will respond differently—but He wants us to be ready. Today He tell...

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. Psalm 8 is a beautiful Psalm, because it draws our attention at the same time to the majesty of God in all His works of creation, and the amazing attention that He still gives to mankind. David marvels at the creation: “When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?” The greatness, the expansiveness, and beauty of creation calls our attention to the pure majesty of Our Lord God. Majesty speaks of His powerful and Kingly rule over all things. His splendor and wisdom. Creation bears witness to God’s handiwork, and the infinite wisdom that ordered the laws of nature to work like a finely tuned clock, to serve life and all creation. The most massive stars in the universe, some as much as 1,000 times the diameter of our own sun, are the work of His fingers. And equally the work...