μαράνα θά!

So cried out St. Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians. (cf. 1 Corinthians 16:22) It’s the Aramaic equivalent, written in Greek, of the prayer of the bride of Christ. It is the prayer that John wrote as you heard in the text this evening: “The Spirit and the Bride say, ‘Come.’ And let the one who hears say, ‘Come.’”

μαράνα θά! “Come quickly, Lord Jesus!” Or, perhaps more appropriately, “Come now, O Lord!”

The text tonight seems to describe Christ in His first coming to earth. The selection of Matthew 1:18-25 would back up such an assumption. There in St. Matthew’s Gospel is his short telling of the birth of the Messiah. Mary, with child, gave birth to a Son, whom Joseph, her betrothed, named Jesus. A little later in St. Matthew’s Gospel, after the visit of the Magi, the holy family flees into Egypt.

“Behold, he is coming!”

This isn’t the message of some crazed street-corner preacher. Nevertheless, even if it was, he would be right!

This is the message of St. John in his Apocalypse. “Behold, he is coming…” John wrote of Jesus, the King, the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, and everything in between. All of that is a poetic way of saying, “All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men.” (John 1:3-4) So, the Creator of all things in Whom is life is coming.

It’ll happen right there in the middle of the Sanctus during the Service of the Sacrament. You will sing the very same words sung to Lord Almighty, Jesus Christ the Savior, as He rode into Jerusalem to accomplish the taking away of the sins of the world. The King entered the royal city to claim His throne, the cross, in order to give His life as the ransom for the sinful, that they would be cleansed and purified and brought into His kingdom, and the people said, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!”

Hosanna: “Lord, save us now,” they proclaimed, and Jesus was coming to do just that. This is the Advent of the King, on His way to fulfilling the promise for which He was conceived and born—for which He took on flesh and blood like yours and became one like you, the Son of Man who is the Son of God. In three-and-a-half weeks, that fact will be celebrated, and the marvel at the Infant who is God will commence, but right off the bat as preparation is made for that celebration, the rubber is hitting the road.

So, the last update was about a box that I normally use for my own computing. I've also had some other linux adventures.

I kinda forgot about this category, too. This one, for a much longer time.

When I last wrote in this category, I had gotten a new laptop on which I installed Ubuntu 10.10. Since then, I really hadn't updated that computer.

I have, however, since then acquired a new laptop on which I installed Ubuntu Budgie 18.04. It's a nice machine. It came with 4GB of RAM, which I upgraded to the maximum of 16 so that I can use the virtual machines that I also install on it (primarily Windows 7 so that I can use Logos on it). It's been almost two years, now; I got this machine at about the same time that Ubuntu Budgie 18.04 was released (by the version number, that would have been April 2018).

As with all of my Ubuntu experiences, this one has been good, too, so far. I don't expect that to change.

Seems I had completely forgotten about this category. Well...

When I first got the MacBook, I mentioned that it needed to have the battery serviced. That was over three years ago.

In July 2018, I purchased a new battery for it. The old one finally got to the point that it was swelling and pushing the track pad up, causing it to break through the deck.

Otherwise, I'm using it still, transporting it back and forth to the office for work and using it at home for general computing needs.

They seem to cause an issue with my site, specifically on the back end with my host. I don't know exactly what the deal is, but it is spiking my resource usage. I got an error twice in the last post trying to include tags. I've since rebuilt the tag database and omitted the use of tags in that post, and things look to be running a little more smoothly.

Oddly enough, the tags are loading more quickly, too, in the blog back end...

If Jesus were to return tomorrow or the next day or the next week, would you know it? Do you know what to expect? Will you recognize the signs and the events surrounding His return? Well, according to what Jesus once said, there won’t be an eye on earth—living or dead, believing or not—who will not know that He is returning when He comes back. (cf. Matthew 24:25-27) So, you will most certainly know that Jesus is returning when the Day comes, expecting it or not—the signs will be given, the events will happen, and you will know.

“Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.” Watch, Jesus tells you. What does that mean? Why would He say that if you’re going to know it when He returns anyway?

“Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.”

“Slave” and “slavery” are words that carry a lot of weight. When Jesus tossed out that word in talking to the Jews who had believed in Him, it did more than just catch their attention. It would have thrown up all kinds of warning bells and whistles and put them on the defensive, as you heard in the text. I suppose it’s akin to throwing around the word “racist” these days as a way of insulting those who don’t share one’s opinion. In a way, the words “slave” and “slavery” do that still today.