Empire Remixed

by Brian Walsh

A meditation on Rev. 21.9-14; 21.22-22.5 delivered in the Wine Before Breakfast community on September 20, 2011

Grief is the doorway to hope,
tragic endings give birth to surprising beginnings,
lament gives way to praise,
and death is overturned in resurrection.

That’s the good news this morning.
That’s how the failed, painful reality of Babylon
meets the restored city of Jerusalem.

And it is all there in the very first line of our reading.

“Then one of the angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and said to me….”

Man, by the time I’ve got to the end of the book of Revelation
…the last thing I want to see is one of those angels
…with their bowls of plagues.
The last thing I want to hear is any more bad news
…from one of those angelic messengers. Read the rest of this entry »

by Brian Walsh

It has been about home from the beginning.
…The very beginning,
…the beginning of all beginnings,
…was about home.
……A good home,
……a rich home,
……a home of blessing,
……a creational home,
……home with God.

And when homebreaking raises its violent face,
…the homemaking God makes covenant.
The homemaking God embraces the homebreaker,
…with eyes wide open.

Read the rest of this entry »

CRC Campus Ministries, University of Toronto and Crux Books present:

Justice and Creation:

a double book launch for

“The Justice Project” (Ed. Brian McLaren et. al.)
“The Gift of Creation” (Ed. Norman Wirzba)

with contributor Dr. Sylvia C. Keesmaat

Commentaries by:
Bruxy Cavey (The Meeting House)
Ron Kuipers (Institute for Christian Studies)

Music by Michael Iafrate, Alison Hari Singh, and Zoe Thiessen and The Hildegard Project (featuring Billy Gekas).

Facebook event info here.

by Andrew Stephens-Rennie
a reflection on Isaiah 25:6-9

It’s a feast today – and oh what a feast it will be. A feast of rich food, and of well-matured wines will be served, and all are invited to this table. Rich and poor, young and old, from every tribe and tongue and nation. All are invited to this table.

This ain’t no ordinary feast. This isn’t your run of the mill celebration. With this feast, on this day, we rejoice at the greatest victory ever witnessed. We rejoice in our very hearts - for the pall of death, the shroud cast over all peoples, the sheet spread over all nations – all of it has been destroyed.

Done away with forever. Death has been swallowed up, and all tears will be wiped away. Read the rest of this entry »

Republished with permission from Byron Borger at Hearts & Minds Books in Dallastown, PA. Byron has a longer review to follow, which we’ll be sure to post

Beyond Homelessness: Christian Faith in a Culture of Displacement by Steven Bouma-Prediger and Brian J. Walsh (Eerdmans; $24.00) is a book that I can safely say will be one of the most important works of the year, a major contribution to Christian social analysis and cultural reformation. I’ve followed these friends a bit as they’ve worked out this material. I’ve had an early draft and have been awaiting this published copy for a year; I couldn’t be more excited that it has arrived. Thanks be to God, the ever-faithful home-making and Earth-restoring God who comes to us in Jesus not, as they ably show, to take us away to heaven only to leave behind a burning planet, but to help us image the God of creation here, now, in creation-caring stewardship, until that great day when Christ returns to consummate his covenantal ways in a new Earth. Read the rest of this entry »