City On A Hill

If you’re not familiar with the passage, it is the short story of the amazing faith decision of one of the criminals being crucified alongside our Lord Jesus Christ. One of the criminals is railing on Jesus as the story begins in v. 39: “saying, “Are you not the Christ?

The trail for the hike used to be well marked, but at night even with the markings it is easy to lose track of the path. This year, however, the trail that had begun to feel familiar was different. The retreat is held at the Manzano Mountain Retreat, and the Manzano Mountains fire last spring literally was stopped at one of the outer cabins.

He had undoubtedly drawn a sizable crowd as clearly there had never been anyone like Him who said anything remotely like what He said. I know this time period was well before the advent of rock and roll, but I have to believe that Jesus, at the risk of trivializing who He is, was the first example of someone achieving super-rock star status. He invented rock stardom before rock existed.

I like Luke for several reasons: the great introduction from Luke to Theophilus (whose very name means “dear to God” or “friend of God”1) in vv 1-4, culminating in v 4: “so that you might know the exact truth about the things you have been taught”; for the wonderful telling of the birth of Christ (a Christmas tradition in my family growing up was my father reading the story of the birt