“JUST BIRTH PANGS!”
Mark 13:1-8

Dear Friends in Christ, grace and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ. Amen.

There is an air of haunting trouble surrounding each of this week's lectionary passages. Had we read the Old Testament lesson for today, we would have heard that in a troubling time for Israel, Hannah was praying about her own personal struggles, and her miraculously born son became the voice of God to a troubled people. The Hebrews who read apostolic instruction are processing the troubles of persecutions past and future, and wonder whether trusting Jesus is really the right way to go.