December 17, 2020
Just so you’ll know, we got home from our last cruise – sailing on the Carnival Miracle – 9 months ago yesterday. And no new ones yet in sight.
👉 Yesterday Georgia recorded one of its worst days of the pandemic, with a combined 7,437 new confirmed and probable cases of COVID-19 reported by the Department of Public Health. But the good news is Georgia received the first of 84,825 does of the new Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. First responders, doctors, nurses and other health care workers are – very properly – receiving the first doses.
👉 Dozens of children took pictures with Santa at a holiday event in Ludowici, Georgia, last week. Now Long County officials have informed residents that the individuals performing as “Santa” and “Mrs. Claus” tested positive for COVID-19. After the event, about 50 children took their picture with Santa, who was accompanied by Mrs. Claus. The actors were not displaying any symptoms at the time. Commissioner Robert Parker said,“I have personally known both ‘Santa’ and ‘Mrs. Claus’ my entire life and I can assure everyone that they would have never knowingly done anything to place any children in danger.” Parker’s own children were among the youngsters exposed.
👉 We’ve been living a “new normal” since March and some of us may be thinking we know all there is to know about the coronavirus and COVID-19. Well, Robert Fulghum wrote “Everything I Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten,” and a clever YouTuber gives us a reminder of a different sort in the parody, “Everything I Need To Know I Learned From M*A*S*H.” Here is “M*A*S*H and the Coronavirus”.
👉 And some other warning/reminders, funny or not:
👉 I apologize for missing this one yesterday, but December 16, 1773, was the day a group of Massachusetts colonists disguised as Mohawk Indians boarded three British tea ships and dumped 342 chests of tea into the Boston harbor. The tea, worth $18,000 then, would be over a quarter of a million dollars today. The midnight raid, popularly known as the “Boston Tea Party,” was in protest of the British Parliament’s Tea Act of 1773, which many colonists viewed as another example of taxation tyranny. The Tea Tax and the Intolerable Acts – which Parliament passed in 1774 in retaliation for the party – were direct causes leading to the American Revolution.
👉 “The Statue of Liberty Enlightening the World” was a gift of friendship from the people of France to the United States and is recognized as a universal symbol of freedom and democracy.
The copper statue was designed by French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi and its metal framework was built by Gustave Eiffel (whose famous tower we visited yesterday).
Bartholdi completed the head and the torch-bearing arm before the statue was fully designed, and these pieces were exhibited for publicity at international expositions.
The right arm holding the torch was the first completed piece of the Statue of Liberty. It was displayed for the first time at the 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia, and in Madison Square Park in Manhattan from 1876 to 1882. For a fee, visitors could climb the ladder inside the arm and stand on the viewing platform at the torch. That money was one of the earliest fundraisers for the pedestal.
Following the completion of Lady Liberty’s right arm, her head was built next. At the Paris Universal Exposition in 1878, visitors could buy a pass to climb 36 steps and stand inside the crown. The Statue’s head, much like her arm two years earlier, was used to raise funds for construction.
According to the arrangement between the two nations, France would give the statue, and the U.S. would provide the site and build the pedestal. Fundraising proved difficult, especially for the Americans, and by 1885 work on the pedestal was threatened by lack of funds. Publisher Joseph Pulitzer, of the New York World, started a drive for donations to finish the project and attracted more than 120,000 contributors, most of whom gave less than a dollar.
Bedloe’s Island, chosen as the site for the statue, is owned by the United States government. It had been ceded by the New York State Legislature in 1800 for harbor defense, and it is an appropriate place for the statue since the island is common to all the states.
The Statue of Liberty was dedicated on October 28, 1886.
In 1903, a plaque inscribed with a sonnet titled “The New Colossus”by American poet Emma Lazarus was placed on an interior wall of the pedestal. Lazarus’ now-famous words, which include “Give me your tired, your poor/Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” became symbolic of America’s vision of itself as a land of opportunity for immigrants who were heartily welcomed when they came legally, instead of illegally entering, circumventing the laws of the nation.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she with silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me.” Hearing the first sentence of this paragraph with the rest of the quote makes it even more powerful: Keep your storied pomp! Give me your tired, your poor!
During the 1964 election campaign in support of Republican nominee Barry Goldwater, future president Ronald Reagan, gave his powerful “A Time for Choosing” speech. Here are some portions of that speech – no less meaningful, no less important today – combined with a dramatic presentation of Emma Lazarus' great poem.
The Statue of Liberty Enlightening the World was designated as a National Monument in 1924.
👉 In 1976, I was the editorial assistant to the editor in chief of Church of God Publications. That year I also helped the Radio and Television Department of the COG with its bicentennial celebration nationwide television special (I did script research, took some photographs of the live event, and edited a souvenir booklet). The TV special featured a trio of COG ministers called “The Churchmen” singing a beautiful spiritual and patriotic song by Neil Enloe.
Yesterday I found a promotional video posted on the 40th anniversary of that “Freedom Celebration.” The Churchmen sing at marker 2:08. It is only a short segment, but here is another clip by Ivan Parker singing “The Statue of Liberty.”
👉 The Third Thursday in Advent
A Dangerous Summons
From that time, Jesus began to proclaim, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” As he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea – for they were fishermen. And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” Immediately they left their nets and followed him (Matthew 4:17-20).
The picture we are given in this text concerns the one who is a danger to the status quo and a threat to establishment powers; he comes in an intensely powerful way. When he gets there, he says three things that are characteristic slogans of the gospel movement:
First, The Kingdom of Heaven is near. Jesus is a revolutionary because he announces a takeover, a new regime. Some of his first hearers no doubt understood that he would displace Roman governance, which was an occupying force in Palestine that they hated. And so, they welcomed him. Since then some have heard his statement in more personal ways, a new regime to combat addictions and guilts, old resentments that drain us and old hurts that nag at us and keep us from well-being. Every old power of darkness and destructiveness is now on notice, because God’s light is in the world in Jesus.
Second, Repent. Just one word, but in fact it is a very large word. It is an imperative word, change: change directions, change loyalty, change from guilt to compassion, change from self to neighbor, change from despair to buoyancy, change to the new governance. And they found that this very saying it empowered them to do it. We are authorized to quit serving the systems, old fears, old guilts, old debts, freed by the coming of the light into the land of contempt and distress.
Third, Follow Me. Jesus is looking for associates and assistants and comrades in the new governance that will displace the old. But to sign up and join in requires breaking loyalty to old patterns and old regimes. Those fishermen by the Sea of Galilee went immediately into his new world. So might we!
God of a new day, you come to us in this season with the message of the kingdom and summon us to repent and follow. Draw us out of hopelessness into the gift of new power for a new life. Amen.
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