Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/1478604
A D R A M A U N FO L D I N G Like any good story, the particular words of the author make all the difference in understanding. The Hebrew word for "redeemer" is goel. The Hebrew people would have recognized this word because a goel is the oldest male relative who had t wo responsibilities to his family: the person in the family obliged to buy back their family member who has been sold into slavery, and to avenge the murder of any family member who has been murdered. God says to us he will send a family member, Jesus, who will be our goel to get us back from slavery, and avenge our "murder," through killing Death. This Biblical story is one of rescue: God sends his son to rescue us (Jn 3:16), and to destroy the works of Satan (1 Jn 3:8). God sends his son as a human person, Jesus, so that Jesus can defeat Satan, and free us from the capture of sin and death. Jesus conquers the kingdom of death by dying, seeming to be defeated, but then, in the ultimate defeat of the Villain, to destroy death by rising over death (1 Cor 15:24-26). We're invited into seeing the world in this way: we were created out of love, to be happy with the Father, but each one of us is captured by Satan into sin and death. The only way to get out of the capture, the slavery, the despair of Death is to choose our rescue. The only person who can save us is God himself, Jesus Christ. Each one of us gets a chance to choose him and be free — to recognize the ultimate, fundamental story of reality as an adventure, a romance, with villains, and suffering, heroes, and ultimately saving. We are invited to see the world through the drama of reality, articulated in the Bible, the Bible which is living and active and able to form our worldviews properly today. May each one of us be captivated by the way we see, through a Biblical lens, the truth of all of reality, and may we be captured by an imaginative way of seeing the world through a Biblical worldview. 14 SEPTEMBER 2022 | DENVER CATHOLIC