"I'm so happy I have a dad!"

Hoy fui a almorzar pizza con mis cuatro hijos. Mientras comíamos mi hijo Mauro me dice, "I'm so happy I have a dad!" Me sonreí y me incliné hacia él y le dije, "I'm so happy I have a son!"

:-)

Cristo Pan y Vino

"Durante 40 años el Señor los condujo a través del desierto, y sus vestiduras no se envejecieron, ni se les gastó el calzado. El no les ha permitido establecerse en ningún lugar ni cultivar la tierra para que les produzca trigo para el pan y uva para el vino, porque desea que comprendan que él es el Señor el Dios de ustedes, y que los ha estado cuidando y alimentando."
Deuteronomio 29:5,6 NBD

Estos versículos me hicieron pensar en que el verso 6 de Deuteronomio 28 es una de las expresiones precursoras de la Eucaristía más tempranas e importantes de la Biblia. La Santa Eucaristía no habría sido instituida por Jesucristo sino hasta más de mil trescientos años después de este momento. Sin embargo, desde el comienzo en la narrativa bíblica Dios da muestras concretas de que desea dos cosas en particular: 1. proveerle a su pueblo lo necesario, y 2. tener comunión con él. Una de las maneras en que Dios hace esto es a través del uso de elementos familiares y simples como el pan y el vino. Tan temprano como Génesis 14:18-19 vemos el encuentro entre Abram y Melquisedec, “rey de Salem y sacerdote del Dios altísimo”. ¿Qué comparten? O más bien, ¿qué le sirve el sacerdote Melquisedec a Abram? Pan, vino y una bendicion. Estos dos elementos palpables, pan y vino, encierran toda la provisión física y a la vez son el vehículo de bendición espiritual de Dios para su pueblo, la Santa Cena. Que el Señor le diga a Israel en Deuteronomio 28 que no le “ha permitido establecerse en ningún lugar ni cultivar la tierra para que les produzca  trigo para el pan y uva para el vino...” significa que su verdadera provisión no es terrenal. No hay poder ni recurso humano que cubra todas y cada una de las necesidades del hombre. Por eso Deut. 28:6 enfatiza la negativa de Dios a que su pueblo se estableciera permanentemente durante su peregrinaje en el desierto “porque desea que comprendan que él es el Señor el Dios de ustedes, y que los ha estado cuidando y alimentando.” Estas palabras de Deut. 28:6 son un claro eco de las mismas palabras de Jesús cuando habló de ser el Pan de Vida en el Evangelio de Juan 6.  

“Ciertamente les aseguro que no fue Moisés el que les dio a ustedes el pan del cielo —afirmó Jesús. El que da el verdadero pan del cielo es mi Padre. El pan de Dios es el que baja del cielo y da vida al mundo.
Señor —le pidieron—, danos siempre ese pan.
Yo soy el pan de vida —declaró Jesús. El que a mí viene nunca pasará hambre, y el que en mí cree nunca más volverá a tener sed.” Jn. 6:32-35, NVI

God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Read this short devotional book twice over Advent and Christmas 2011. It consists mostly of snippets of Bonhoeffer's sermons and letters, many of these latter ones written while in prison. The book is gold in its depth of theological thought and insights. Bonhoeffer as a preacher was actually pretty solid and I appreciate immensely his reflective writing style and tone. Bonhoeffer! What else can you expect? Come Advent and Christmas this year, here's a book I wholeheartedly recommend to you! Take up and dig!



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El Principio Del Tesoro: Descubra El Secreto Del Dador Alegre by Randy Alcorn
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Un corto pero incisivo libro acerca de la teología de diezmar nuestro dinero a Dios y a la iglesia. Randy Alcorn es un excelente maestro, muy claro y directo a la vez que sencillo en su exposición bíblica del tema. Creo que este librito te ayudará a tener una mejor perspectiva acerca de lo que es honrar a Dios con tu dinero.



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Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy by Eric Metaxas
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Deitrich Bonhoeffer was not an ordinary Christian. He grew up in an era of unspeakable World War horrors. He wrestled with those horrors and ultimately died because of them. He didn’t die fearing these horrors. He died in spite of them. Fighting them. And while he succumbed to the powers that be, some of the darkest powers the history of mankind has ever seen, his death was actually the death of a conqueror.


“This is the end,” he said. “For me the beginning of life.”


Ever since at a young age he broke the news to his highly cultured and academically gifted family that he would become a theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer applied his theological giftedness to thoroughly think through what it meant to be a disciple of Christ on earth, what it meant to take up one’s cross and follow him exploring the deepest implications of such an act.


Bonhoeffer was an Incarnational Christian who believed and understood that Christ was God’s Yes to humanity and that the Sermon on the Mount signifies the greatest challenge and calling for us as followers of God’s Word made flesh. In the last 15 years of his young life, we see Bonhoeffer as a flower blooming slowly into a theological giant, but his theological prowess would only be subservient to the practical outworking of the Gospel in every aspect of daily life. Does the Gospel call us to take up our cross and follow Jesus no matter were the following may lead us? Yes! says Bonhoeffer. That following may even lead us to our very death. This is what makes up the biographical narrative of Eric Metaxas’ Bonhoeffer.


If there is a definitive and recent biography for the Christ follower today it is Metaxas’ Bonhoeffer. No other comes in close second. Metaxas careful and beautiful depiction of an uncompromising Christian life is nothing short of breathtaking in allowing us to see the weakness and vulnerability of a man who is by no less measure extraordinary. In his embrace of life as the full experience for which God created us we behold someone who processed life through the prism of the Cross.


Bonhoeffer was a prolific letter writer. His letters are one refreshing window through which we get to know the inner man he was. His sense of humor, his love of music, his passion for Christian formation and discipleship, the heights to which he ascends in his theological thought, his serious regard for friendship, his love for God’s wide earth, his ecumenical spirit, his love for the Church and his suffering after he was imprisoned, all come forth from the page by reading the vast selections of his epistolary writings quoted in Bonhoeffer. That alone should be enough to make you want to read the book, but that’s not all. Eric Metaxas, the author, is a gifted writer himself. The book is a gem as much for Bonhoeffer’s own writings quoted throughout as for Metaxas carefully constructed narrative pieced together from the selected letters and other sources.


Bonfoeffer will encourage you, will make you mad, will make you laugh and will make you cry bringing you to the range of experiences that a Christian is called to live even if we have not experienced the ultimate consequence of that call as Dietrich Bonhoeffer did.


Read this book. Once you’re done with it you’ll want to read it again and then again. A book for our time.





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