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The countercultural drama of Ash Wednesday The day offers an opportunity for the devout, the skeptical and the merely curious to embrace the reality of sin. The Rev. Paul Soper, right, uses a swab to apply ash to the forehead of a parishioner during Ash Wednesday Mass at St. Margaret Mary Parish in Westwood, Massachusetts, on Feb. 17, 2021. (AP Photo/Steven Senne) February 17, 2021 (RNS) I confess I have long labored, with some hesitation and much annoyance, to embrace the Christian concept of original sin. Which makes it odd, I’ll admit, that I am so drawn to Ash Wednesday, the day in the Christian calendar that most reminds us that sin or at least human finitude is the central problem that Christianity exists to solve. ....
by Tom Holland, Basic Books, 2019. 624 Pages. A #1 Christian church history book on Amazon. The only recorded encounter of Jesus with Greeks was shortly before His crucifixion. As John 12:20, 21 tells us, some Greeks asked through Philip to see Jesus. We are not told why or what they asked Him, but verses 23-25 says, “Jesus replied, ‘The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds” (NIV) 1 and added in verses 31, 32: “Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself” (NIV). Commenting in verse 33, John said, “He said this to show the kind of death he was going to die” (NIV), the death on the cross. ....