You'll likely remember that when the old-timers saw the Second Temple they wept, for it was only a shadow of its former glory. We need to recall that a lot of the Second Temple Jews thought that the rebuilt temple was a bit of a sham. In addition, there would be a New Temple. “This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel “The days are coming,” declares the LORD,
More, this New Law would be written on hearts rather than on tablets of stone: He will tell them everything I command him.Īs a Second Moses leading a New Exodus the expectation was that there also would be a second giving of the Law. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their fellow Israelites, and I will put my words in his mouth. The LORD said to me: “What they say is good. For this is what you asked of the LORD your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said, “Let us not hear the voice of the LORD our God nor see this great fire anymore, or we will die.”
The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your fellow Israelites. Consequently, many of the Second Temple Jews believed the Messiah to be the fulfillment of this prophecy: Moses himself predicted that a Second Moses would come with the expectation of a New Exodus. One of the notions that captures this richer vision was the expectation that the Messiah would be a Second Moses.
But the expectations regarding the Messiah were actually much richer and broader, more inclusive and even cosmic in scale. To be sure, this was a part of the constellation of ideas surrounding the concept of Messiah. If you quizzed people in your church about that question my guess is that the #1 answer would be that the Messiah would lead a popular revolt to eject the Romans and restore the Davidic kingdom. We can begin with the question, what were the Jews expecting of the Messiah? In 2011 I worked through some New Exodus material and I find myself referring to these notes over and over out at the prison: We're in Jeremiah right now.Īnd as we've been working through the Old Testament I've been struck by how helpful the paradigm of the New Exodus has been. Out at my bible study at the prison we are working through the entire bible. A place, as with Rosalyn, where love begins to slowly unwind us, gently healing how we've been demonically formed and malformed by power and distrust. A place where lording over is replaced by loving service, where the last in the world become first, where the least become the greatest. "You see how people lord over each other in the world," Jesus said, "It shall not be like that with you."Īnd I like to see that place as being the workshop of our salvation. Where coercive power is replaced with the messy anarchy of friendship. Where rules are replaced by relationship and trust. Where rigidity is replaced by creative spontaneity. A place where hierarchy is replaced by mutuality. I like to think that Calvinball is a metaphor for church. Rosalyn's distrustful and hierarchical application of power is replaced with mutuality, spontaneity and trust. And by entering the relational world of Calvinball Rosalyn, and her relationship with Calvin, is transformed. So here in the final Rosalyn strips Watterson shows us Rosalyn, the personification of rules, entering into the ruleless world of Calvinball. And the final Rosalyn story in ‘95 begins on just that note: Thus, the Calvin/Rosalyn relationship is inherently antagonistic. She represents the non-relational, non-empathic application of power.
Rosalyn is an impersonal enforcer of rules. Rosalyn embodies all the forces arrayed against Calvin.
#CALVIN AND HOBBES BLACKED AND WHITED OUT SERIES#
Recently, search terms looking for "calvin's babysitter" linked to one the final posts in that series which is also a personal favorite.įrom a theological vantage, my favorite Calvin and Hobbes strips come from a storyline that Bill Watterson gives us in September of 1995.Ĭalvin and Hobbes comes to an end in December in '95 and in the waning months of the strip we get a two week storyline, ten daily strips in all, devoted to the relationship between Calvin and his evil babysitter Rosalyn.Īs you may recall, Rosalyn functions as a kind of satan-figure in Calvin and Hobbes. A series I did in 2008 entitled The Theology of Calvin and Hobbes still gets all sorts of traffic. I get all sorts of search terms about the Calvin and Hobbes comic strip.
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