Enough Punishment Already!

Enough Punishment Already!
Psalm 74

This evening, as I write, will be the beginning of the Jewish year 5772; in other words, on this reckoning the New Year will be the 5772nd year since creation. It will be followed by the Day of Atonement and the Festival of Sukkot. Thinking about creation and about God’s deliverance of Israel from Egypt thus come together at this point in the Jewish year. In the Christian calendar it happens that Christmas is immediately followed by the Western New Year, and the Western method of counting the years also makes a link between ordinary, created life and God’s acts of salvation as it begins the count with the date of Jesus’ birth. Maybe the collocation is a coincidence, but we could make more of it...