<div dir="ltr">
<b style="margin:0px;outline:currentcolor none medium;padding:0px;font-family:georgia,"times new roman";font-weight:normal"><b style="margin:0px;outline:currentcolor none medium;padding:0px;font-size:18px;font-family:georgia,"times new roman";color:rgb(0,0,0);font-weight:normal;font-style:normal"><b style="margin:0px;outline:currentcolor none medium;padding:0px;font-size:18px;font-family:georgia,"times new roman";color:rgb(0,0,0);font-weight:normal;font-style:normal"><b style="margin:0px;outline:currentcolor none medium;padding:0px;font-size:18px;font-family:georgia,"times new roman";color:rgb(0,0,0);font-weight:normal;font-style:normal"><b style="margin:0px;outline:currentcolor none medium;padding:0px;font-size:18px;font-family:georgia,"times new roman";color:rgb(0,0,0);font-weight:normal;font-style:normal"><b style="margin:0px;outline:currentcolor none medium;padding:0px;font-size:18px;font-family:georgia,"times new roman";color:rgb(0,0,0);font-weight:normal;font-style:normal"><b style="margin:0px;outline:currentcolor none medium;padding:0px;font-size:18px;font-family:georgia,"times new roman";color:rgb(0,0,0);font-weight:normal;font-style:normal"><b style="margin:0px;outline:currentcolor none medium;padding:0px;font-size:18px;font-family:georgia,"times new roman";color:rgb(0,0,0);font-weight:normal;font-style:normal"><b style="margin:0px;outline:currentcolor none medium;padding:0px;font-size:18px;font-family:georgia,"times new roman";color:rgb(0,0,0);font-weight:normal;font-style:normal"><b style="margin:0px;outline:currentcolor none medium;padding:0px;font-size:18px;font-family:georgia,"times new roman";color:rgb(0,0,0);font-weight:normal;font-style:normal"><b style="margin:0px;outline:currentcolor none medium;padding:0px;font-size:18px;font-family:georgia,"times new roman";color:rgb(0,0,0);font-weight:normal;font-style:normal"><b style="margin:0px;outline:currentcolor none medium;padding:0px;font-size:18px;font-family:georgia,"times new roman";color:rgb(0,0,0);font-weight:normal;font-style:normal"><b style="margin:0px;outline:currentcolor none medium;padding:0px;font-size:18px;font-family:georgia,"times new roman";color:rgb(0,0,0);font-weight:normal;font-style:normal"><b style="margin:0px;outline:currentcolor none medium;padding:0px;font-size:18px;font-family:georgia,"times new roman";color:rgb(0,0,0);font-weight:normal;font-style:normal"><b style="margin:0px;outline:currentcolor none medium;padding:0px;font-size:18px;font-family:georgia,"times new roman";color:rgb(0,0,0);font-weight:normal;font-style:normal"><b style="margin:0px;outline:currentcolor none medium;padding:0px;font-size:18px;font-family:georgia,"times new roman";color:rgb(0,0,0);font-weight:normal;font-style:normal"><b style="margin:0px;outline:currentcolor none medium;padding:0px;font-size:18px;font-family:georgia,"times new roman";color:rgb(0,0,0);font-weight:normal;font-style:normal"><b style="margin:0px;outline:currentcolor none medium;padding:0px;font-size:18px;font-family:georgia,"times new roman";color:rgb(0,0,0);font-weight:normal;font-style:normal"><b style="margin:0px;outline:currentcolor none medium;padding:0px;font-size:18px;font-family:georgia,"times new roman";color:rgb(0,0,0);font-weight:normal;font-style:normal"><b style="margin:0px;outline:currentcolor none medium;padding:0px;font-size:18px;font-family:georgia,"times new roman";color:rgb(0,0,0);font-weight:normal;font-style:normal"><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-size:18px;font-weight:400;line-height:inherit;text-decoration:inherit;font-family:georgia,"times new roman";font-style:normal">Friends<span style="background-color:rgb(208,224,227)"><b>, today in Mark’s account of the rejection of Jesus at Nazareth, Christ refers to himself as a prophet.</b></span></span><span style="background-color:rgb(208,224,227)"><b><br><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-size:18px;line-height:inherit;text-decoration:inherit;font-family:georgia,"times new roman";font-style:normal"> </span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-size:18px;line-height:inherit;text-decoration:inherit;font-family:georgia,"times new roman";font-style:normal"> </span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-size:18px;line-height:inherit;text-decoration:inherit;font-family:georgia,"times new roman";font-style:normal"> </span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-size:18px;line-height:inherit;text-decoration:inherit;font-family:georgia,"times new roman";font-style:normal"> </span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-size:18px;line-height:inherit;text-decoration:inherit;font-family:georgia,"times new roman";font-style:normal"> </span></b></span><br><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-size:18px;font-weight:400;line-height:inherit;text-decoration:inherit;font-family:georgia,"times new roman";font-style:normal"><span style="background-color:rgb(208,224,227)"><b>In
 the Old Testament tradition, the prophet is a religious visionary and 
truth-teller.</b></span> The great Jewish
theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel said that <span style="background-color:rgb(249,203,156)"><b>the prophet is someone who 
feels the feelings of God and then speaks out of that experience. </b><b>He 
stubbornly reads the world through the lens of the word of God and 
speaks the divine truth.</b> <b>And this mission implies opposition, 
confrontation, and critique,</b></span> since the keepers of worldly order are 
frequently looking through other lenses and listening to other words.</span><br><br><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-size:18px;font-weight:400;line-height:inherit;text-decoration:inherit;font-family:georgia,"times new roman";font-style:normal"><span style="background-color:rgb(255,242,204)"><b>But
 Jesus is much more </b></span>than one more prophet in a long line of prophets, 
one more speaker of the divine truth, one more reader of the divine 
word. <span style="background-color:rgb(255,242,204)"><u><b>Jesus is the Word made flesh; he is the Divine Truth in person.</b></u></span></span></b></b></b></b></b></b></b></b></b></b></b></b></b></b></b></b></b></b></b></b>

</div>