Stories of Transformation and Hope

Mary’s Gospel

Irene Alexander

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN:
  9781625645449
  9781498269391
• eBook ISBN:
  9781630872304
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

What if the people I know were to be transformed by an encounter with the cosmos? The foreign woman who argues with the doctor, the homeless man on the street corner, the corrupt politician, the fisherman risking his life to make a living. What if I met up with them in a decade and found that each had experienced a life transformation after meeting the God-Man, Jesus, who touched them in the deepest core of their being? And what if one of Jesus' companions was to meet them and listen to their story, the story of their life and their encounter with the one who brought transformation? This book collects the imagined stories of men and women of whom we know very little, only the bare bones of their encounters. It is a book for the foreign woman, the homeless man, the politician, and the fisherman--any of us who want to deeply encounter a God who meets us as a real person. The stories touch us because they are refashioned into the contextual thinking of our time and our culture--and yet they reflect the reality of another time, a time when God walked among us--in our streets, and our neighborhood, and into our homes.

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Acknowledgments
• Chapter 1: Mary’s Introduction
• Chapter 2: An Ordinary Woman, an Extraordinary Drama
• Chapter 3: A Fisherman and the Politics of Change
• Chapter 4: Deep Thirst, Deep Quenching
• Chapter 5: Exclusion Turned to Grace
• Chapter 6: A Fractured Life Becomes a Cascade of Diamonds
• Chapter 7: Touching the Untouchable
• Chapter 8: A Soldier Recognizes Authority
• Chapter 9: Darkness, Light, and Seeing Both
• Chapter 10: The Cruelty of Dogma, the Fear of Freedom
• Chapter 11: Letting Go Riches
• Chapter 12: A Woman’s Priestly Gift
• Chapter 13: The End of Days, the Beginning of Forever
• Chapter 14: Doubting?—or Hiding