Jesus, Live in Rochester, NY!

I would have thought that Jesus would find a warmer place to initiate his second-coming but alas he chose the frigid tundra of Rochester, NY for his latest appearance. I have still have trouble discerning the Messianic facial features but then again I never was able to see those encrypted images at the mall either!

It remains to me an interesting question how one can discern between "authentic" and "inauthentic" religious experiences. Perhaps, we can discount easily an appearance of the face of Jesus on the bark of a tree or that of Mary on a grilled cheese sandwich. But what about the stories that have imbued Guadalupe with so much power? Are they in the same category for us? Do our modernist perspectives require us to reject the supernatural, the extraordinary, or the downright weird?

Christianity is a faith that leans upon the testimony of eyewitnesses to the resurrection and to its continued power in believers' lives. Pentecost served as a vital intersection of the limits of human and the power of God in a public setting. These recent theophanic iterations force us to face the "foolishness of the gospel" (see 1 Cor 1:18, 21, 23, 25; 2:14; 3:19) once again and to reassess what that means for us today as a people who usually stress reason above all else.