Besides reading the NYT, I've been known to consume a lot of cable news. Regarding that news consumption, there are channels I watch (like MSNBC), channels I don't watch (like FOX News), and channels I should watch (like CSPAN). Why should I be watching CSPAN you ask? Well because it features pure, boring, unfiltered documentation of Congress. That setting is also the backdrop to a New York Times opinion piece from Dec. 20, 1865 entitled, "The Consummated Amendment." In it the author describes the history and ratification of the 13th amendment (that ended America slavery). It was also the beginning of the three Reconstruction Amendments and the Reconstruction Era. They were new rules centered on the least, the oppressed, the "outsiders." They aimed to reconstruct how we Americans both think and act. A strong parallel intention can be found in the Gospel reading of Matthew 5:1-12. In his Beatitudes, Jesus aimed to reconstruct how we think and act. His central focus is centered around the least, the oppressed and the outsiders.  

On April 12, 1861 The New York Times published, "THE WAR IMMINENT." It was a telegraphed, live reporting from Charleston, SC of the final hours before the first shots of the Civil War. Those shots did not signify the separation of the Southern States into the Confederacy, because that had already occurred earlier. Rather it symbolized a violent national break-up, a damnable divorce and a dissolution of a Union that was under the illusion that both sides somehow stood for Freedom. And yet, in the beginning of those dark times, there is a comparison to the light of Scripture found in the Gospel of Matthew 4:12-17. In it we find Jesus dealing with his own national history (both distant and immediate). In the middle of it all he finds meaning in the words of an ancient prophet who spoke to the woes of war, civil divisions, military melees and political strife of his own time. Inspired by it, Jesus proclaimed a peaceful invasion following the inundating militaristic ones.

In an August 4, 1856 article about a Florida flood, the New York Times deferred to printing the local expertise of The Tampa Peninsular. In that article we learn that there are different kinds of journalist covering events in different ways, and sometimes one journalist can cover several approaches. Today’s lectionary reading (in a year devoted to the Gospel of Matthew) defers to relaying the expertise of The Gospel of John. In these account in John 1:29-34 we learn that even in the Bible there is something akin to a journalist covering events in different ways. Just like The Tampa Peninsular, this story referencing another story, swirls around the imagery of water.