Limbo is a game based on traditions that began on the island of Trinidad. The goal of the game is to pass under a horizontal bar (known as the limbo bar) as it is lowered. Contestants must bend backward and allow no part of their body to touch the bar while only their feet can touch the floor or ground. Sometimes, people will chant “how low can you go!” as the bar is lowered bit by bit. Fun fact, the world record for the lowest limbo bar height is 6 inches, set by Dennis Walston in 1991. Ha! He must have been really flexible and really skinny! How low can you go?

In the past few columns, we’ve looked at figures around the time of Jesus who were expecting “the kingdom”: the Maccabees, other zealots and revolutionaries, and even Mary and Zechariah. These figures, I’ve suggested, pointed, in different ways, to a new socio-political order that would fulfill Israel’s vocation to be “the light of the world.”