Redemption: The Thane of Cawdor, Ivan Ilyich and the Rest of Us

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This fall I've been teaching Shakespeare's The Tragedy of Macbeth to high school juniors. And this week I finished reading Tolstoy's novella The Death of Ivan Ilyich. In both stories, writers describe men at the end of their earthly lives, men guilty of serious sins and yet who find redemption at the very end of their days.

The possibility of redemption: I can think of no more compelling message this Advent season, a season in which we Christians await the birth of our Redeemer.
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