Exodus 16:2-15 ; Matthew 20:1-16 When I call the gospel “good news,” it is not without a certain amount of trepidation. Because I know there are parts of the gospel that don’t necessarily strike us as good news. There are parts that makes us utterly confused. And there are parts that make us squirm uncomfortably. And there are parts that, when we hear them, we just say, “Nope.” Not all of the good news feels good. And I suppose that was intentional. Jesus didn’t want his listeners to just feel good, he wanted them to change! Consider the conversations that have been going on up to this point. It was just a few verses ago that some people brought their children to Jesus. They wanted Jesus to lay his hands on them and bless them, which seems perfectly reasonable to us. But his disciples were all into crowd control. There […]
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Incarnation (A Christmas Eve message)
John 1:1-14 If you are familiar with the C.S. Lewis story, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, you know it is a winter story – a magical story. It is the kind of story we can hear better at Christmas time. We are, somehow, more ready to open our hearts and minds to the miraculous at this time of year. The story is about four children who go through a magical wardrobe into another world, the land of Narnia, a place where it is always winter but never Christmas. This is the first story C.S. Lewis wrote in his series about Narnia, but it is not actually the beginning of the story – the whole story. There is another book Lewis wrote sometime later that gives the back story to The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. It’s called The Magician’s Nephew. The lion called Aslan first appears in The Magician’s Nephew. He […]
Continue readingWhat Then Should We Do?
Zephaniah 3:14-20 Luke 3:7-18 Does anyone know if the war on Christmas is still going on? I’m just wondering. I haven’t been paying much attention to it, so I’m not really up to speed on it. I would feel bad about that – except that I don’t. I am tired of this particular war. I can’t work up any enthusiasm for it, frankly, because if you want to know the truth I am more concerned about the war on Advent. You don’t hear much about that one –probably because it has been so successful. Seriously, when was the last time you had anyone wish you a Happy Advent? How often do you see Advent decorations or get visited by Advent carolers? Never? It’s all “Christmas this” and “Christmas that” – Christmas trees, Christmas carols, Christmas movies. Even here in the church. The struggle is real, my friends. The war on […]
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