The 1st Lesson: Christ’s birth and kingdom are foretold – Isaiah 9:2, 6-7
The 2nd Lesson: The prophet Micah foretells the glory of the little Bethlehem – Micah 5:2-4
The 3rd Lesson: The prophet in exile foresees the coming of the glory of the Lord – Isaiah 60:1-6, 19
The 4th Lesson: St. Luke tells of the birth of Jesus – Luke 7:7-7
The 5th Lesson: The Shepherds go to the manger – Luke 2:8-11
The 6th Lesson: The wise men are led by the star – Matthew 2:1-5a, 10-11
The 7th Lesson: St. John unfolds the great mystery of the Incarnation – John 1:1-14
Worship. Serve. Grow.
Worship. Serve. Grow.
Homilies (Page 68)
He became a child so that you could become a full mature human being. He was wrapped in swaddling clothes so that you could be unraveled from the meshes of death. He came on the earth so that you could live beneath the stars. There was no place for him in the inn so that there could be many dwelling places for you in heaven. He was rich but he became poor for us. His poverty is our riches and his weakness is our strength. He is poor for us but in himself he is rich. You can see him lying there in swaddling clothes but what you cannot see is that he is God’s son…
Good Evening and Merry Christmas. I’d like to offer a thought tonight. Many years ago when I was in the seminary one of my professors once said, “When you preach, just try to say one thing. Tonight I’d like to say one thing. I hope that when you leave here, that that one thing is something you take with you tonight. I’d like to do that by sharing some wisdom from two spiritual writers that I admire, Richard Rohr and Thomas Keating. Share two things from their lives that perhaps captured that one thing…
Four or five years ago the neighbor behind me moved out and someone new moved in during the Fall. At Christmas time, as is my habit, I was taking sweets around to my neighbors and I stopped, for the first time, at this house. Two children answered the door with the dad close behind: a boy about 3 years old, and a girl, maybe 5 years old. I said “Merry Christmas” and introduced myself and offered my gifts. There was a tree in the living room, decorated, and the house had outside lights. So I asked the children, do you think that Santa will be able to find you in your new house?
Today is the third Sunday of Advent. As we continue our journey through Advent, we’re in a time of waiting and wondering, looking back and looking forward. Advent is a time of hoping and searching. Advent is the time of light shining in the darkness, peace overcoming conflict and war, and warmth entering the cold of the world we live in. Advent is a chance of new beginnings. So we try to discover for ourselves and bring about for others images of hope offered in this season of expecting the unexpected…
We have a special guest who’s going to be with us this morning, and taking that into consideration I’d like to share with you only a few thoughts, kind of a “homilette.” He’s certainly an odd kind of figure: John the Baptist. If you think about John the Baptist as we just heard in the Gospel reading, we have certain images in our mind. Oftentimes John is portrayed as being in the desert, oftentimes standing in a river, sometimes holding a staff, oftentimes wearing what looks like animal skins. He’s depicted in our gospel reading today as eating locusts and wild honey…
The words of the prophet Isaiah in today’s Old Testament lesson are especially fitting as we enter the season of Advent. The season of watching and waiting. A season of anticipation and expectation. For they speak of the future in a way that not only expresses our deepest longings but also offers a glimpse of what it might be like if those longings were actually realized. “They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nations shall not lift up sword against nation. Neither shall they learn war any more…”
So you may ask, “Why are we reading about the crucifixion of Jesus in our Gospel today, the week before Thanksgiving, a little over four weeks until Christmas? What does this crucifixion story have to do with where we find ourselves? Isn’t this more of a Gospel reading we hear on Good Friday or somewhere around Easter time? Why are we reading it in November?” I’d like to talk a little about that; why the church gives us this reading today…
Sally was scheduled to preach this morning but she has caught that cold that seems to be going around, so we agreed that it would be better for her to stay home today. So to use a baseball image, we’re calling in a lefty from the bullpen and I’m coming to the mound here. I can’t assure that I have my fastball, but I’ll do my best to get it over the plate. I’d like to offer a couple of reflections from this gospel reading from Luke. It’s not the most comforting words in the world. Luke is writing at a time, probably in the eighties, when a real tragedy had occurred. That was the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, probably around 70 or 72 AD…
Happy Feast Day! Today is the day we celebrate the Feast of All Saints, which actually was Monday but in the Episcopal tradition we celebrate that feast the Sunday following unless the Feast Day falls on a Sunday. This Feast of All Saints: it’s a day where we remember the call we all have to be saints and remind ourselves that a saint is not just someone who has gone into eternal life, but we too are called to be saints. The idea is that you don’t become a saint by dying, you become a saint by living…