Sermon and Worship Resources

These Illustrations are based on Matthew 24:36-44
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Sermon Opener - Get Ready, Get Set...Wait! - Matthew 24:36-44

Today marks the beginning of the season of Advent, a time of preparation, a time of going toward the coming again of the Messiah, a time of great expectation and great anticipation. But exactly what is it that we anticipate? What are we getting ready for? What do we expect to happen? Do we anticipate the end of the world, as some religious cults always do at this time of the year? Are we preparing our hearts and spirits to receive again the coming the coming of the Christ child into the world? Or are we preparing for yet another month-long shopping spree that some have called "economic first-degree murder" – willfully and with malice aforethought murdering our bank accounts? Or maybe we’re getting ready for the seven to ten pounds the average American will gain during the season (Lord, please let me be an underachiever this year!)? Or are we preparing for the suicidal traffic jams at the mall, or the general atmosphere of surliness and desperation? (A couple of years back I remember hearing on the local news in West Tennessee that shoppers were actually coming to blows for the right to buy a Holiday Barbie doll!)

Are we getting ready for the depression, the anxiety, and even the rage that accompanies the secular holiday season? If we allow ourselves to get caught up in the consumer Christmas – and I firmly believe that we in America celebrate two separate events on December 25 – we can easily find that instead of preparing to sing "O Holy Night" we will find ourselves living out one holy nightmare.

For the many who faithfully observe the consumer Christmas, Advent is the inevitable prelude to disappointment. For the majority of these folks, Christmas somehow hardly ever measures up to their fantasies. Even for those who manage to have some of their Christmas wishes fulfilled, the season is over so quickly that the need to make New Year’s resolutions to lose those added pounds, bears down on them even before the decorations come down.

But the Advent we celebrate in the church – the one that has nothing at all to do with the number of shopping days left until Xmas – is altogether different....

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Surprise! Surprise! Surprise! - Matthew 24:36-44

“Surprise! Surprise! Surprise!”

Many of us can still remember television’s Jim Nabors as Private Gomer Pyle, USMC, his eyes closed, a broad smile creasing his face, weaving his head and shoulders back and forth as he said that phrase. Surprises always pleased Gomer. He accepted them as gifts.

Maybe that’s because Gomer was easy to surprise. He was naïve and rather simple. His heart was pure and he always assumed the best in, and expected the best from, people. Even when people, or the world, for that matter, didn’t meet his expectations he was able to put a positive spin on it.

His foil, Sargent Vince Carter, on the other hand, never liked surprises. He liked order, neatness, and predictability. He did everything in his power to prevent and avoid surprises — even the good ones.

So, consequently, he was never prepared for the surprises that life inevitably threw at him. And, with Gomer in his platoon, those surprises came fast and often.

The gospel lesson on this first Sunday in Advent calls us to channel our inner Gomer Pyle, to prepare ourselves for the greatest surprise of all so, on that day, we can receive and celebrate it as a gift.

Allow me to introduce to you what may be a new word for you: vicissitudes.

It means changes. In particular, it means the changes that happen in the normal course of events, the many and various changes that come through maturation or growth or development, changes that we should expect but somehow always manage to catch us by surprise.

The key to enjoying the pleasant surprises and mitigating the unpleasant ones is to be ready for them...

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The Warning and Promise of Advent

William Willimon tells the story of a funeral he attended when he was serving a small congregation in rural Georgia. One of his members' relatives died, so Willimon and his wife attended the funeral held in an off-brand, country Baptist church. He writes: "I had never seen anything like it. The preacher began to preach. He shouted; he flailed his arms. 'It's too late for Joe. He's dead. But it ain't too late for you. People drop dead every day. Why wait? Now is the day for decision. Give your life to Jesus.' "

Willimon goes on to suggest that this was the worst thing he had ever seen. He fumed and fussed at his wife Patsy, complaining that the preacher had done the worst thing possible for a grieving family - manipulating them with guilt and shame. Patsy agreed. But then she said: "Of course the worst part of it all is that what he said is true."

My friends, each one of us lives in the shadow of the apocalypse - the dark reality of the end of our time and the end of the world's time. That is the warning of Advent. But there is also good news. There is also the promise of Advent - the promise that in the darkness, in the shadows, in the unpredictable anxiety of our unfinished lives, God is present. God is in control, and God will come again. With each candle we light, the shadows recede a bit, and the promise comes closer. With each candle we light, we are proclaiming that the light shines in the darkness and the darkness will never overcome it. The promise is that wherever there is darkness and dread in our lives, wherever there is darkness and dread in the world around us, God is present to help us endure. God is in charge, and hope is alive. And as long and as interminable as the night seems, morning will come - in God's good time and God's good way.

Susan R. Andrews, The Offense of Grace, CSS Publishing Company

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Christ May Be Closer Than You Know

Martin, the Cobbler, is Leo Tolstoy’s story about a lonely shoemaker who is promised in a dream that Christ will come to visit his shop. The next day Martin rises early, gets his shop ready, prepares a meal and waits. The only one who showed up in the morning was an old beggar who came by and asked for rest. Martin gave him a room he had prepared for his divine guest. The only one to show up in the afternoon was an old lady with a heavy load of wood. She was hungry and asks for food. He gave her the food he had prepared for his divine guest. As evening came, a lost boy wandered by. Martin took him home, afraid all the while he would miss the Christ. That night in his prayers he asks the Lord, “Where were You? I waited all day for You.”

The Lord said to Martin:

“Three times I came to your friendly door,
Three times my shadow was on your floor.
I was a beggar with bruised feet.
I was the woman you gave to eat.
I was the homeless child on the street.”

Watch out! Christ may be closer than you can imagine.

J. Howard Olds, adapted from Leo Tolstoy’s Where Love Is, God Is, Faith Breaks, www.Sermons.com

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I Shall Not Rush

Here is a version of the 23rd Psalm that ought to be mandatory reading each day of Advent, and a unison reading each Advent Sunday.

The lord is my pace setter . . . I shall not rush

He makes me stop for quiet intervals

He provides me with images of stillness which restore my serenity

He leads me in the way of efficiency through calmness of mind and his guidance is peace

Even though I have a great many things to accomplish each day, I will not fret, for his presence is here

His timelessness, his all importance will keep me in balance

He prepares refreshment and renewal in the midst of my activity by anointing my mind with his oils of tranquility

My cup of joyous energy overflows

Truly harmony and effectiveness shall be the fruits of my hours for I shall walk in the Pace of my Lord and dwell in his house for ever.

A version of Psalm 23 from Japan, as reprinted in Mother Teresa, Life in the Spirit: Reflections, Meditations, Prayers, ed. Kathryn Spink (San Francisco, Harper & Row, 1983), 76-77.

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Nobody Expects the Spanish Inquisition

In Monty Python's sketch, "The Spanish Inquisition," a man is being questioned in a way that surprises him and he says, "Mr. Wentworth just told me to come in here and say that there was trouble at the mill, that's all - I didn't expect a kind of Spanish Inquisition." As if on cue, inquisitors burst into the room and one of them says, "NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition! Our chief weapon is surprise…surprise and fear…fear and surprise…. Our two weapons are fear and surprise…and ruthless efficiency…. Our three weapons are fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency…and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope…. Our four…no… Amongst our weapons…. Amongst our weaponry…are such elements as fear, surprise…. I'll come in again." The inquisitors exit the scene to re-enter and begin the speech again.

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition. "If the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into" (Matthew 24:43). The Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.

Mary Hinkle Shore, The Element of Surprise

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Prepared

God asks no man whether he will accept life. That is not the choice. You must take it. The only choice is how.

Henry Ward Beecher

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Humor: High Risk

I remember seeing a cartoon depicting a church that had been built in close proximity to an active volcano. In the picture are the church, its sign - "The Church Next to the Active Volcano" - and two men standing in front of the church, one of whom is wearing a clergy shirt and appears to be speaking to the other man. The caption reads, "Of course, there is a high degree of risk being located here, but it lends a great sense of urgency to my preaching!"

Johnny Dean

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Foresight

Someone once asked Wayne Gretsky, the great hockey player, how he managed to become the best goal-scorer in the history of the game. He simply replied, "While everyone else is chasing the puck, I go where the puck is going to be."

Brett Blair, www.eSermons.com

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We've Done Everything Else

"We have learned to soar through the air like birds, to swim through the seas like fish, to soar through space like comets. Now it is high time we learned to walk the earth as the children of our God."

William Sloan Coffin

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Redeemed, Redeemed, Redeemed!

A.J. Gordon was the great Baptist pastor of the Clarendon Church in Boston, Massachusetts. One day he met a young boy in front of the sanctuary carrying a rusty cage in which several birds fluttered nervously. Gordon inquired, "Son, where did you get those birds?" The boy replied, "I trapped them out in the field." "What are you going to do with them?" "I'm going to play with them, and then I guess I'll just feed them to an old cat we have at home." When Gordon offered to buy them, the lad exclaimed, "Mister, you don't want them, they're just little old wild birds and can't sing very well." Gordon replied, "I'll give you $2 for the cage and the birds." "Okay, it's a deal, but you're making a bad bargain." The exchange was made and the boy went away whistling, happy with his shiny coins. Gordon walked around to the back of the church property, opened the door of the small wire coop, and let the struggling creatures soar into the blue. The next Sunday he took the empty cage into the pulpit and used it to illustrate his sermon about Christ's coming to seek and to save the lost -- paying for them with His own precious blood. "That boy told me the birds were not songsters," said Gordon, "but when I released them and they winged their way heavenward, it seemed to me they were singing, 'Redeemed, redeemed, redeemed!'"

Brett Blair, Collected Sermons, Sermons.com

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What Is Time?

What is time? Who can easily and briefly explain this? Who can comprehend this, even in thought, so as to express it in a word? Yet what do we discuss more familiarly and knowingly in conversation than time? Surely, we understand it when we talk about it, and also understand it when we hear others talk about it. What, then, is time? If no one asks me, I know; if I want to explain it to someone who asks me, I do not know.

Augustine, Confessions, Book xi, Chapter 14

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A New Kingdom Will Emerge

In the Book of Genesis we find the story of Noah. There had been endless days on the ark… days of waiting and hoping. In every direction Noah could see only water. One day, in faith, he released a dove to search for land. The Bible says the dove “found no place to set her foot” and returned. Noah was put on hold. He had to wait. He waited with faith and in hope.

He sent out a dove a second time. It returned with a spring of freshly plucked olive leaf in its beak. Noah could not see the land, but he knew it was there. It began to appear out of the watery waste. The worst was over. As sure as God made little green apples, a new, green world would emerge out of the wreckage of the old.

In Christ we find a freshly plucked olive leaf pointing toward a day when all tragedy shall be overcome and all pain destroyed. A new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. A new kingdom will emerge. This is our faith. This is the mood of Advent.

James T. Garrett, God’s Gift, CSS Publishing Company

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ADDITIONAL ILLUSTRATIONS NOT IN OUR EMAIL
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Romans 13:11-14 – ‘Are You Living the Three Advents?’

Here is a sure-fire, Advent season test to determine how old you are.

Is time now rushing past you faster than you can imagine?

Or is time creeping and crawling along, slowly dragging on its belly, torturing you with its puny progress?

If you’re a child, Advent is an eternity, a seemingly endless stretch of December days and waiting for Christmas.

If you’re an adult, especially a normal, hurried, harried adult, the four short weeks of Advent leave us breathless-—not with anticipation, but with exhaustion.

Time is relative. If you don’t believe me, believe Albert Einstein, who didn’t like the phrase “everything is relative,” but enjoyed playing with it, like in this explanation of relativity to a reporter: “An hour sitting with a pretty girl on a park bench passes like a minute,” Einstein quipped, “but a minute sitting on a hot stove seems like an hour.”

Christmas proves time is relative. The more relatives coming for Christmas, the faster it speeds by.

Or here is another proof of relativity: “Black Friday.” As retailers keep trying to pump up profits, “Black Friday” — the kick-off shopping day for the official Christmas buying-frenzy — has been turned into the longest day of the year. A few years ago just a couple of big chain stores began opening early. They offered special sales between the hours of 7am and their usual opening time of 10am. Then doors began opening at 6am. Then 5am. Then this year it was 4am. You heard right: 4am.

But that wasn’t enough for one huge mall outside Seattle. At this mall the entire place opened at 12:01am, with all the stores prepared to stay open until Saturday at 10pm. “Black Friday (so named because merchants hoped a strong showing on that day would put them “in the black” for the whole holiday season) is now more apt a name than ever. The biggest sales are conducted in the blackness of night.

In this week’s epistle text Paul had some particularly pertinent things to say about “darkness” and “light,” about “night” and “day,” about preparing for one reality, while living in the midst of another. Paul recognized that the all-too-human ostrich tactic of “If I can’t see you, you can’t see me” was an easy occasion for sin. Under cover of darkness evil deeds seemed invisible and unknown.

Paul picked some easy human targets of bad behavior, after-dark activities as popular in the 1st century as in the 21st century — drunken revelry, sexual immorality.

But Paul also put “quarreling” and “jealously” into that same category of wickedness. Of all the “fleshly” sins we are capable of committing, it is often those accomplished by a sharp tongue, a biting bitter remark, a subtle stab of nastiness, that most effectively douse the light and hope in relationships and communities.

Paul wants to shine a bright light on all our activities, all our words, all our behaviors, brining everything done by those who confess Christ into HD (high definition) focus. Although Paul uses the contrasts between light and dark to illustrate his discussion, ironically Paul’s point is that for Christians there IS no night vs. day, no dark vs. light. Since Christ’s arrival on earth, since Christ’s life among us for our sake and “our salvation” (v.11), we live in a different world than that of night and day, or dark and light. Christians live in a pre-dawn life, in the overlap of the ages, between the three stages of Advent.

That’s right, you heard it correctly. In the Christian tradition there is not just one advent we celebrate, but three.

1. The First Advent is the coming of Christ to earth.
2. The Second Advent is the birth of Christ in each one of us on earth.
3. The Third Advent is the final return of Christ to earth.

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Keeping Hope Alive

At the university there was a piano teacher that was simply and affectionately known as "Herman." One night at a university concert, a distinguished piano player suddenly became ill while performing an extremely difficult piece. No sooner had the artist retired from the stage when Herman rose from his seat in the audience, walked on stage, sat down at the piano and with great mastery completed the performance. Later that evening, at a party, one of the students asked Herman how he was able to perform such a demanding piece so beautifully without notice and with no rehearsal. He replied, "In 1939, when I was a budding young concert pianist, I was arrested and placed in a Nazi concentration camp. Putting it mildly, the future looked bleak. But I knew that in order to keep the flicker of hope alive that I might someday play again, I needed to practice every day. I began by fingering a piece from my repertoire on my bare board bed late one night. The next night I added a second piece and soon I was running through my entire repertoire. I did this every night for five years. It so happens that the piece I played tonight at the concert hall was part of that repertoire. That constant practice is what kept my hope alive. Everyday I renewed my hope that I would one day be able to play my music again on a real piano, and in freedom."

Source Unknown

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Be Prepared at all Times

There was once an absent-minded professor who became so absorbed in his work that he forgot the simplest details. One morning his wife said, "Now Henry, remember, we are moving today. Here, I'm putting this note in your pocket. Don't forget."

The day passed by and the man came home to his house. He entered the front door, and found the place empty. Distraught, he walked out to the curb and sat down. A young boy walked up to him, and he asked him, "Little boy, do you know the people who used to live here?"

The boy replied, "Sure, Dad, mother told me you'd forget." How often do we become so absorbed in "the little things of this world" that we forget who we are and whose we are and where we are going...

Donald L. Deffner, Seasonal Illustrations, Resource, 1992, p. 6.

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Living beyond Apprehension

C.S. Lewis wrote with deep humor and insight about his faith in God in Christ. Lewis understood the gospel of Jesus to be Good News, not a fearful encounter with God as judge, but a meeting with a God full of agape love. Lewis remembered a moment of anxiety felt by his wife, Joy.

"Long ago before we were married, [Joy] was haunted all one morning as she went about her work with the obscure sense of God (so to speak) 'at her elbow,' demanding her attention. And of course, not being a perfected saint, she had the feeling that it would be a question, as it usually is, of some unrepented sin or tedious duty. At last she gave in--I know how one puts it off--and faced Him. But the message was, 'I want to give you something' and instantly she entered into joy."

Brent Porterfield, www.eSermons.com

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The Senility Prayer

Have you ever felt unprepared? I mean for Christ's second coming? At times I know that if the sky cracked open and the trumpet sounded for the saints to be called home I would not be ready. Reinhold Niebuhr was a famous theologian known to most all us clergy. You perhaps are not familiar with him but you are familiar with his prayer:

God grant me the serenity,
To accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.

[Living one day at a time,
Enjoying one moment at a time,
Accepting hardship as the pathway to peace.
Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it.
Trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His will.
That I may be reasonably happy in this life,
And supremely happy with Him forever in the next. Amen.]

We know it as the Serenity Prayer and it conveys an attitude I like very well. On many occasions I absolutely refuse to accept people I know I have no possibility of changing. On other occasions I don't have the courage to root out some sin from my life. Why? Cause I don't wanna'. And wisdom? Well, you know very well that's in short supply. The more I can adopt the attitude of the serenity prayer the more ready I know I will be for His coming.

But unfortunately many of us are like the elderly lady who in jest posted on her door in the retirement village the "Senility Prayer":

God, grant me the senility to forget the people I've never liked, the good fortune to run into the ones that I do like, and the eyesight to tell the difference.

Brett Blair, www.eSermons.com, Omit the bracketed portion to shorten this illustration.

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Every Day is a Special Occasion

Ann Wells related a story from her life to the well-known Rev. Leonard Sweet. She said, my brother-in-law opened the bottom drawer of my sister's bureau and lifted out a tissue-wrapped package.

‘This," he said, "is not a slip. This is lingerie."

He discarded the tissue and handed me the slip. It was exquisite: silk, handmade and trimmed with a cobweb of lace. The price tag with an astronomical figure on it was still attached.

"Jan bought this the first time we went to New York, at least eight or nine years ago. She never wore it. She was saving it for a special occasion. Well, I guess this is the occasion."

He took the slip from me and put it on the bed with the other clothes we were taking to the mortician. His hands lingered on the soft material for a moment, then he slammed the drawer shut and turned to me:

"Don't ever save anything for a special occasion. Every day you're alive is a special occasion."

Brett Blair, www.eSermons.com. Originally told by Leonard Sweet but the source is unknown.

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Daily Living without Daily Life

A Denver woman told her pastor of a recent experience that she felt was indicative of the times in which we live. She was in a jewelry store looking for a necklace and said to the clerk, "I'd like a gold cross." The man behind the counter looked over the stock in the display case and said, "Do you want a plain one, or one with a little man on it?"

James Hewett, Illustrations Unlimited, Tyndale, 1998, p. 447.

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Prepared For Your Arrival

Perhaps you read the one about the Alberta man who left the snow-filled streets of Calgary for a vacation in Florida. His wife was on a business trip and was planning to meet him there the next day. When he reached his hotel, he decided to send his wife a quick E-mail message. Unable to find the scrap of paper on which he had written her E-mail address, he did his best to type it from memory. Unfortunately, he missed one letter in the E-mail address and his note was directed instead to an elderly preacher's wife, whose husband had passed away only the day before. When the grieving widow checked her E-mail, she took one look at the computer monitor and let out a scream; and fell to the floor in a dead faint. At the sound, her family rushed into the room and saw this note on the screen: Dearest Wife, Just got checked in. Everything prepared for your arrival tomorrow. P.S. Sure is hot down here!

Traditional

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God? Are You Really There?

God's time clock is certainly out of sync with ours as Little Jimmy learned one day as he was laying on a hill in the middle of a meadow on a warm spring day. Puffy white clouds rolled by and he pondered their shape. Soon, he began to think about God.

"God? Are you really there?" Jimmy said out loud.

To his astonishment a voice came from the clouds. "Yes, Jimmy? What can I do for you?"

Seizing the opportunity, Jimmy asked, "God? What is a million years like to you?"

Knowing that Jimmy could not understand the concept of infinity, God responded in a manner to which Jimmy could relate. "A million years to me, Jimmy, is like a minute."

"Oh," said Jimmy. "Well, then, what's a million dollars like to you?" "A million dollars to me, Jimmy, is like a penny."

"Wow!" remarked Jimmy, getting an idea. "You're so generous... can I have one of your pennies?"

God replied, "Sure thing, Jimmy! Just a minute."

Brett Blair, Collected Sermons, Sermons.com

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Happiness Is an Inside Job

I saw a bumper sticker which read, "Happiness is an inside job." I'm here to tell you that Advent is, too. What happens on the exterior is cosmetic and delightful but has limitations. What happens on the interior will occur when we choose to allow God to do something within us. That something has eternal value.

Richard A. Wing, Deep Joy for a Shallow World, CSS Publishing

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Why Have You Forsaken Me?

I have read about a depressed songwriter who battled the successes of the past and a fear of the future. He was bankrupt. He had a cerebral hemorrhage that left him partially paralyzed. He worried that the creative spark that had made him rich was gone. He was depressed. The scriptural texts that were his friends and that his soul could hear were texts such as "Why have you forsaken me?"

In the midst of his depression, a man came by who had compiled scriptures together in a semi-orderly fashion. He suggested that the songwriter put some music to the text. The writer looked at the text that read, "He was despised and rejected of humanity," and he felt that way, too. He read texts of the one for whom "no one had pity." He read about the one who trusted God still. He read the words, "I know that my redeemer liveth." He read the words "rejoice" and "hallelujah." That night George Frederic Handel was blessed by a "gentle cosmic light." He was led slowly out of darkness by a desire to write music at a feverish pitch. He worked tirelessly for days until, with manuscript complete, he dropped into a seventeen-hour, death-like sleep. A doctor was summoned to see if he was alive. Out of depression came the light of the Messiah. Out of that depression was left for us a light that would light the corridors of the lives of countless millions for all ages. Out of that darkness, a man in a deep depression began, as Stevenson said of the lamplighter, "punching holes in the darkness."

God punched holes in the darkness through Jesus. Jesus at the end of his life left us words that we can use as we anticipate the coming of the Christ. "Take heed. Listen. Be awake." "Your extremity is God's opportunity."

Richard A. Wing, Deep Joy for a Shallow World, CSS Publishing

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I Don’t Like This World

The door slammed. There was a rush upstairs. The man looked at the clock; it was time for his daughter to be home from school. Fourth grade was not going very well, and from the sound of the slam of the door, it had not improved.

He went up to her room and asked about her day. “It was awful,” she said, and then she filled in the details. When she unzipped her backpack at school, her homework was nowhere to be found. Her normally charming teacher snarled at the class. The morning dragged on to lunch, when none of the cafeteria choices looked appetizing. The class went outside to the playground and her best friend decided to play with somebody else. To top it off, a big kid named Kevin had made fun of her on the bus.

“It was a rotten day,” she sobbed, and he held her. After about ten minutes, she stopped quivering. He rubbed her back and she blew her nose. One more hug, and then he went downstairs.

About a half hour later, he thought it sounded unnaturally quiet, so he sneaked upstairs to see what was happening. To his surprise, she was down on her knees with her hands clasped and her eyes shut, and she was murmuring something.

“Honey,” he said, “is everything all right?”

“I’m okay, Daddy, I’m just praying.”

“That’s good,” he whispered. “What are you praying for?”

“Dad, I’ve decided I don’t like this world, so I’m praying for a new one.”

Whether she knew it or not, cute as she was, she was rooting herself in thousands of years of Christian tradition. Ever since Jesus appeared among us, Christians have been praying for a whole new world. That’s what lies behind Scripture texts like the one we heard from the twenty-first chapter of Luke.

William G. Carter, Praying for a Whole New World, CSS Publishing Company

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Raise Your Head

You stand by a body bag which contains all that is left of your son. You watch your home and your hopes erode under your feet, and there is nothing you can do but let them go. You are betrayed by people you trusted. You see your nation hell bent on trying to solve poverty around the world with tanks and bombers. The earth shakes and you are powerless to stop it. The stars fall from heaven and the sea foams and everything comes loose. What then, friend? That is what our text is about.

"Raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near," says Jesus. Salvation is on the way not because you are optimistic, or work your way out of a tight spot, or think positively, or brighten up, but because God is going to act. The Christian hope does not rest in what we might do, but in what God will do. It is God who acts when we cannot. It is God who saves when we are hopelessly mired in sin and shame. It is God who gives us the victory when we are utterly defeated. The call of the gospel is not that we learn to rely on ourselves, but that we rely absolutely and totally on the grace, mercy and love of God.

Charles H. Bayer, When It Is Dark Enough, CSS Publishing

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I Would Plant an Apple Tree

The story is told of the Reformation leader Martin Luther being asked what he would do if he were to discover that the world were coming to an end tomorrow. Luther’s response: “I would plant an apple tree.” It was Luther’s way, I suspect, of asserting that our calling is ever to trust in God’s faithfulness and to seek to be faithful followers of Jesus, day in and day out. Our calling is to embrace the sharp edge of expectant hope, to affirm that, even now, God may well be at work in the world around us.

Joel D. Kline, The Sharp Edge of Expectation

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The Post-it Note

I hope you had a most meaningful and relaxing Thanksgiving. I did hear of one poor woman who had to patch up a friendship with a co-worker at the office. It seems that Mary was planning her Thanksgiving Day meal. Her in-laws were all going to be there, and she was in quite a tizzy trying to make sure everything turned out perfectly. She had post -it notes everywhere, reminding her of things she needed to pick up and things she needed to do.

Her friend Sharon stopped by her desk at lunchtime on Wednesday. “Are you ready for lunch? This is the day you promised to take me out to Appleby’s for my birthday.”

“Oh, yes indeed, Sharon!” said Mary as she tried to cover herself for having forgotten Sharon’s birthday. Sharon was a sensitive sort who got her nose bent out of shape at any perceived slight.

Mary thought everything was just fine as they got into the car. But then, as she settled into her seat, Sharon, in a very sarcastic voice shouted, “Thanks a lot, Mary!”

Mary asked, “What’s wrong now?” Her friend pointed to the post-it note stuck to Mary’s dashboard. It read, “Take out the turkey!”

Staff

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Good News for Those Growing Up

I like John Cooper, the Ohio State University football coach, for many reasons, but especially for this one. As he was being interviewed once about a player who was in trouble with the law, a reporter asked if Cooper was going to kick the player off the team. He said, "No, I am not going to kick him off, because if I kick him off I can't help him. We are in the business of helping young people grow up, and you can't do that by turning them away when they make a mistake."

That is good news for those growing up, and that attitude is especially good news at Advent. We know in our hearts that we are changed for the better, not by persons who dump us in the midst of our mistakes, but by the ones who stand by us in our stupidity until the light of new sanity dawns upon us. Those who do this in our lives are gifts from God. The love of God is the kind that cares for us just as we are and not as we ought to be. In time, we become the way we are treated, not the way we deserve to be treated. This is God's finest gift. So, "watch -- for your anxiety is God's opportunity."

Richard A. Wing, Deep Joy for a Shallow World, CSS Publishing

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A Small Backyard

A Sunday School teacher was trying to emphasize the Christmas story of the Star in the East compared with other stars in the sky, so he asked his class to count the number of stars they could see at night. The next Sunday the answers varied from 149 to "too many to count." The students were pretty much agreed that there were a whole bunch of stars. All except for Bobby who said he only counted, "Three."

"But, Bobby," asked the teacher, "how is it that you saw so few stars when the other children found so many?"

Bobby thought a minute. Finally, he answered, "Well, our backyard is awfully small."

Billy D. Strayhorn, Will You Miss Christmas?

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Without Warning

Some emergencies, some crisis situations, truly spring upon us with little or no warning. When Mt. St. Helen's exploded back in 1980, not one volcanologist expected the monstrous, nuclear-type blast that flattened the mountainside, the landscape, and the entire ecosystem inside the blast-zone. The scientists were waiting for, even eagerly anticipating, an eruption. They anticipated something powerful and dangerous, but expected a plottable trajectory, a comprehensible movement and growth. When instead the mountain exploded with unimagined force of fire and rush of wind, no one was prepared for the devastation.

Leonard Sweet, Advent Sermons, www.Sermons.com

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End Time Fixations

End-time fixations were not exclusive manifestations of ancient communities. On October 23, 1844 thousands of Christians sold their earthly possessions, dressed in white robes, climbed to the tops of the highest mountains they could find, climbed to the tippy-tops of trees to get even higher, and waited for Jesus to return. They had been told this was the date by William Miller, a farmer from western New York who dabbled in apocalypticism which led him to declare this as the date of Jesus' return based on his exegesis of the Scriptures. When no one went anywhere but down the mountain, he announced a calculation error. The real date was six months later, which also came and went as his followers now went . . . away . . . for good. Jim Jones was another apocalyptic leader. In the 1970s he moved his People's Temple Full Gospel Church from San Francisco to Guyana, where he could wait for the end-times by creating a community that would live as if the end-times had already occurred. On November 18, 1978, Jim Jones and 911 of his followers ended their end-times waiting by drinking cyanide-laced Kool-Aid. Other apocalyptic communities, from Mother Ann Lee's Shakers to John Humphrey Noyes' Oneida Community, sublimated their end-times energies into crafting Shaker furniture and Oneida silverware.

Leonard Sweet, Advent Sermons, www.Sermons.com

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Turning towards Bethlehem

The first Sunday in Advent does what it can each year to bend the church’s thoughts in the direction not of Bethlehem but the 2nd coming of Christ. Good luck with that! By the time December rolls around and the first Sunday in Advent occurs, we’ve all been seeing the twinkling of Christmas lights in malls (and increasingly even in people’s homes) ever since Halloween - or in some cases, Labor Day! People’s thoughts have been turning toward Bethlehem—or at least toward all that now defines our very secular observation of Christmas—for weeks. It’s a long shot to get their focus shifted elsewhere, especially in the direction of all things apocalyptic. Even to try to do so feels like interrupting a child’s 10th birthday party in order to get the kids to listen to Mozart’s Requiem Mass in C-Minor. (As my teenaged daughter might say just now, “Dad, that would be so creepers!”)

Scott Hoezee, Comments and Observations

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Never Give Up Hope

In Anne Tyler's novel, “The Amateur Marriage,” we witness a sad series of events. The book's main characters are Michael and Pauline, a pair of World War II-era sweethearts who get married and eventually have three children. But then one day their oldest child, Lindy, just disappears. She runs away from home and promptly falls off the face of the earth. For the first days, weeks, and even months, they watch for her return. They seize on any and every clue as to her whereabouts. The pace, they peer out windows, they listen for a key scratching at the front door's lock, they sit bolt upright each time they think they hear footfalls on the driveway.

But Lindy does not return. Over the years, her absence becomes just another part of life. They never finally give up on the idea that they'd see her again, but they stop watching for her. At first they were certain she'd be back soon. They would not have been at all surprised had she walked back through that front door. Years later, though, the surprise flipped: after a while, they would have been surprised if she had come back.

Lindy does return eventually, although her mother Pauline never lives to see it. When Lindy shows back up, her father says to her, "Your mother never gave up hope, I could tell." Of course, Pauline had gotten on with life. But she just had a way of glancing out the window that let you know the hope was still there. When she had the chance to take a cruise with a group of friends, she refused. She came up with a dozen excuses but everyone knew that deep down the real reason was that she didn't want to be gone in case Lindy came back.

We may not live to see our Lord's return. But as we go through our routines in these days of Noah, we certainly want it to be true that as people look at the shape of our lives, they can say of also us, "Those Christians never give up hope. We can tell."

Scott Hoezee, Comments and Observations

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Metro Moments

One of the great things about Washington, D.C. is the Metro system, a network of public transportation, much of it underground, that serves the District of Columbia and a growing area round it.

One reaches a number of Metro stations by taking escalators deep down beneath the surface of the city. Some of these escalators, I am told, are among the tallest in the world.

Once you reach the appropriate track, the train you seek will come within only a few minutes, unless it is there already. The train platform is a remarkable place. Why? Because it is governed by a single reality: the coming and going of trains. The people gathered there, whether many or few, have this common point of reference, and all of them are aware of it. There on the platform the coming and going of the trains is inescapable. The train has either left; or the train has stopped, however momentarily; or the train is expected to arrive.

People on the Metro platform have an awareness which sets them utterly apart from Noah's distracted neighbors. Those neighbors were preoccupied by the ordinary business of life, enough to miss the train, or in their case, the ark. People on the Metro platform, however, are governed by the single reality of trains that have gone, trains that have stopped, and trains still to come.

The Christian is someone who recognizes a single reality like that. Not trains, but the Christ who has come, is here, and is yet to come. As Christians, we must avoid the distraction that spelled disaster for Noah's neighbors. We need the sense of awareness, a shared awareness that characterizes the people on the Metro platform. We can have our Metro moments when we recognize that the common point of reference, the determining reality, is the Human Holy One, Jesus, who has come, will come, and is present now among us.

Charles Hoffacker, Metro Moments

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It’s Not Christmas Here!

It was the first day of the first semester of my first year in college. Like every other new student, I was anxious and nervous and afraid, but it didn’t help at all that I was also ten minutes late for Freshman English 105. I opened the door and 30 faces watched me turn red. Then the professor stopped his lecture and said to me “Physiology 400?” Totally embarrassed, I turned around and walked out. A moment later the door opened and a student called down the hall “Hey kid, come back. It’s English 105.”

Today, you probably feel the same way I did all those years ago. You came to church fully expecting Christmas in your face! But surprise! It’s not Christmas here. It’s Physiology 400. Instead of “Deck the Halls” its fear and foreboding over the last days, when the world, as we know it, will end. Where the heck is Christmas? That’s what you all are wondering.

Steven Molin, Surprise!

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Filled to the Edge of the Page

Someone told me that, fifty years ago, when a book was published, only 60% of each page was printing, and 40% was margins; a place where the reader could make notes to himself, ask questions, jot down points to ponder. Today in the publishing industry, the margins are only 20% of the page, leaving little room to ponder, or wonder, or think. In similar fashion, we have filled our lives all the way to the edge of the page, leaving little margin in our lives for contemplation, or relaxation, or surprises. I have someone in my house who, at the first hint of a sore throat, will say “I can’t afford to get sick, I have too much to do.” So of course she gets sick.

Steven Molin, Surprise!

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Modern Day Perils

I will never forget one particular testimony I heard on one particular occasion in the church I served in Atlanta. He was a seminary professor, and he and his family were joining the church. And when it came his turn, he said, “I’m joining this church because those cannons across the street on the grounds of the State Capitol Building are pointed directly at us.”

I thought at the time, “That’s a strange answer.” I had never noticed the cannons across the street. And I would look for them the next day, and, sure enough, there they would be, sitting there as mute relics of some war and pointing straight at the stone gothic sanctuary of my church across the street. I would note that, were they loaded, they could blow away the whole narthex. But at that particular moment in that particular Session meeting, I thought to myself, “That’s a strange answer.” “I’m joining this church,” he said, “because those cannons are pointed directly at us.”

People join the church for many reasons, but have you ever heard a reason like that?

As I got to know this seminary professor, I began to understand why he would join a church because of cannons pointed at it. Holding a Ph.D. from Duke, he was a student of Stanley Hauerwas. If you’ve never read any Hauerwas, I hope you will before you leave this place. Hauerwas has written widely about the modern-day perils of attempting to follow Jesus Christ in this culture. He and others have described Christians in our time as being something like “resident aliens” — faithful colonists in an otherwise hostile, post-Christian, secular society. He has tracked the decline of what he calls “the Constantinian arrangement” between the church and the powers-that-be, and he has asserted — rightly, I think — that that arrangement between the church and the emperor, which got started with Constantine, is breaking down in our time. I know enough about Stanley Hauerwas to have a sense of why a student of his would be intrigued at the thought of joining a church because it sits across the street from a hall of power and has cannons pointed at it.

Theodore J. Wardlaw, Ethics and Eschatology

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Does Faith Sustain Us?

Humanity, not God, by misusing the freedom given by God, might cause the cessation of all life. We have good reason to be afraid. Many people are like the eight-year-old boy, who was carried into the hospital in an episode of St. Elsewhere, choking from an acute attack of asthma. It was determined - after tests were completed and he was observed by one of the doctors - that there was no physical cause, no asthma; he was suffering from an unknown psychological phenomenon.

As he lay in bed one night, he heard sirens, went to the window, twisted open the Venetian blinds, and then ran out into the empty hallway to find someone. He saw a half-open elevator door, with a warning sign on it, entered it and was later found curled up on the top of the disabled elevator just below floor level. Asked why he was afraid, he replied, "The Bomb." He thought the sirens meant that the end of the world was at hand; he could not be convinced otherwise. Now that the doctor had discovered the cause of his asthma-like condition in his uncontrollable fear of the future, a more complex problem - how to deal with a situation in which we seem to be helpless - had been uncovered and had to be treated.

Can predictions of another and worse holocaust than occurred in World War II be allowed to generate an unholy fear in us? Does God have a viable plan in Christ’s Second Coming, a plan we can rely on? Does faith in Christ sustain us in the face of a sure and certain death?

George M. Bass, The Cradle, the Cross, and the Crown, CSS Publishing Company

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The Season of Preparation

Today marks the beginning of the season of Advent, a time of preparation, a time of going toward the coming again of the Messiah, a time of great expectation and great anticipation. But exactly what is it that we anticipate? What are we getting ready for? What do we expect to happen? Do we anticipate the end of the world, as some religious cults always do at this time of the year? Are we preparing our hearts and spirits to receive once again the coming of the Christ child into the world? Or are we preparing for yet another month-long shopping spree that some have called "economic first-degree murder" – willfully and with malice aforethought murdering our bank accounts? Or maybe we’re getting ready for the seven to ten pounds the average American will gain during the season (Lord, please let me be an underachiever this year!)? Or are we preparing for the suicidal traffic jams at Tanglewood Mall in Roanoke, or the general atmosphere of surliness and desperation? (A couple of years back I remember hearing on the local news in West Tennessee that shoppers were actually coming to blows for the right to buy a Holiday Barbie doll!)

When the prophet Isaiah thought about the advent of God, he envisioned a world unified in worship of God and committed to peace. Isaiah dreamed of a time when the nations and people of the world would join together in recognizing the sovereignty of God and declare, "Come let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that God may teach us his ways, and that we may walk in his paths." In the world of Isaiah’s vision, war was a thing of the past, and the nations of the earth lived together in peace.

Johnny Dean, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com

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Show Us a Sign

One of the very first things we always ask for in the midst of uncertainty, disaster or trouble is: "Lord, show us a sign." In the movie Bruce Almighty, starring Jim Carrey, there's a scene where Bruce's life has fallen apart. He's gotten fired, beat up when he tried to help a homeless man holding a sign, and he's had a fight with his girlfriend whose name just happens to be Grace. He's driving along feeling sorry for himself, talking to and yelling at God.

"OK, God. You want me to talk to you? Then talk back. Tell me what's going on. What should I do? Give me a signal." Just then he passes a lighted traffic message sign which is blinking the words: "Caution Ahead."

He ignores it and continues his rant. "I need your guidance Lord, please. Send me a sign." About that time truck full of traffic signs pulls out in front of him. Very visible are the signs: "Dead End, Stop, Wrong Way, Yield, No Crossing and Do Not Enter." But Bruce ignores them, he doesn't see what he's asking for, complains about the truck and whips around it only to eventually run into a light pole. He gets out and yells at God. At the end of the scene he hollers: "Answer me." And just then his pager goes off with a telephone number. Bruce says: "Sorry, don't know you. Wouldn't call you if I did"

I think Jim Carrey nailed how we feel in the middle of a crisis, in the middle of despair. And he also captured exactly what happens. We ask for a sign and we're so blinded by what's going on in our lives that we can't see the signs for the fog of our emotions.

Billy D. Strayhorn, From the Pulpit, CSS Publishing Company

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In the Headlines

As you well know, you certainly cannot always believe everything you read in the papers. Some of the headlines in papers are absolutely astounding. These are actual headlines that actually ran in American newspapers:

Experts say jet crashed because something went wrong.
Police begin campaign to run down jay walkers.
Crash probe decides plane was too close to ground
Minors refuse to work after death
Cold wave linked to falling temperatures
Couple slain: police suspect homicide
New study of obesity looks for larger test group
Typhoon rips through cemetery: hundreds of bodies found

Well, I really wish that every newspaper in America, in fact every newspaper around the world, would run this headline at least once a week: "Jesus Is Coming Again."

James Merritt, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com

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Humor: Surprise, Surprise

Surprise! Surprise! Life is full of surprises! Some surprises are awesome. Someone will get an engagement ring for Christmas. Some surprises are awful. Some surprises are a combination of awesome and awful. A parishioner called her pastor and said, "I need a little help. My father just won a 30 million dollar lottery. He is 96 years old, has heart trouble and I am concerned if I tell him, he will have a heart attack. Would you mind paying him a visit?" Of course, the pastor agreed. Sitting in the old gentleman's home, they talked about sports, the weather, and life in general. Finally, the pastor asked the old man, "Suppose you won 30 million dollars. How would that change your life?" "It wouldn't," said the man. "I would still have arthritis and still be 96 years old. In fact, if I had 30 million dollars, I would give it to the Church." That is when the pastor had a heart attack.

J. Howard Olds, Faith Breaks, ChristianGlobe Networks, Inc.