There are many wonderful passages in the book of Isaiah, but none lovelier than this gem - the call of Isaiah in the temple of God. This text is lovely and bright in spite of dark elements of sin and unworthiness, because the light of God calling is not overcome by the darkness into which it comes. The light overcomes the darkness. The mission of Isaiah is to represent God. The mission of the Church of Jesus Christ is the same. That mission begins with vision. Vision Isaiah's vision includes self insight ...
O Come! Little Children This funeral sermon is for a three-day-old infant who died of complications arising from a birth defect. I stand here in the pulpit ready to preach Jason's funeral sermon with a feeling deep down in the pit of my stomach that anything which I say must seem very trivial. Having presided at over 200 funeral services, my experience tells me that there is no loss so striking, so numbing, so tragic, so full of grief, as the loss of a child. I say that not to minimize the sense of loss ...
"But the saints of the Most High shall receive the kingly power and shall retain it for ever, for ever and ever." But we are not there yet; neither were the people of the text. Because they were not yet there and we are not yet there, we gather here to reflect that some are already there but the rest of us are not yet there. We have enough trouble without the troublesome word "saint" - "the saints of the Most High shall receive the kingly power and shall retain it for ever, for ever and ever." "But I'm no ...
All through the last half of the movie Reds the viewers were prepared for Jack Reed’s death. After he had lost a kidney when he was a young man, his physician had warned that an infection could be fatal to a person with one kidney; there were no "wonder drugs" in the World War I period. Toward the end of the movie, when Jack was hospitalized with a high fever in Petrograd, Russia, it was rather obvious that his time had come. His wife, Louise, who had reached his side after a long and difficult - and ...
The Lord said: "I came to cast fire upon the earth, and would that it were already kindled! I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how I am constrained until it is accomplished! Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division; for henceforth in one house there will be five divided, three against two and two against three; they will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against her mother, mother-in-law ...
"But the saints of the Most High shall receive the kingly power and shall retain it for ever, for ever and ever." But we are not there yet; neither were the people of the text. Because they were not yet there and we are not yet there, we gather here to reflect that some are already there but the rest of us are not yet there. We have enough trouble without the troublesome word "saint" - "the saints of the Most High shall receive the kingly power and shall retain it for ever, for ever and ever." "But I’m no ...
This ritual of Thanksgiving is a ritual of identification. A traditional American parade ritualizes the sacredness and centeredness of money in American life. This Deuteronomic ritual identifies God as the center of thanksgiving and is our way of saying so. One does not thank anybody if self is the center. Thanks, then, may be little more than the oil of social facilitation. The thanksgiving of this text expresses a relationship of debt. It calls forth one’s history - not of one’s lifetime alone, but that ...
COMMENTARY Ezekiel 18:1-9, 25-29 Each person is responsible for his/her life. Ezekiel here stresses individual responsibility for sin. Heretofore the emphasis was upon community, the nation. Now Judah is in bondage and the community (nation) exists no more. The old proverb said that the children suffer for the sins of their parents. Those now in exile holding to this view could feel no responsibility for their plight and could accept the situation as fate. Ezekiel corrects this one-sided view by preaching ...
America’s great child-philosopher, Dennis the Menace, offered this observation as his mother washed his dirty hands: "Margaret’s Mom must like me. I heard her say, ‘I just wish he was my child for five minutes.’" The people of Jerusalem had a similar kind of love/hate attitude toward Jesus. They cheered him on the first Palm Sunday as he entered Jerusalem, but then shouted "Crucify him" the following Friday. The Palm Sunday crowd was enthusiastic but fickle. As the politicians would say, Jesus’ support was ...
Picture this: The radio alarm awakens you at 6:00 a.m. A friendly voice says, "Good morning! Another lovely day is being brought to you by your Great Uncle Max. Enjoy it!" Climbing out of bed, you get into the shower. As you finish waking up, you remember that your Great Uncle Max provides the water that flows through the pipes and the electricity that lights the bathroom and the bedroom and drives all the appliances you’ll use when you get to the kitchen. Great Uncle Max’s name appears on all the labels ...
It was a Saturday morning and I recall it all well. I was at my grandmother’s house when a call came from my mother that there was a policeman who wanted to see me at home. I could hardly believe what she was relating! I couldn’t imagine why a policeman would want to see me. Home I went and there sitting in a chair in the living room was a great big hulk of a sargeant! I still remember his opening greeting - "Hello, Bob!" It seemed that a woman two doors down the street had sent a letter to the Rochester ...
Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, "Who do men say that the Son of Man is?" And they said, "Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets." He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" Simon Peter replied, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." [Matthew 16:13-16] Supplementary text: Matthew 17:1-9 When Jimmy Carter first started campaigning for the presidency in 1976, the slogan in some parts of the ...
Setting The setting is a dual one, the differentiation most easily left to the audience’s imagination, unless you wish to construct a door to admit Judas to the room in the high priest’s palace where the encounter takes place. The outdoor half of the set is at stage right and may be marked with a palm tree or other foliage appropriate for spring in Israel. The indoor set, at stage left, is a beautifully appointed room in Caiaphas’ palace. This set requires three or four chairs, a cocktail or coffee table ...
"Give weight to your father and your mother that you may live long in the land which the Lord your God is giving you." Exodus 20:12 One of the things about the Commandments is that even though there is only a handful of them they speak to nearly every area of life. Though in some instances they are only a few words or phrases long, they touch virtually every basic relationship that a man has with his fellows, as well as with God. The longer that perceptive and sensitive people study and live with them the ...
The author of the Twenty-third Psalm is quite possibly an old man who has lived the better part of a lifetime. In his day he may have been a shepherd. But now the years have siphoned his stamina. So he sits and reminisces on what used to be. And as he does so he observes another shepherd silhouetted against the sky leading a flock to a greener pasture. Instinctively, the sight turns the poet’s mind to the numberless days and nights he tended his own flocks under God’s watchful eye; and once again, as has ...
The Beatles surprised the world in the 1960s and took the United States by storm, introducing a new era in popular music. And many of us were pleasantly surprised by the deep insights expressed in rather direct and poignant lyrics. In "Eleanor Rigby," for example, they sing of a woman picking up rice at a church where a wedding has been. Holding the rice, peering through a window, living in a dream she someday will wed, death comes instead. As she lived alone, so she died alone. And so the Beatles lament, ...
Savanarola, the great Florentine preacher of the fifteenth century, one day saw an elderly woman worshipping at the statue of the Virgin Mary which stood in his city's great cathedral. On the following day, he noticed the same woman again on her knees before the Blessed Mother. With great interest, Savanarola observed that day after day, she came and did homage before the statue. "Look how she reverences the Virgin Mother," Savanarola whispered to one of his fellow priests. "Don't be deceived by what you ...
There's a little town up the Fraser Valley in British Columbia called Lillooett. There's a small-town newspaper published in Lillooett. And for many years the editor of that paper was a woman named "Ma" Murray. "Ma" Murray was kind of a tiger, in her own way. She was a social activist. And every issue of her paper rode concerns about labor and about human rights and about native issues. But here's what was so striking about "Ma" Murray's paper. She always wrote in a frenzy. So much so that she didn't pay ...
"Phil, I heard you flew to California on vacation," said Irlene. "I'll bet that was great!" "No, Irlene," Phil replied, "that was bad. When I got there, I missed the bus from the airport to my hotel." "Oh," said Irlene, "that's bad." "No," Phil replied, "that wasn't bad. I got a taxi, and the driver was very friendly." Irlene: "That's good." "No," said Phil, "that's bad. The transmission in the taxi broke before we even got away from the airport." "Oh," said Irlene, "that's bad!" "No," Phil replied, "that ...
A young fellow was called on to light the candles for the first time in church. This was a big event for the little fellow. He was naturally nervous. He could feel the eyes of the entire congregation on him as he advanced timidly toward the two majestic candlesticks on the altar. It should have been no problem, except for one thing. The candles were very tall, and young Travis was very short, even for a kid. He reached the altar and began his motion upward toward the top of the first candle, but he came up ...
Dan Jarrell was speaking at a FamilyLife Marriage Conference when a man came up and handed him a letter. The letter told of this man's lifelong desire to hear his father say, "I love you." His father had died in World War II, when this man was only three years old. His mother had often assured him of his father's love as he was growing up, but it didn't fill the void he felt. One day, this man, now 40 years old, was helping his mother move. She gave him an old Army picture of his father. The picture ...
Judas Iscariot has always been an enigma to us. One preacher, writing many years ago said, “No minister, at the time of his ordination, ever entertained more pleasing prospects for a brilliant career than had Judas Iscariot.” For one thing, Judas was given a good name. The names Judas means “praise of God.” One of the eleven sons of Jacob bore that name. So did one of the brothers of Jesus; the one who, by tradition, wrote the book of Jude in the New Testament. He was probably named after one of the most ...
One of my heroes is Bishop Gerald Kennedy. He was the Bishop in Southern California who extended me the invitation to join his conference when we were under such great pressure in Mississippi back in 1964. I spent ten wonderful years under his leadership there in Southern California. He's one of the greatest preachers, I believe, on this century. He was fond of telling about the Anglican Bishop who defined a sermon in this fashion: "A sermon is what a preacher will travel across the continent to deliver, ...
It is by chance that Damian discovers a huge bag of money near his home. It is just days before British pounds are converted to Euros and the old money is worthless. In the scenes that follow, Damian and his brother spend money as fast as they can, with Damian giving to the poor. Their father eventually discovers their secret, and Damian learns that the money was stolen. This is the moral dilemma and plot of the movie Millions. The thief who lost the money soon figures out that Damian is the finder. They ...
"Is that really necessary?" It's a question that we may ask when something unpleasant or disturbing has been said or done. If someone brings up a topic like capital punishment or abortion at the dinner table, you might ask rhetorically, "Is that really necessary?" In that situation it probably isn't, but there are times when such issues do have to be discussed. We can't always insist on keeping things light and comfortable. When somebody does refuse to face some of the tough realities of the world, we ...