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Showing 1501 to 1525 of 2332 results

1501. Getting to Bethlehem

Mark 1:1-8

Illustration

Mickey Anders

... flight to Tel Aviv, ride on an air conditioned coach up through the hills, probably pass through Jerusalem, and then into the tourist trap called Bethlehem. Ask anyone in the New Testament how you get to the little town of Bethlehem and they'll say, "Go out to the desert, keep going till you get to the River Jordan. You can't miss it. You'll find a man out there, standing knee deep in the water, baptizing people. That's John the Baptizer. You ask him. If you want to go to Bethlehem, you've got to start ...

1502. A John the Baptist Christmas Card

Mark 1:1-8

Illustration

Darrick Acre

... darkness over stable and manger; all are beautiful depictions of the Christmas story. Again, I am positive that as a group we have all perused thousands of Christmas cards like these. Yet I do not recall ever receiving one with John the Baptist preaching in the desert. Do you? I can picture it in my mind: a card front marred by the dead, barren wilderness of Judea out by the Jordan River, with this animated, prophetic figure as the focal point. But I have never read one that even closely resembles such a ...

1503. Bethlehem's Two Roads

Hebrews 10:5-10

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... noisy child with a nothing name like Jesus. Again, why Bethlehem? Because Bethlehem is the symbol of the lengths of God's love. The very word Bethlehem means "place of bread" in Hebrew, "house of meat" in Arabic. Situated in the middle of a dry and barren desert, Bethlehem was an oasis where figs, grain and olives were grown, surrounded by protecting sage brush and sand dunes. No wonder it was called "the place of bread." From it the most basic human needs were met. And from it would come the "Bread of Life ...

1504. What's Your Drink?

Isaiah 43:16-21

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... water" which he offers her. Verse 14 proclaims that "...those who drink of the water that I give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life." Like streams in the desert that transform a barren landscape into a garden, the living water Jesus offers will slake our spiritual thirst for all time, giving it sustenance for the extent of eternity. Is it any wonder that drughts of such a potent spirituality might render us a bit tipsy ...

1505. Home Alone

Revelation 21:10, 22-27

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... its own abilities or efforts. Its "key log" is shored up by a faith in something larger than itself - Christ. The church makes a mistake when it idealizes the home as a self-contained spiritual oasis in the midst of the dangerous desert of secular culture. In "Family: Toward Androgyny," authors James Davison Hunter and Helen V. L. Stehline have correctly diagnosed this prescription as an attempt to perpetuate the 19th-century bourgeois family ideal. They cite several evangelical sourcebooks on the family as ...

1506. Down the Up Staircase

Genesis 11:1-9

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... a stone as a pillow. Yet as Genesis 28:10-17 tells us, that night, in that place, Jacob encounters God. At Bethel, as it came to be called, Jacob experiences his vision of the ladder upon which angels were ascending and descending. What appeared to be a deserted bit of countryside turns out to be a main artery for a heavenly highway. Here at the vital intersection between heaven and earth God descends from the heights to be with Jacob at this lowest moment. It was no small stretch for God to reach down to ...

1507. The Problem of Unanswered Prayer

2 Timothy 3:14-4:5

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... valleys and vales when God seems distant or in eclipse, or when our prayers, breathed fervently in the air, drop with a hollow thud inches in front of our feet. This week's texts offer two different, but related, responses to such moments in the spiritual desert. The answer from 2 Timothy is intimated more than expressed. 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5 insists that "keeping the faith" - that is, keeping vital and alive and nurturing what has been passed on to you - means keeping faithful to those who have helped you ...

1508. Armageddon Anxiety

John 6:56-69

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... and of his Messiah, and he will reign forever and ever" (Revelation 11:15). "Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father ... so that God may be all in all" (1 Corinthians 15:24, 28). In this week's gospel text, Jesus is deserted by "many of his disciples" because of his refusal to tell the people what they wanted to hear. His flesh and blood imagery was both too gutsy and too graphic, too fantastic and too unreal for a large portion of his Jewish audience. The great irony of this ...

1509. Quenching St. Anthony's Fire

Mark 8:27-38

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... scene was one of unbearable agony. It was this crucifixion panel of the "Isenheim Altarpiece" that hung over Karl Barth's desk above and before him all the time he worked and wrote. When the wings of the altarpiece were opened, however, the dark, deserted landscape and blue-black sky were driven away by a blaze of light. Suddenly, the poor, sick pilgrims stood in awe before three spectacular panels. The first panel contained the most unusual Annunciation scene in the world of art; the second depicted the ...

1510. Lamplight vs. Starlight

Matthew 5:13-16

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

Don't worry about whether or not you are "star material." Instead, turn up your lamp and hold it up to help your neighbor around the unexpected holes and rocks that mark every path. In the middle of the New Mexico desert, astronomers fume about the "light pollution" from all the sprawling cities that are gradually snaking out across the land. Even on the darkest moonless nights, the stars that used to gleam and twinkle so brilliantly look faded and dim. We who dwell in the middle of cities and suburbs ...

1511. What Gift Do You Have For Us?

Romans 12:1-8

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... little voice whisper, "You mean you didn't bring me anything?" As Christians, we can rest assured that we are constantly receiving God's gifts in our lives. Even during spiritual "dry spells," our potential for "giftedness" is still there. Especially during these desert-moments, we should be bold enough to go looking for our spiritual gifts. When we try on new possible roles that might enable us to find and claim new spiritual gifts for ourselves, we are renewed. God never approaches us empty-handed. The ...

1512. Treasure Hunters

Luke 12:13-21

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... , some which look like log cabins on steroids, it is clear that our culture is still convinced that "bigger is better." Jesus denied that "bigger is better" with his whole being. If "bigger is better," why did the Messiah come to Israel a tiny, insignificant desert country? If "bigger is better," why did God choose the Jews, a tiny minority of the citizenry, as the covenant people? If "bigger is better," why did Jesus choose only 12 special companions to teach? If "bigger is better," why did God send the ...

1513. Call the Tribe of Issachar Together

Luke 12:49-56

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... as an organized institution has become too comfortable, too at home with the standards and values of the world. Our silence in the face of such signs of the times suggests that moral failure is really no more serious than rolling through a stop sign at a deserted intersection. The truth is, moral muck-ups are a symptom of a very serious condition heart failure. It is a sign that the central pump of our being is sick and faltering a sign of despair. Sign 3: Apathetic Attitude In 1993, the total attendance at ...

1514. Jesus' Bad Manners

Luke 19:1-10

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... out of that silence that God's voice again comes to his reluctant prophet, asking him, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" (1 Kings 19:1-13). You cannot hide from God either. There is no tree high enough, there is no cave deep enough, there is no desert wide enough, to keep out the prying, prodding, pleading voice of God. Whatever hiding place you've chosen, know this. It is not nearly as clever or inaccessible as you think. There is no hiding from God ... ... in a bottle of white pills ... in a bottle of ...

1515. Do Not Grow Weary in Well-Doing

2 Thessalonians 3:6-13

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... that makes things green." In Tom Wolfe's novel The Bonfire of the Vanities, one of the leading characters, celebrated Wall Street bond broker Sherman McCoy, finds his carefully accumulated life unraveling when he is accused of a hit-and-run accident. Reflecting on the massive desertion of friends and associates in his time of crisis, he says to his lawyer: It's ... sobering how fast it goes when it goes ... all these ties you have, all these people who are in your clubs, the people you go out to dinner with ...

1516. On Time

Matthew 24:36-44

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... serve us well to remember something else: The gospels reveal that Jesus was not the only one with a keen sense of timing. The Devil was equally canny at discerning the most advantageous time for his work. When Satan failed to defeat Jesus in the desert, he swiftly withdrew, waiting "until an opportune time" (Luke 4:13) - an "opportune time" that was grasped at the Mount of Olives. Jesus' sense of timing was superb. But it was worthy only of second place. Matthew's text reveals that "only the Father" knows ...

1517. Enemies of Promise

Matthew 3:1-12

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... Clarke Kimberly Oler, who was pastor at the time. Oler says that a street urchin, barely 6 years old, showed up at the Nativity scene on Christmas Eve. He had been around before but had always run off when approached. The streets at this time of night were deserted. The little boy peered at the life-sized figures and stared at the manger. Then, suddenly, he climbed inside and curled up in the straw. Oler writes that "I felt as though I had been granted a momentary look into a lonely child's heart .... All I ...

1518. John 20:1-18

John 20:1-18

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... rather than agony. They sprint off towards the now abandoned tomb. Although Peter is slower to arrive, he takes bolder action once at the tomb's entrance. The "other disciple" timidly peeps in but hesitates to enter. Peter strides in among the oddly deserted space littered with discarded burial clothes. The details John gives us are of physical things, and they create a bleak stage. We know the disciples' actions, the tomb's appearance, the location of shroud. John leaves Peter's thoughts private. John then ...

1519. 1 John 4:7-12

1 John 4:7-12

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... , and directed by God. Luke's story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch perfectly illustrates how the "true Israel" bears its fruit. The pericope begins with Philip unhesitatingly responding to the voice of the Spirit, even when it calls him onto a deserted highway in the middle of a barren land. Yet Philip's "pruning" has just begun. Down the wilderness highway, traveling directly into Philip's path, came a most unlikely character, an Ethiopian eunuch who was also a powerful and influential individual. When ...

1520. 1 Corinthians 10:1-13

1 Corinthians 10:1-13

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... of wilderness wanderings. Undoubtedly it is the concept of this standing-by-steadfastness that leads Paul to identify this rock with Christ. Without the life-giving water the peripatetic stone provided to the Israelites, they would have died in the desert. Its persistent presence assured them of God's continued concern for their welfare. No matter where they wandered, the source of life was with them. Having established the intimate and uniquely protective relationship between God and the Israelites, Paul ...

1521. 1 Kings 19:9-14

1 Kings 19:1-18

Sermon

Leonard Sweet

... 18. The consensus is that a skillful redactor put together the two units by adding 9:1-3, thus connecting the flight to Horeb with the events at Carmel. Chapter 9 itself then combines three stories out of the Elijah tradition - his desert wanderings, the theophany at Horeb and the call of Elisha. Textually, the most problematic, convoluted sections of 1 Kings 19 are precisely those texts assigned for this week. Despite the scrutiny of several generations of biblical scholars, there is still little consensus ...

1522. 2 Kings 5:1-15ab

2 Kings 5:1-15ab

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... , willingly traveling out to the prophet's remote outpost to ask for the healing touch. But Elisha's apparently impersonal response to Naaman's presence propels this mighty warrior into a pouting huff. First Naaman is put out because this scruffy desert prophet does not even formally welcome him to his home or acknowledge the Aramean's social status and importance. Having insulted Naaman individually, Elisha's prescription for Naaman's healing now insults this warrior's Aramean homeland by denoting Israel's ...

1523. Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-19

Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-19

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... faith" that all things are possible. Now, despite the actuality of real death, faith continues to endure. The patriarchs died "in faith" because the promised inheritance had not yet been established. It was customary for travelers on the open plains and deserts of this rugged area to announce themselves to an approaching caravan or city the moment they appeared on the distant horizon. Without this long-distance greeting, the motives of the approaching party would immediately be suspect and defenses would be ...

1524. Philemon 1:1-20

Philemon 1:1-20

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... master's household when he fled. Most likely this involves money and/or supplies Onesimus took to facilitate his journey to his intended mediator, Paul. Despite the fact that Onesimus was previously "useless," and then compounded his sins by taking off and deserting his household position, helping himself to his master's goods in the process, Paul insists that Philemon give the slave a carte blanc promise of forgiveness. As a final pin-prick to this master's conscience, Paul once again reminds Philemon of ...

1525. Matthew 14:13-21

Matthew 14:13-21

Sweet

Leonard Sweet

... ' private thoughts and grief when he learns of the Baptist's death. The gospel writer does report that, as he often did, Jesus immediately separated himself from the crowds and sought solace in a private retreat far removed from civilization choosing a "deserted place" to come to terms with and contemplate John's death. As usual, however, Jesus' retreat is disturbed by the appearance of followers. It seems, in fact, that the only place Jesus could successfully meditate in privacy was while drifting offshore ...

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