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Tag Archives: Matthew 3

John the Baptizer

10 Dec

Our theme this morning is PEACE…
but peace is not what comes to mind when I hear our Gospel this morning or of John the Baptizer.

John is an interesting, but significant and complex, character in Scripture.

John, according to the Gospel of Luke, is Jesus’ cousin, but that is not his significance in Advent. John serves as a bridge between the Advent emphasis on Jesus’ Second Coming AND the Advent focus on Jesus as the baby in a manger. In fact, the middle two Sundays in Advent shine a spotlight on him.
(Due to the Children’s Program next Sunday, we will have one opportunity to explore John).

John the Baptizer was a PREACHER. 
His passionate, emotion-driven, fire and brimstone sermons attracted people into the wilderness from the surrounding towns. His message was simple: “Repent! Prepare the way for the Messiah who is to come”. Read the rest of this entry »

 
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Posted by on December 10, 2019 in Sermons

 

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Our Mission, Shall We Accept It.

16 Jan

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Hello. We doing a two for one deal this morning.

On January 8th was a feast day, the Baptism of our Lord Jesus (the) Christ. On January 15th, we cancelled church, but the texts are deeply connected and intertwined with the Baptismal texts of January 8th.

On January 8th, our texts were Isaiah 42, where Isaiah talks about the servant (we associate with Israel) as being a light to the nations. In Matthew 3, we have Matthew’s account of the Baptism of Jesus (the) Christ; where the heavens open, the dove/Spirit descends, and the voice says “this is my Son” leaving us to wonder whether Jesus was the only one or not, who witnessed these events.

This past Sunday (January 15th), the text was Isaiah 49 which is included in the servant songs and the servant, again, is being told to be a light to the nations and that this is a mission, a calling, that existed prior to their birth. In John (John 1), we have a text about John the Baptist, who is pointing the way towards Christ telling people ‘this is the one who I saw the Spirit rest upon during his Baptism’.
They (the people) go to Jesus and ask, ‘Rabbi (teacher), where are you staying’.
He (Jesus) replies ‘come and see’.

The thread that goes through all four of these texts is the thread of mission. Read the rest of this entry »

 
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Posted by on January 16, 2017 in Sermon Summaries

 

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the Light of Peace

12 Dec

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It was our second Sunday in Advent, the Sunday associated with peace. All but perhaps the gospel text dealt with peace.

Now in our world we all have different notions of and images of what peace looks like. I grew up in a home where I was taught that if someone is not hurting themselves or someone else, live and let live. And if you looked at the variety in my family, loved ones, and friends that I hold dearly you would see a lot of variety there.

But there are parts of my family where there is an expectation to live your life a certain way and if you don’t you may be called a “disgrace” or “white trash”. And yet there is other parts of my family where if you don’t agree with them completely then you cant be in relationship with them, because you are died to them. Now, most of us would think that those last two parts are not real peaceful. And our text deals with that a little. Read the rest of this entry »

 
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Posted by on December 12, 2016 in Sermons

 

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