12/06/2019
The words of the Advent wreath...Peace, Hope, Joy and Love. Isn’t that what all of us want in our lives? If we had those, could we feel like we had it all? I thought that I would spend my midweek blog for the next 4 weeks of December reflecting each week on one aspect.
This second week of Advent, let’s light the candle of hope.
I ask myself...what do I hope for? I certainly can respond that I hope for peace, hope, joy and love in my life. I can also tell you that my kids roll their eyes when they hear my response! Then I ask myself...what do I need to hope in to receive what I hope for… (that may be a bit wordy so read it slowly).
I know without a doubt that to receive what I hope for, I must put my hope in Jesus. Anything else I would hope to receive would only be temporary or as they often say in Scripture, they would be “false gods”. Living in a country and a community where we have so “much”, we can so easily be tempted or distracted to believe that all of the other “stuff” can fill us. But it doesn’t.
What happens when the toy or gadget we hoped for so badly breaks? What happens when the new car we got with a red ribbon on top gets hit by another car? We had hoped for something that is temporary. It is not a real source of real hope. That hope will only last for a season at best.
Hope this season for HOPE, that is real and everlasting...evergreen! When you receive peace, hope, joy and love you cannot help but share all of that with others. We then become filled and changed and our world will change too.
May your life be filled with hope this Advent season and always, Pastor Patti
Archived Posts
One More Piece of Unsolicited Advice
I had one too many examples yesterday. Here’s the "Ask Pastor Tim" scenario that didn’t make the cut for Sunday’s sermon: (read more)
Not If, But When, the Crisis Comes
One of the best Bible commentators alive today is N.T. Wright or Tom Wright. When reflecting on the parable of the wise and foolish maidens, he wrote this:...
What I wanted to say
but ran out of time this Sunday
Here is the benediction I was going to use before discovering the excellent MLK Jr. video.
The Storm that Comes To Us as Helplessness
I want to share with you a small portion of my conversation with Artificial Intelligence online. Some of you know, I use Chat-GPT as a thoughtful sounding board for the questions and insights I’m working with on whatever scriptures I’m studying each week. What follows is an example of those discussions...
One Final Scene About Scrooge
There was one more scene in Dickens’s novel that reveals something of what has happened to Scrooge over the years. I did not have time to share it on Sunday, but I believe it reveals a great deal about the regrets in Scrooge’s life....
What Jacob Marley Would Do,
If He Could Do It…
I thought about using the following for a benediction—since Jacob Marley was warning Scrooge about the danger of loving money and what it could buy. Ends up with the Cantata and everything else going on, I didn’t have the time. So here is what you might have heard if the sermon itself was 5 minutes shorter!
A Confirming Word on Old King Herod
I just want to echo what Rick said in his fine sermon yesterday (Nov. 23). Herod was a ruthless tyrant and skilled politician. When the Magi don’t report back to him, he decides to kill all the male children of Bethlehem under the age of 2. That’s one paranoid dude.