12/13/2023
Let’s Hear It For the Lambs!
Sunday, I talked about two titles for Jesus that seem to point in opposite directions: Lion of Judah and Lamb of God. In fact, they are flip sides of the same coin, representing the hard as well as the soft sides of God’s love for each of us. I talked about how much we tend to prefer Lion-like leaders today, but that many of the key aspects of Jesus draw on his role as Lamb of God. Here’s a few paragraphs that I didn’t have time to include Sunday:
But isn’t Mary a lamb? When the angel comes and communicates to her the miracle of what God had planned for her—Mary doesn’t quibble, argue, or “stand up for her rights”. She simply says, let it be so. And yet without Mary’s willingness to follow God’s leading our Christmas story would never get started.
For that matter, isn’t Joseph also lamb like? When he finds out his betrothed is pregnant he decides to break off the engagement quietly so as to spare Mary further public humiliation. And when God comes to him in a dream, Joseph chooses the hard path—the non-testosterone driven, not the ‘what- kind-of-sucker-do-you-take-me-for’ path, but he too stays loyal to God and loyal to Mary.
The poor & downtrodden of Israel are lambs: shepherds, pilgrims traveling in and out of Bethlehem, soldiers and census bureaucrats, innkeepers—lots of folks trying just to make it through to their next paycheck, trying to feed and clothe their children, hoping and waiting for God to fulfill his promise. It’s hard to be very lion-like with the tax collector at the front door and Roman Soldiers out back in your garden.
The Christmas story is full of lambs who follow God even when it takes them in a direction they wouldn’t necessarily have chosen for themselves. We are not called to be doormats or push-overs, but more often than we’d like to think we are called to put aside our personal passions and desires in order to fulfill the will of the Great Shepherd. If the world looks down on that, then the world looks down on a crucified savior as well. And since when have the people of God put much stock in what the world thinks anyway?
Archived Posts
Patience and Trust
Sunday, in my benediction (which traditional folks did not hear) I talked about the Marshmallow Test. The original results of that test with children was that those who could delay gratification did better in life than those who could not.
Gandhi and the Sugar
I wasn’t preaching Sunday, Reverend Jackie Chandler was. And she talked about the power of influence you get when you practice what you preach. This famous illustration came to mind. It fits Jackie’s points quite well. Enjoy!
Not Just for Parents
Our current sermon series is about How To Talk Parent, but it doesn’t require any of us to be parents to appreciate the bits of wisdom OUR parents shared with us growing up.
If Not Higher
Here’s a story I wanted to use when talking about ‘what you do when no one is looking’ yesterday. It’s a wonderful illustration of what Jesus was saying in Matthew 6:1-6—do what you do because of who you want to be, not so that others will take notice and praise you.
The Perfect Church
There is an old joke about the perfect church. We talked just a little about the perfect pastor, but turnabout is fair play. It goes like this:
The Clothes You Wear
Sunday I talked about Joshua the High Priest having his filthy clothing replaced by a cleaned and beautiful garments. I also used the illustration of a boy becomes a dragon—who ‘wears’ dragon scales—and is stripped of those scales in order to be restored to a boy. In fact, I could have done the whole sermon around all the clothing imagery in scripture.
What just missed the cut for Sunday’s Sermon
Naaman’s servants may actually become one of the hidden gems of the sermon. They say, essentially: “If the prophet had told you to do something difficult, you would have done it.”