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?
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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.”
One of the Longest Benedictions I Ran Out of Time to Share
Maybe you know the story of how Joseph and Mary accidentally left Jesus at the gas station on their way home from Jerusalem. Well, not the gas station bathroom in Jesus’ case. Joe and Mary are far down the road before they realize Jesus isn’t with them...
So many quips and quotes...
So little time to preach
I wonder what Mary and Martha’s phones might look like:
* Martha = the open browser with 27 tabs
* Mary = the single window that matters
* Psalm 46 = God saying, “Close the tabs.”