Hard Words to Hear at Christmas

On the television show M*A*S*H, Dr. Charles Emerson Winchester III made it clear what separated him from everybody else. "I'm a Winchester," he was heard to say more than once. For him, it was his family name that made him superior to everyone else. Other people carry other burdens. One woman received her education at Harvard and found a way to work Harvard into every conversation. Congregations fall victim to the same problem. Churches become satisfied with their pasts to the point that they do not make the changes necessary to live in the present with the same degree of faithfulness shown in prior years…

We prepare for Christmas by repenting. Repenting in the Biblical sense is more than having a change of heart or a feeling of regret. It is more than a New Year's Eve resolution. Repentance is a turning away and a turning back. A turning away from sin and a turning back to God.

Bishop Joe Pennel of the Virginia Conference of the United Methodist Church, once attended a Christmas worship service in Bethlehem at a place called Shepherd's Field. As he heard the songs of the season…

William Faulkner, the novelist, toiled for years as an unknown, disrespected writer in rural Mississippi before he finally gained recognition. When he won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1950, his acclaim grew. When approached later about the literary people and authors he associated with, Faulkner shrugged his shoulders and said, "I don't know any li…

There is so much noise in the world today. There are so many voices competing for our attention. If you want to be heard, you almost have to shout.

I once read that during a typical lunch hour at the University of California at Berkeley, spokesmen for a dozen different causes can be found on the plaza, trying to outshoot one another. One day a lone figure sat down defiantly in the middle of the crowd and held up a sign which said, "SILENT PROTEST." Someone tapped him on the shoulder and asked, "What are you protesting?" The defiant figure held up another s…

The wilderness is silence and quiet.  It is the elimination of the sounds of television, the radio, the stereo, the iPod, the cell phone. It is the elimination of the voices of mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, friends. It is the elimination of the racing tape of your own mind that absorbs your thoughts. The wilderness is quiet. It is utter stillness. It is being alone with God. It is for a moment, for a minute, for a month, being still - absolutely still - …and listening. …

Our greatest Advent challenge seems to be the need to face the truth about ourselves. Both Isaiah and John tell us some very unflattering things about who we are and what we are capable of doing. Truth be told, all of us some of the time and some of us all of the time are in radical denial about the situation of our planet, our nation, and our lives. For example, like the people who heard John, we can claim an entitlement that keeps us from becoming the prepared and faithful people God calls us t…

A friend tells of the Saturday she spent going to football games with his father. The boy and his dad sat in sunshine and rain, wind and snow, and cheered for their favorite team. There was nothing like it. On the way home from the ball games, prior to the era of drive-through windows, they often stopped to get a bite to eat. The…

When a man undertakes to repent toward his fellowmen, it is repenting straight up a precipice; when he repents toward law, it is repenting into th…

Do you feel insecure as we enter this Advent season? You do if your marriage is less than solid. You do if your job is at risk. You might if you have medical problems. If you have lost a loved-one in the last year, insecurity could be part of your grief.

Pastor James Moore of Houston Texas tells a story about a young man whose wife had died, leaving him with a small son. Back home from the cemetery, they went to bed early because there was nothing else he could bear to do.

As he lay there in the darkness grief-stri…

Larry was sick and tired of his friend Stan's constant name-dropping and boasting of how famous he was. The day finally came when Larry could take it no more. He told Stan, "If you're so famous and know so many important people phone the White House and get the President on the line."

Stan shrugged and walked to the phone. He punched in a number and handed the phone to Larry. The familiar voice greeted him with the words, "Hello, this is the President of the United States. How may I help you?"

Larry was convinced that it was either an accident or a put on. He said, "Well, that was impressive. But if you are really important, ca…

Of course, like all preachers, John didn't get through to everybody. Some who came to the Jordan with no intention of getting taken in by this man stuck to that determination pretty fiercely. The religious leaders provided John the opportunity to cut loose with his strongest language."Sneaky snakes!" John fairly howled! "Somebody set the field on fire and out slithered you all…

As the door to a new era swings open, John the Baptist is the ideal hinge. He is dressed like the old age, but he points to the new. His preaching style is vintage Old Israel; his message paves the way for New Israel. He appears to have wande…

Snoopy of Charlie Brown comic strip fame is typing a novel. He begins his story, "It was a dark and stormy night ..." Snoopy always starts his stories in this manner. Lucy looks at what Snoopy has written. She goes into a tirade, putting down Snoopy for such a silly beginning. Doesn't Snoopy know that any good story…

A husband and wife were having some problems at home. They had argued and now they were giving each other the silent treatment. It lasted all weekend long, it was miserable. On Monday, the husband had an important appointment and had to be at the airport on time to catch a flight. However, he didn't want to be the first to break the …

Carl Michalson, a brilliant young theologian who died in a plane crash some years ago, once told about playing with his young son one afternoon. They were tussling playfully on their front lawn when Michalson accidentally hit the young boy in the face with his elbow. It was a sharp blow full to his son's…

African American poet Langston Hughes questions in one of his poems, "What happens to a dream deferred?…Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?…Or does it explode?" Dreams long squelched by injustice may well explode in anger and rage, but I suspect that, for most of us, the far greater danger is of our dreams drying up like raisins in the sun. Is there any greater tragedy than those whose lives have bec…

The story is told of a youngster learning to play the piano whose mother, to encourage a love for music in him, took him to a Paderewski concert. Soon after the mother and son were seated, the mother spotted a friend a little distance away and walked down the aisle to greet her. The time got a little too long for the youngster, and he wandered off, exploring the wonders of the concert hall, eventually making his way through a door clearly marked NO ADMITTANCE.

When the house lights dimmed, the mother returned to her seat, only to find her son missing. At that moment the curtains on the stage parted, and to her shock, there was her son seated at the keyboard of…

Have you seen ancient maps of unexplored portions of the world? Maps that portrayed the prevailing ideas of what lay beyond, the unexplored lands and the uncrossed seas? Maps from before the adventures of Marco Polo and Christopher Columbus and Ferdinand Magellan? How grotesquely inaccurate those maps were! How vastly they differed from what the explorer eventually found! How fantastic were the notions the ancients had about …

There is so much noise in the world today. There are so many voices competing for our attention. If you want to be heard, you almost have to shout.

During a typical lunch hour at the University of California at Berkeley, spokesmen for a dozen different causes can be found on the plaza, trying to outshout one another. One day a lone figure sat down defiantly in the middle of the crowd and held up a sign which said, "SILENT PROTEST." Someone tapped him on the shoulder and asked, "What are you protesting?" The defiant figure held up another sign whic…

In the story of Adam Bede, George Eliot describes a certain conceited person as being "like the cock who thought the sun had risen to hear him crow." I've known, as you probably have, a few persons along the way who were just about as vain as this. Remember that line by Tennyson: "One far-off divine event to which the whole creation moves?" I knew one fellow once who apparently believed himself to be that divine event. He seemed to have the idea that all o…

Can you imagine complete silence? It's hard to in our culture today in which televisions, radios, etc. are constantly blaring. But in this morning's text a silence of 400 years is broken. Don't misunderstand, not everyone was silent during this period. Women and men were talking.. Boys and girls were talking. But there was no prophet speaking the Word of the LORD. No one was truthfully saying, "Thus says the LORD…"

In reality two silences are broken in this morning's text. For one, the 400 year period…

The way it happened in my mind is that he walked into this little restaurant in downtown Jericho, took a deep breath and hollered, "Repent!" Folks stopped eating mid-bite. It got so quiet you could hear the motor running in that tall machine over in the corner that kept slices of pie turning around behind the glass all day. Every eye in the place was on him, and that was what he was waiting for. He started talking, and shouting, and waving his arms, and every time someone would try to laugh at him and go back to their coconut cream pie, he would walk right over and slam a fist on their table, or just stand and stare at the pie eater until their appetite simply disappeared. All this without missing a beat of his sermon.

And what a sermon it was. He started out, "Some of you folks are from …

In John Steinbeck's story "The Wayward Bus" a dilapidated old bus takes a cross country shortcut on its journey to Los Angeles, and gets stuck in the mud. While the drivers go for assistance, the passengers take refuge in a cave. It is acurious company of people and it is obvious that the author is attempting to get across the point that these people are lost spiritually as well as literally. As they enter into this cave, the author …

A number of years ago a couple traveled to the offices of an Adoption Society in England to receive a baby. They had been on the waiting list a long time. They had been interviewed and carefully scrutinized. Now at last their dreams were to be fulfilled. But their day of happiness was another's pain.

Arriving at the offices of the Society they were led up a flight of stairs to a waiting room. After a few minutes they heard someone else climbing the stairs. It was the young student mother whose baby was to be adopted. She was met by the lady responsible for the adoption arrangements and taken into another room. Our friends heard a muffled conversation and a few minutes later footsteps on the stairs as the young mother left. They heard her convulsive sobbing until the front door of the offi…

The poet Shel Silverstein wrote a rather humorous poem called: Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout Would Not Take The Garbage Out! Let me share it with you.

Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout
Would not take the garbage out!
She'd scour the pots and scrape the pans,
Candy the yams and spice the hams,
And though her Daddy would scream and shout
She simply would not take the garbage out.

And so it piled up to the ceilings:
Coffee grounds, potato peelings,
Brown bananas, rotten peas,
Chunks of sour cottage cheese.

It filled the can, it covered the floor,
It cracked the window and blocked the door
With bacon rinds and chicken bones,
Drippy ends of ice cream cones,

Prune pits, peach pits, orange peel,
Gloppy glumps of cold oatmeal,
Pizza crusts…

It was 11 days before Christmas. Peace and good will were far from the thoughts of 200,000 Union and Confederate soldiers facing each other across the broad, blood-spattered arena of Fredericksburg, Virginia, on December 14, 1862. The past few days had been gruesome with more than 12,000 soldiers killed. Nineteen-year-old Sergeant Richard Kirkland, Company E of Kershaw's Second South Carolina Brigade, had seen enough. Kirkland went to see Confederate General Joseph Kershaw. "General," he said, "I can't stand this!" He startled his commanding officer. "All night and all day I hear those poor Federal people calling for water," he said, "and I can't stand it any longer. I ask permission…

On Christmas Day a small manger scene sat on a table just inside the doorway to a neatly kept home. People hurried past it all day, barely noticing the tiny figures gathered around the infant tucked into golden straw. In the morning children raced by it on their way to the Christmas tree. At noon, arriving guests pushed past it, one accidentally knocking over a shepherd as he took off his winter coat.

Later in the afternoon the well-fed assembly of adults and children moved somewhat slowly by the manger again as they drifted from the dining room back i…

Let me tell you a legend about a beautiful swan that alighted one day by the banks of the water in which a crane was wading about seeking snails. For a few moments the crane viewed the swan in stupid wonder and then inquired:

"Where do you come from?" 

"I come from heaven!" replied the swan. 

"And where is heaven?" asked the crane.

"Heaven!" said the swan, "Heaven! have you never heard of heaven?" And the beautiful bird went on to describe the grandeur of the Eternal City. She told of streets of gold, and the gates and walls made of preci…

A seminary student writing a term paper about confession of sin started to type, “When we confess, Christ takes away our guilt.” However, he was a …

Murphy's Law was amply illustrated in a joke that went around sometime back about a man who was crawling through the desert on his hands and knees, desperate for a drink of water. He encountered a man selling neckties.

"Would you like to buy a nice necktie?" the …

Water has been in the news a lot recently, at least in the forms of snow and ice.  Winter storms and snow literally stopped traffic in many parts of the country.  And as much as we try to forge through to get to work or school, sometimes we have to stop and respect what the water around us is doing.  Water is part of the drama of our life. It brings life, but not enough or too much can bring destruction. Let us focus on the life giving power of clean, fresh water.

There are two very different ways to think about baptism. The first approach recognizes the time of baptism as a saving moment in which the person being baptized accepts the love and forgiveness of God. The person then considers herself "saved." She may grow in the faith through the years, but nothing which she will experience a…

It has become a cliché, but the ability to take a lemon in life and make lemonade is the most determining factor in successfully coping with life's most difficult circumstances. Somewhere I read a story about an American serviceman who was stationed deep in th…

The primary purpose of the Law is, like a mirror, to teach man the true knowledge of his sin. We see this in the example of the publican. The publicans were tax-collectors for the Roman imperialists. They were Jews, but were not respected by their people. They were considered traitors and thieves, with some justification.

So the publican did not approach God with pride, demanding w…

Don't forget about the little fellow who put on his application for a lumberjack's job that…

Acts 1:4-14 contains certain encouragements to the followers of Christ to be an "expectant" fellowship. With this in mind, let us consider some specific instances where expectancy is implied.

1. Acts 1:5: "For John baptized with water but before many days you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit." What is the difference between John’s water baptism and the baptism of the Holy Spirit?

a. John’s baptism. Water baptism was commonly practiced by the Jews long before the appearance of John. It symbolized religious purification, and in a more specialized use it was applied when new converts entered into Judaism (proselyte baptism). John, however, baptized both Jews and Gentiles as a rote of moral purification for the approaching Kingdom of God. Although John’s baptism would enable those who …

The Road Runner cartoons, Wile E. Coyote and all the Acme products he bought, may be the reason we have so many warning labels on products toady. Warning labels point to dangers in life. Most warning labels make sense but some of them are just downright ridiculous and makes you wonder WHY a company had to put that warning label on their product.

There are a couple of websites devoted to nothing but inane warning labels. Here's a few of them.

"Do not put in mouth." On a box of bottle rockets. 

"Not dishwasher safe." On a remote control for a TV. 

"Do not attempt to stop the bla…

Before performing a baptism, the priest approached the young father and said solemnly, "Baptism is a serious step. Are you prepared for it?"

"I think so," t…

Athanasian Creed: Athanasius, known as Athanasius of Alexandria, was the 20th bishop of Alexandria. His intermittent episcopacy spanned 45 years, of which over 17 encompassed five exiles. He is traditionally thought to be the author of the this Creed named after him. It was created to guard Nicene Christianity from the heresy of Arianism. It is widely accepted as orthodox and some abbreviated versions of it are still in use today. And yes, the intro and outro are actually part of the original text. 

Whoever desires to be saved should above all hold to the catholic faith.

Anyone who does not keep it whole and unbroken will doubtless perish eternally.

Now this is the catholic faith:

That we worship one God in trinity and the trinity in unity,   
neither blending their persons   
nor dividing…

The entire community was trying to convert old Uncle Abe. One day a long-friend tackled the problem.

“Abe,” he questioned. “Doesn’t it soften yo…

On January 26, 1905, in Pretoria, South Africa, Captain M. F. Wells found a diamond weighing one and one-quarter pounds. Two years later, the diamond was purchased and presented to King Edward VII of the United Kingdom. In 1908, a diamond cutter from Amsterdam cut from that diamond the Star of Africa, the largest cut diamond in the world, containing seventy-four facets with a weight of 530 carats. Today, the diamond is still set in the British Royal Scepter. Can you imagine the value of such a jewel?

Then there is the Hope Diamond: the largest blue diamond in the world. It weighs in at 44.4 carats. Found in India during the seventeenth century, it has been displayed, since 1958, at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C. At that time it was worth between $700,000 and $1,500,000.

Bu…

Our primary focus will be upon the divine Sonship of Jesus of Nazareth. Notice that we say Jesus of "Nazareth" here instead of Jesus "Christ." Prior to the events which we shall take up, Jesus had been identified simply as "the Nazarene," "the carpenter," or "the carpenter’s son." Following two specific events, his identity is enlarged upon to include "divine Sonship." What happened? There was a baptism and a transfiguration.

Baptism. The practice of baptism was not the peculiar invention of Christianity. Other religions, in fact, political systems, had long observed a form of "washing" or "sprinkling with water" as an initiatory act of accepting "outsiders" into their fellowship. John’s baptism, insofar as it was the "baptism of repentance" (Mark 1:4), was distinguished from the others. …

Someone has made a list of ways to tell that your new car may not be all you dreamed it would be:

1. As you leave the used car lot, you see the owner rush out with a gigantic smile and high-five the salesman.
2. A Moe's Towing Company business card is in the glove compartment.…

There is nothing that so takes the joy out of life like unconfessed sin on the conscience.

I once heard the late Dr. F.E. Marsh tell that on one occasion he was preaching on this question and urging upon his hearers the importance of confession of sin and wherever possible of restitution for wrong done to others.

At the close a young man, a member of the church, came up to him with a troubled countenance. "Pastor," he explained, "you have put me in a sad fix. I have wronged another and I am ashamed to confess it or to try to put it right. You see, I am a boat builder and the man I work for is an infidel. I have talked to him often about his need of Christ and urged him to come and hear you preach, but he scoffs and ridicules it all. Now, I have been guilty of something that, if I should …