Tagged: Advent

Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11

This text is used for the Lectionary Year B on December 14, 2014.

Some people have called the book of Isaiah, “the gospel according to Isaiah.” Christians see in its pages a hint of Jesus the Messiah, and while we must always remember to ask first what scripture was saying to its original audience, it can certainly be said that Isaiah returns again and again to the gospel theme of good news. “The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners” (Isaiah 61:1). What is the best news you’ve ever received? Maybe it was the time that letter showed up in your mailbox and told you that “you’ve been accepted.” Maybe it was the time the doctor looked at you with a smile on her face and said “congratulations, you’re pregnant!” Or maybe it was a very different kind of message from a different kind of doctor—“good news, it’s benign.” The best news almost always arrives in the midst of great difficulty or great expectation; sometimes both. Continue reading →

Mark 1:1-8

This text is used for the Lectionary Year B on December 7, 2014.

We as preachers have an incredible task before us this Advent.  We are challenged with the opportunity to preach the message of “the good news of Jesus Christ” (Mark 1:1) in a way that it has never been preached before.  Of course, this task presents us with quite the challenge: How do we present the “good news” in a fresh, new way to a congregation full of many, if not most, if not all of the same folks who heard it last week, and the week before that?  Continue reading →

Isaiah 40:1-11

This text is used for the Lectionary Year B on December 7, 2014.

It’s hard for those of us separated by more than twenty-five centuries to understand the enormity of what the people of God were told in Isaiah 40. “Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed.”  Good news is probably far too anemic a description to encapsulate what these words represented to people whose entire world had been turned upside down. Continue reading →

Mark 13:24-37

This text is used for the Lectionary Year B on November 30, 2014.

December the 25th comes each and every year, without exception.  Although children sometimes have a hard time believing that Christmas will ever come again, we as adults know that it will.  Christmas decorations have been displayed in stores since July, inching their way closer and closer to the front of the store with each coming month.  Christmas music started playing on the radio in early November.  Our calendars are over-flowing with Christmas parties and concerts and festivities, not to mention the every-increasing shopping lists.  We all know that Christmas is coming- it’s no surprise!  Continue reading →