The Advent theme for this year is drawn from one of our beloved Christmas carols: O Come, All Ye Faithful. Advent opens with a warning. Be on guard, we are cautioned. Watch. What should we be watching for?
Sermon Texts
From time to time, the picture of God becomes blurry. We begin to think God is a mean tyrant. Or we think God favors our team over another. The picture of God had become blurry in the time of Jesus, so Jesus had to redraw it, reminding the people of who God really is.
The people were accustomed to sacrifices being repeated. On holy days, especially the Day of Atonement, they presented their animals to be sacrificed. They would do it again the next year. And the next. That ended with Jesus. The writer of Hebrews says Jesus’ death was “once for all.” It never has to be repeated.
If our earliest forefathers and mothers saw some Baptist churches today, they wound not recognize them as Baptist. They paid a heavy price to be free from religious coercion—floggings in the town square, imprisonment, exile, and death. They embraced a gospel that insisted on freedom of conscience, freedom from the king, freedom from the pope, freedom to relate directly to God. We could call it the gospel according to the Baptists.
We call him blind Bartimaeus. The text calls him “a blind beggar.” Many people with disabilities in ancient cultures were reduced to begging. What we learn of Bartimaeus, though, is that despite his blindness he could “see” quite well.
The book of Job addresses the issue of human suffering. Why do the righteous suffer? It also addresses this important issue: why are the righteous righteous?