Text: Isaiah 52:7-10
Date: Christmas Day + 12/25/11
On Christmas Day we celebrate and proclaim the doctrine, the teaching, indeed the mystery that, in Jesus of Nazareth, God became man, took on our human flesh and blood, in order to redeem, to save us from sin, death and hell.
Isaiah had foretold it, even as he foretold so much about the coming Messiah. Among the prophet’s prophecies, in the fifty-second chapter he speaks of human feet and arms. Continue reading “His Holy Arm”
Text: Isaiah 7:10-14
Date: Christmas Eve + 11/24/11
How many tyrants in their conquests, how many nations, how many church denominations, or how many football teams or quarterbacks have been convinced that God is on their side? At least the proper cheer would be “Deo Volente,” “God willing,” as St. James advises, “you do not know what tomorrow will bring,” so “you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that’” (James 4:14-15). So I suppose to some it would seem rather presumptuous that our Savior and God Jesus Christ would be called “Immanuel,” “God is with us.” But that is not a name we came up with on our own, the product of only of our own loyalty or enthusiasm. It is the amazing, majestic name of the Savior given by God Himself through the prophet Isaiah. “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel,” literally, “with us God,” God is with us. This is the significance of Christmas. Continue reading “God Is With Us”
Text: 2 Samuel 7:1-16
Date: Advent IV + 12/18/11
When St. Luke reports of the visit of the angel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary he says that Mary was “betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph,” and adds the important detail, “of the house of David.” Furthermore, the angel’s announcement includes the prediction that Jesus “will reign over the house of Jacob forever.”
Today’s sermon title points to the double use of the word “house” in our Old Testament reading telling of the great King David “dwelling in a house of cedar,” but the ark of God dwelling in (or should I use today’s protest language and say “occupying”?) a tent on the one hand, and the dynasty, lineage or family tree of David on the other. We are taught to make the distinction in the phrase (at least as old as Benjamin Franklin), “a house is not a home.” Franklin said a house becomes a home when “it contains food and fire for the mind as well as the body.” We generally make the distinction between house and home more simply between a structure and the family living in it.
But you will notice the sermon title, “H O U S E,” is printed in graphic imitation of the title of the FOX television network’s award winning medical drama series starring James Hugh Calum Laurie OBE (Order of the British Empire) or simply Hugh Laurie. And chances are that you’ve probably seen an episode as the 2012 Guinness book of World Records has designated “H O U S E” as “the world’s most popular current television program, watched by a whopping 81.8 million people in 66 countries.” But did you know that the name of the lead character, Dr. Gregory House, and therefore the name of the program, is itself a double entendre, “a subtle homage” of the writers to the fictional British detective Sherlock Holmes. Get it? “Holmes,” “House”! And this even extends to their “sidekicks.” As there was Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson, so in the television series it is Dr. Gregory House and Dr. James Wilson. So the phrase becomes, “a HOUSE is not a HOLMES.” Continue reading “H O U S E”
Text: Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11
Date: Advent III + 12/11/11
Last Sunday we heard the prophet Isaiah foretell the coming of John the Baptist. In today’s selection he speaks no more of him. Interestingly, even though the reading from John’s Gospel today reports about the Baptist, the Baptizer himself insists that he doesn’t talk about himself but came only as a witness to “the light,” “the Christ,” the “One standing among you who you do not know,” “the strap of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie.” So this Sunday Isaiah also speaks only of the coming Messiah and the joyful kingdom He brings. Continue reading “The Robe of Righteousness”
Text: Isaiah 49:1-11
Date: Advent II + 12/4/11
The number three is in the air today. At three-thirty this afternoon we look forward to having three musical stars lead us in our Third Annual Christmas Concert, flutists Alexander Zonjic and Ervin Monroe and acclaimed tenor Drake Danzler. This morning the prophet Isaiah speaks of three more stars. Not Plácido Domingo, José Carreras and Luciano Pavarotti, however, not three tenors but three preachers: God’s prophet Isaiah, John the Baptist and the Christian Church. These are The Three Heralds of Isaiah 40. On this Second Sunday of Advent the Good News of God’s coming is proclaimed loudly and clearly as any herald worth his salt should do. For God’s coming does not mean wrath and destruction but, in a word, comfort, the comfort of a God who comes to save us from sin and death, who comes to tend and carry us like a shepherd. The Prophet, the Baptist and the Church are the heralds, the preachers and proclaimers of this comforting Good News. And all this is in the inspired verses from Isaiah’s gospel. Continue reading “The Three Heralds”
