[Propertalk] Fwd: Sermon Resources for February 24 - Part 2

[Joe Parrish]

Three Questions 
 
Jaques Maritain, the great French philosopher of the last century, said there were really only three questions that had to be answered: "Who am I?" "Where am I?" and "Where ought I to be going?" Jesus knew who he was, and where he was, and where he had to go. Lincoln knew. So have all great leaders and great men and women of faith known. Do we know? Or are we out of focus, our goals fuzzy and ill-defined? Our world is so insane, but not any more so than the world of Jesus. Most people in his day, went to work every day, and came home, and were pulled this way and that. And they didn't ask the big questions very often. We remember Jesus because he did. 
 
William R. Boyer, As a Hen Gathers Her Brood
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Rejection and Refusal to Listen 
 
Robert Fulton, an artist and engineer was responsible in the early 1800's for putting sailing ships out of business. He made the steamboat a standard on the open seas. It is said that he presented his idea to Napoleon. After a few minutes of this presentation Napoleon is reported to have said, "What, sir, you would make a ship sail against the wind and currents by lighting a bonfire under her decks? I pray you excuse me. I have no time to listen to such nonsense."
 
Brett Blair, www.Sermons.com. 
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The Old Mother Hen 
 
Have you ever seen a chicken hawk go after its prey? The old mother hen is often aware of the presence of the hawk in time to gather her chicks under her wing. With a furious fuss she squawks till her brood is safe by her side. She fluffs out her wings and protects them with her own body. The chicken hawk dives and the old hen turns her body toward him and cocks a wary eye without moving from her children. The predator comes in again for the kill and the mother spreads her wings even wider. A third time he dives only to be thwarted by the determined self-sacrifice of the mother hen. She is too big to be a target and the chicks are too safe to be seized so he flies away.
 
Brett Blair, www.Sermons.com. 
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Shelter 
 
In Mission, British Columbia, a fellow by the name of Ike tells the story about his Grandpa's hen house which burned to the ground one day. Ike arrived just in time to help put out the last of the fire. As he and his grandfather sorted through the wreckage, they came upon one hen lying dead near what had been the door of the hen house. Her top feathers were singed brown by the fire's heat, her neck limp. Ike bent down to pick up the dead hen. As he did the hen's four chicks came scurrying out from beneath her burnt body. The chicks survived because they were insulated by the shelter of the hen's wings.
 
Richard J. Fairchild 
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A Pompous Pretender
 
Jesus called Herod a fox after some Pharisees reported that Herod wanted to kill Jesus. Jesus' response challenged any such plans: "Tell Herod I've got work to do first." Jesus was not implying that Herod was sly, rather he was commenting on Herod's ineptitude, or inability, to carry out his threat. Jesus questioned the tetrarch's pedigree, moral stature and leadership, and put the tetrarch "in his place." This exactly fits the second rabbinic usage of "fox."
 
When Jesus labeled Herod a fox, Jesus implied that Herod was not a lion. Herod considered himself a lion, but Jesus pointed out that Herod was the opposite of a lion. Jesus cut Herod down to size, and Jesus' audience may have had an inward smile of appreciation at a telling riposte.
 
We need to start translating "fox" with its proper Hebraic cultural meaning: A pompous pretender. Jesus was direct. Antipas was a shu·AL ben shu·AL (a fox, the son of a fox), a small-fry.
 
Randall Buth, That Small Fry Herod Antipas, Or When A Fox Is Not A Fox.
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Compassion for the Suffering 
 
In England in the 1940s a young woman entered Oxford University with little focus. She had no idea what to do with her life. But she soon came under the influence of a colorful professor of English, a writer with a gift, named C. S. Lewis. She became a Christian through much of his influence.
 
She left Oxford, against the advice of friends and family, and began to study nursing. After five more years of rigorous training, she was certified as a nurse.
 
But her story doesn't end there, for her questing Christian spirit would not let her rest with the way things were. You see, she ended up working on a cancer ward in a London hospital. Gradually, she came to realize that most of the doctors ignored the patients who were deemed terminally ill. As a result she watched many of them die virtually alone.
 
Greatly troubled she felt that Christian compassion needed to be expressed to these patients in a visible way...
 
The rest of this illustration and many additional illustrations and sermons for this week, Lent and Easter, can be accessed at www.Sermons.com. 
 
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