[Propertalk] Fwd: Sermon Resources for December 7 - Part 1

[Joe Parrish]

Sermons for the Second Sunday of Advent

Mark 1:1-8 – Prepare the Way
2 Peter 3:8-15 - Why Matter Matters 



Mark 1, the sermon title “Prepare the Way”



His name was John. People knew him locally as the Baptist. Some would say of him that he was a religious eccentric. Others less kind would dismiss him as being simply a flake. He definitely did not seem to be the kind of “How to win friends and influence people” type of personality to usher in the news of the Messiah’s coming. He just somehow doesn’t seem to fit in with shepherds and wise men and the other characters that we traditionally associate with the Christmas story. Yet, this was God’s unlikely servant chosen to herald the spectacular events that would soon follow. A most unlikely promotions man to be sure, but God’s man nevertheless.

From the very beginning everything about John was unique. His mother Elizabeth was related to Mary, the mother of Jesus. Elizabeth conceived six months before Mary. But Mary happened to be a very young girl, indeed almost a child. Most scholars put her probable age at thirteen. It was not unusual for a girl in that day and time to be of childbearing age at such a tender age. Indeed, it is not unheard of even in contemporary America.

Elizabeth, on the other hand, was a woman who was in the golden years of her life. She had never given birth to a child. You would think of her more in the category of great grandmother than mother. Yet, she and her aging priest of a husband were the unlikely candidates. It’s not out of the question today with recent advances in medicine, but beg the grandmothers here today, don’t take this as a word from the Lord!

And then there was John himself. Being the same age as Jesus they grow up together, played together, yet as they reached adulthood they were different in so many ways. When John began his ministry he lived in the desert solitude of Judea, a rugged desert wilderness…
1. John Lived a Godly Life.
2. John Challenged the People’s Sins.
3. John Pointed the Way to Christ.
The rest of this sermon can be obtained by joining Sermons.com at http://www.sermons.com/signup 
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2 Peter 3 for the sermon titled “Why Matter Matters”


The 1935 comedy “A Night at the Opera,” starring Groucho Marx, Chico Marx, and Harpo Marx, has been given the honor of being selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress. A smash hit at the box office, “A Night at the Opera” was the first film the Marx Brothers made after Zeppo left the act, and the first film they made for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer after leaving Paramount Pictures. 

There is a moment in the film when Groucho Marx, in the character Driftwood, says, “It’s all right. That’s -- that’s in every contract. That’s — that’s what they call a sanity clause.” Whereupon Chico Marx, in the character of Fiorello, snaps back: “You can’t fool me. There ain’t no Sanity Claus.” 

Maybe Chico was right . . . there ain’t no “sanity clause” to this time of year. Even Advent is crazed with contradictions.
 
During the season of Advent so much of what we do and celebrate is all about ritual and tradition, doing the same thing over and over again. The decorations come down from the attic, as the Christmas tree goes up from the stand. Christmas decorations are hung, strung, and perched on a particular date. There is the traditional hanging of the greens, the cookie-baking weekend, the office Christmas party, the ear-candy of Christmas carols, and caroling in the streets.
Who can resist Christmas carols? If you want to start a fight with musicians and liturgists, ask for Christmas carols in worship before Christmas. One reason the Advent Wreath tradition is making a comeback is that it sneaks in through the back door the singing of carols ahead of Christmas. There is a reason all during Advent no one can escape being soaked and slathered in carols no matter how much one wants to save them for Christmastide…
The rest of this sermon can be obtained by joining Sermons.com at http://www.sermons.com/signup 
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We Want to See Wilderness


For years international students who came to our university asking to see wilderness intrigued me. Typically, it was the German students who wanted to use their spring break to see something they had never seen before. Inevitably, they asked to go to Big Bend National Park in a southwestern corner of Texas. I would usually say something like: “Well, yes, we can get you there. But it’s an eleven hour drive by car and you see nothing along the way. It’s just wilderness!” “That’s just it,” they would reply. “In Germany, we have little villages dotting the countryside, no matter whether you’re in Schleswig or Bavaria. We very much want to see nothing. We want to see wilderness!”
Of course, we always made arrangements for them to do this, delighted that, while some wanted to take trips to San Francisco, an elite group wanted to go nowhere! Recently, my wife and I took an unplanned trip that we had promised ourselves, and we had to be very careful in Texas to give serious thought to the direction in which we drove. It could all too easily happen, given the vastness and the emptiness of much of Texas, that we might end up going nowhere. To us, at least, this would have seemed like a tragedy. The German students, of course, may have known something we didn’t.
David Zersen, Finding Your Wilderness
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A John the Baptist Christmas Card


I love receiving Christmas cards. I especially like Christmas cards with good Christian artwork on the cover. The lion with the lamb; the three wise men and the message, “Wise Men Still Seek Him;” the Madonna and child; or the star piercing the darkness over stable and manger; all are beautiful depictions of the Christmas story. Again, I am positive that as a group we have all perused thousands of Christmas cards like these. Yet I do not recall ever receiving one with John the Baptist preaching in the desert. Do you? I can picture it in my mind: a card front marred by the dead, barren wilderness of Judea out by the Jordan River, with this animated, prophetic figure as the focal point. But I have never read one that even closely resembles such a scene. Have you?
John the Baptist is totally inappropriate for the way we celebrate Christmas. Christmas is about the birth of Jesus as Matthew and Luke report that holy night many years ago. Mary, Joseph, angels, manger, shepherds, wise men; a child is born unto us. Glory to God in the highest! That is what Christmas is all about. Jesus is the reason for the season. So we honor sweet, little Jesus boy, get warm fuzzies, and hug our family members. What does John the Baptist have do with Christmas?
For Mark, everything. Instead of Bethlehem and choirs of angels, he begins the story of Jesus’ coming with a prophet blaring and baptizing in the wilderness of Judea. In so doing, he adds a new figure to the good news about the incarnation and coming of the Christ. It is John the Baptist. Throughout the centuries the church has recognized Mark’s unique contribution through its observance of Advent in preparation for the celebration of Christmas.
Darrick Acre, A Way Made Ready
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