κήρυξον τὸν λόγον

When we read the Christmas Gospel according to Saint Luke, as we did on Christmas Eve ... 1.     We are reminded how much we need the interpretation and proclamation of angels to herald what has just happened.  Had it not been for an angel enlightening the night sky, the shepherds never would have thought to go to the bump in a road in Galilee called Bethlehem to see the baby. Even if they had, they never would have thought they could see in the swaddling clothes a Savior, let alone the savior of the entire world.  A baby? ... from Bethlehem? ... is going to save us???!!!   They never would have thought to look into a manger of all places, a smelly sheep stall, thinking that God Incarnate would be found there ... in the midst of our darkness and decay. They never would have thought that a virgin from Nowhere Nazareth would be the mother of God.  How could they? What good comes out of Nazareth?   Think about this for a moment ... If it hadn’t be...

In him was life, and the life was the light of men. Before you can have life, you must have light. The two almost always go together. You don’t find life without light, although you may find life at the end of a life cycle. You don’t see great civilizations rising up inside unlit caverns. Nor do you find real faith and hope and love growing in spiritual darkness. To have life of any kind, you must first have light.  It is this basic fact that makes Christmas so important to all of us. For, when Jesus was born in Bethlehem, the light of the world began to shine in the darkness ... giving life to our souls. At the birth of Jesus Christ, the Light of the Gospel burst forth as God came into the world, reilluminating humanity, overcoming the darkness of death by giving us his life through his light.  CHRISTMAS IS THE FESTIVAL OF THE LIGHT OF LIFE I.     It begins with God ... In him was life and the life was the light of men. ... He is the Light of the World. There i...

THE PEOPLE WHO WALK IN DARKNESS HAVE SEEN A GREAT LIGHT 1. Light isn’t supposed to shine in darkness. Except that it did in the genesis of creation. In the beginning there was darkness. And God said, Let there be light. And there was Light. And God saw that the light was good. He separated the light from the darkness, and the light he called day, and the darkness he called night.  So God gave us time. And it was good. Until it wasn’t. It was in the day that Adam and Eve wanted to know the darkness. All of a sudden, darkness was used for covering sin. The beautiful couple no longer liked what they saw in the day. So they used leaves to conceal the darkness of their shame. Since their walk of shame couldn’t get them far enough away, they hid in the shadows of the trees ... until they saw a great light. God came walking where his people had tramped in sin.  He came calling for Adam and Eve. He asked ... though he knew their evil ... and he called ... though he saw their hiding pl...

Deuteronomy 18:15-19 I don’t know if you were listening a few minutes ago, but we have a listening problem. We think we listen. Some of us even think we are good listeners ... but very rarely, do we ever really listen. If when we do, listening actually takes skill ... like deer hunting or playing major league baseball. It requires us to be patient, and silent, even as the world around us screams for our attention.  There are all kinds of reasons we don’t listen. Most often, it’s because we think too highly of ourselves. We convince ourselves that we are right and therefore others must be wrong. We convince ourselves a problem is someone else’s fault; that others are treating us unfairly. We think others will manipulate us in our listening, and so we don’t listen.  Truth is, we have a listening problem ... we don’t want to listen.  Listening scares us.  This problem is as old as mankind. Adam and Eve didn’t listen. The world didn’t listen to Noah. The Israelites wande...