More easily than we think, our failure to respect and fear, love and trust in God above all things, can eat away at our peace, our joy, our life itself.
Preach the whole story, the whole macro narrative through the themes of Epiphany: light, illumination, baptism, enlightenment and divine glorification through Jesus Christ.
As we celebrate Advent and Christmas, we flex the muscles of a new season, a new year, a new life which His resurrection and our baptisms have bestowed upon us.
Advent is a time of expectation, it is a time of remembrance, it is a time of hope, and it is especially a time of preparation by faith for all His comings.
Advent is something of a liturgical speed bump that slows us down lest we rush to Christmas but forget that the baby born in Bethlehem will return with glory and power to judge the living and the dead.
If I were to stand in the pulpit and tell my pew-sitters to take the tenth leper as their model and be thankful, it would ignore how such thanks truly comes about.
Preaching in the autumn of the Church Year reminds us that in the midst of death there is life, for the crucified King has been raised from the grave and all who trust in Him will live with Him in a kingdom which has no end.
Jesus is the ultimate, endearing, and definitive answer to the world’s problems, not any political party or ideology, nor any religion or the combination of the two.