Ministry of the Church (5)
  1. God will undo the curse and release His creation through the resurrection. In Christ, it’s already taken place. We’re next.
  2. The text is not a legalistic set of principles. It is a description of the way things are for us, now that Christ has entered in.
  3. The creatures and the elders show us what to do now. They hit the deck, sing, and worship, so we would know what the liturgy is supposed to look and sound like.
  4. Having Romans 6 as the Epistle for the Baptism of our Lord, and paired with Luke’s account of Jesus’ baptism and Isaiah’s prophetically rich baptismal language in Isaiah 43, allows preaches to proclaim Romans 6 in a more appropriate liturgical context. It could only be better, were someone in your congregation to be baptized on this day. If that’s your situation, the sermon will almost write itself.
  5. Two major themes seem to be running through the readings for the 25th Sunday after Pentecost. The first weaves together the widow who gave of her poverty in Mark 12 and the story of the widow of Zarephath from 1 Kings 17, who also gave to the prophet everything that she had… However, the other theme comes by way of the Epistle from Hebrews 9:24-28, which is about the temple made without hands.