Preachrblog

Matthew 21:1-11 Advent 1 November 27th, 2016 “The Manifold Coming of Christ” If you just came to church today and heard our Gospel reading, you might think that someone had messed up the scheduled readings for the day. After all, Matthew 21 is the Palm Sunday reading – we usually hear that the week before Easter. Jesus makes his triumphant entry into Jerusalem, Holy Week begins, and soon his suffering and death are at hand. The crowds welcome him as the Son of David, but then turn on him and shout, “Crucify!”. So what are we doing now, at the beginning of Advent, reading about Palm Sunday? Is this like “Christmas in July” only, backwards? What is our lectionary thinking today – beginning the Church Year with Jesus' donkey ride into Zion? Perhaps it's best to review what Advent means – in a word, it means, “coming”. Jesus is coming. Jesus is coming as a little baby in Bethlehem. That's Christmas. He's also coming again in glory to judge the living and the dead. That...

“A Vision of All the Saints” Rev. 7:9-17 In a well-known movie, “Dead Poets Society”, Robin Williams played a poetry teacher at an elite boarding school for teenage boys. His unorthodox teaching style engaged the students in high contrast to the otherwise stuffy and straight-laced expectations of their parents and teachers. In a well-known scene early in the movie, he takes his whole class downstairs to the exhibit hall where he shows them old pictures of boys who attended the school in generations past. As the camera zooms in on these ghostly figures of a bygone era, the teacher tells the students to listen to their predecessors – listen closely – and you will hear them whispering, “Carpe Diem”, which of course means “Seize the day”. The teacher challenges his students “make your lives extraordinary”. It's all very poetic, and maybe even inspiring on some level. And in a way, it reminds me of the picture we see today in our reading from Revelation. There, John s...