Sermon Archives - 2005
3rd Sunday of Advent, 12/11/2005 -"Who Are You, Sweet Little Jesus Boy?", The Rev. Sally Brown
During the season of Advent it is important not only to find our way to Bethlehem, but to also know the child in the manger. "Who Are You, Sweet Little Jesus Boy?" is a question that we must all answer, else we will not fully understand the meaning of the incarnation. Mary, Jesus’ mother, and John the Baptist, two unlikely souls, tell us who Jesus is. The voices of Mary singing the Magnificat and John shouting “prepare the way of the Lord,” echo throughout the generations to tell us that Jesus is more than a “sweet little boy.” Do we know him? What does he ask of you?
2nd Sunday of Advent, 12/04/2005 -"A Christmas Homecoming", Dr. John W. Miller
The lyrics from Irving Berlin, "I'm dreaming of a White Christmas, just like the ones I used to know" evoke memories of home. A young couple, a man and a pregnant teenaged girl, traveled many, many miles to go home again to Bethlehem. They make a home of a unique and strange place, a stable. Home, finally, ultimately is that manger in Bethlehem. Home is where Christ is, where we know ourselves to be loved, cared for, never forgotten, and ultimately, finally, fully at peace at home.
1st Sunday of Advent, 11/27/2005 -"Christ is Coming!", Dr. John W. Miller
The gospel reading for the First Sunday of Advent is the passage from Mark 13: 24-37, about Christ coming again. This future promise gives us the comfort and the courage to live in the present. While we are to be alert and await Christ's coming again, as the slaves expect the return of the master of the household, so too are we to be at work in our waiting, working for Christ's coming again.
Thanksgiving Eve, 11/23/2005 -"Gratitude and Wholeness", Dr. John W. Miller
Gratitude is the basic human response to the goodness of God's grace and love in our lives. For the heart of our Christian experience is not guilt, is not even obligation, but is gratitude for what God has done in our lives: God's grace, God's gift of all life, is a gift we cannot earn or buy. Faith without gratitude for what God has done in our lives may not even be faith at all. May you know God's wholeness, God's well being, God's salvation as you too live a life of gratitude, not only in this season, but your whole life long.
Christmas Eve, 12/24/2004 -"Christmas Expectations", Dr. John W. Miller
Expectations for ourselves, for our family and for the church during the Christmas holidays can take super human powers to meet them. Our expectations require everything to be perfect. But if we look at the birth story of Jesus, everything was not perfect. The expectations were different. The inn was full and the baby is born in a manger. Christmas reminds us that God came into the world in Bethlehem in a humble human birth to show us how deeply and dearly that God loves us. God's expectation for Christmas is that we invite the Christ child to come into lives, into our homes and into our hearts.
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