Birth of a King | Advent 2025 Week 4
“Glory to God in heaven, and peace for the people on earth,” (Lk 2:14, Fitzmyer). This song of salvation, begun on Christmas, continues to the end of time. The world’s alternative to this salvation is optimism, a vague and tenuous feeling that everything will be alright. But in Revelation it’s crystal clear: God has invaded, invited and wooed all of creation into a multitude that sings like thunder: “Salvation and glory and power belong to our God … for the Lord our God Almighty reigns,” (19:1,7). The Child, the Lamb, the Faithful and True is King and the government is on his shoulders. Let heaven and nature sing!
To End all Wars | Advent 2025 Week 3
“There are powers that make the world,” wrote Flannery O’Connor, “and other powers that unmake it.” Halfway through Revelation is an unpopular retelling of the nativity and it’s anything but a silent night. This one involves a cosmic war between a woman’s child and a dragon reminding us of both the nature and the scale of our conflicts today. They are not simply between individuals, tribes or even nations but between good and evil – between the Child and the dragon – and at Christmas God has come into the battle Himself and judged the systems that unmake the world.
Mary had a Little Lamb
The Christmas story contains a lot of surprises: not the least of which is Jesus’ lowliness as a peasant announced to shepherds, born to a family with limited prospects, raised in an ancient near-Eastern backwater. Because the story has grown familiar to some of us, we can overlook the scandal of Jesus’ lowliness in his first coming, as we wait for a triumphant second-coming. But what if we’re in for yet another surprise? This sermon will explore John’s vision of Jesus as (simultaneously) the Lion of Judah and Lamb of God, giving us (in both Spirit and example) an invitation to see how power and gentleness can live together.
Re-enchanting Christams
“I was on the island called Patmos … I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day.” Those two sentences form the crucible in which the Revelation is given. God is with us, even when we’re alone on Patmos. He comes, not merely a child, but “one like the Son of Man approaching at an infinite speed, setting up his kingdom amidst the powers that rule the world. His kingdom “is eternal and will never be destroyed,” (Dan. 7:14). God is with us … the Voice is behind us … always closer than we think.