Advent Week 1

Psalm: Psalm 122  

Old Testament: Isaiah 2:1-5  
Gospel: Matthew 24:36-44  
Epistle: Romans 13:11-14

I have decided to write some more posts on the Lectionary since I wasn’t writing very much on other topics. Hopefully we can all grow in Christ and we can teach each other some things.

Another season of Advent is upon us. For many, the decorations are already up and the shopping season has started before the Thanksgiving dishes were washed and put up. But, I want to pause and again ask a question we have pondered on this blog before: whose time is it? So often we want to know what time it is. What time is the football game? When is the meeting? How many days until Christmas? These questions all have a numerical answer, but the question of whose time is it has a person as an answer; it is God’s time. Advent is the start of the Christian Calendar and it is always good to pause and reconsider the fact that God is the Creator and the Sustainer of all creation. Time and creation have a goal and are heading in the direction of God’s Kingdom coming fully. We celebrate during the Advent season, and especially the Christmas season, that God is not only over time, but that he also entered into our time and space in the person of Jesus. God actually became a helpless baby, lived and breathed, died, was buried, and then rose again to redeem and restore creation and time.  Jesus' life and death provide the means whereby God’s rule over time can be complete.

Ordinary Time Week 25

Psalm: Psalm 145:1-5, 17-21 or Psalm 17:1-9
  or Psalm 98

Old Testament: Haggai 1:15b-2:9 or Job 19:23-27a
Gospel: Luke 20:27-38

Epistle: 2 Thessalonians 2:1-5, 13-17

Welcome to another Sunday in the life of the Church--the Presence of Christ on the earth. We stand as a Kingdom set apart and bear witness to the fullness of the Kingdom that will come at Christ's return. These are important things to remember especially as we prepare for the election in the USA this week. The Church and the State are not one and the same and are often in conflict. Christ's reign was inaugurated on a cross and although it is for all people, it is message is one particularly for the marginalized, the poor, and the weak. The world can't understand the cross. It can't understand that in God's Kingdom the way to greatness is through service; the way to glorification is to die to self and pick up the cross. The Apostle Paul wrote that, “we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness.” (1 Corinthians 1:23) The cross is only understood through faith.