A Devotional Guide on an Icy Sunday Morning
December 8, 2013
With the icy conditions this morning, it is
prudent to stay at home. But even though
we are staying home, we are not alone.
Our Loving God remains with us! I
invite you to spend a few moments in quiet meditation as we focus on the tender
mercies of our God. You might want to
find a quiet place. If you have a candle
available, the light from the candle may be a calming presence for you as we
prepare to worship.
Call to
Worship: Blessed be the LORD, the
God of Israel, who alone does wonderful things.
Blessed be His glorious name forever, may His glory fill the whole
earth. Amen and Amen.[1]
Opening
Hymn: Sing or read aloud Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus (#196 in The United Methodist Hymnal):
Come, thou long
expected Jesus,
born to set thy people
free;
from our fears and sins
release us,
let us find our rest in
thee.
Israel’s strength and
consolation,
hope of all the earth
thou art;
dear desire of every
nation,
joy of every longing heart.
Born thy people to
deliver,
born a child and yet a
king,
born to reign in us
forever,
now thy gracious
kingdom bring.
By thine own eternal
spirit
rule in all our hearts
alone;
by thine all sufficient
merit,
raise us to thy glorious throne.[2]
Call to Confession: Let us lay before God and one another the distances
between us, the impatience, idolatries, and lack of compassion that form our
confessions this day. For if we say we
have no sin, we deceive ourselves. Yet
in mercy, God will forgive us and renew us.
Let us join together in our prayer of confession.
Prayer of Confession: Gracious
and welcoming God, have mercy on Your people.
We confess that we struggle to trust Your incarnation. We fail to heed Your Word each day in all
that we say and do. We do not see our neighbors,
families and friends as beloved children whom You have made. In Your mercy, forgive us, for we repent of
our ways and look to Your power to heal us and raise us up, so that, at the
last, You will gather us to You and give us peace. Amen.
Words of Assurance: The reign of God has come near; the repentant will
be judged with righteousness. We are forgiven. Be filled with hope, believing in the power
of the risen Christ to bring you to new life.
Rejoice and believe.
Gospel Lesson: Our Gospel
Lesson this morning is from the Gospel according to Matthew, Chapter 3, verses 1
through 12. As you read these words, listen
for the Word of the Lord.
In those days John the Baptist
came, preaching in the Desert of Judea and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of
heaven is near.”
This is he who was spoken of
through the prophet Isaiah:
“A voice of one calling in the desert, ‘Prepare the way for the
Lord, make straight paths for Him.’”
John’s clothes were made of camel’s hair, and he had a leather belt
around his waist. His food was locusts
and wild honey.
People went out to him from
Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan.
Confessing their sins, they were
baptized by him in the Jordan River.
But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where
he was baptizing, he said to them: “You
brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee
from the coming wrath?
Produce fruit in keeping with
repentance.
And do not think you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our
father.’ I tell you that out of these
stones God can raise up children for Abraham.
The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does
not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.
I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me will come one who is more
powerful than I, whose sandals I am not fit to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and
with fire.
His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will clear His threshing
floor, gathering His wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with
unquenchable fire.”[3]
The Word of God for the
People of God. Thanks be to God!
Meditation: “Looking for a Change”
I don’t know if John and I would have gotten
along very well together.
He was a strange sort of character. He grew up in a religious home—his father
Zechariah was a priest—so John would have been raised in the Temple. John would have gone through the normal
rituals of a young Jewish boy—studying in the Temple, celebrating his bar mitzvah at the age of 13. Something about organized religion didn’t
appeal to John. If he were living today,
would he have claimed to be “spiritual but not religious”? Or did he go into the wilderness to cultivate
a depth of spirituality that he did not find in Temple practice?
John clearly had experienced a call to prepare
the way of the Lord and to announce the “Good News” but his methods were hardly
designed to win friends and influence people.
His style was to confront his listeners with their need for repentance.
I am a non-confrontational sort of guy. I wonder sometimes if John’s approach of
calling the religious leaders a “brood of vipers” was the most prudent way of
preaching the Good News. Maybe they
needed a radical wake-up call. But even
more troubling was his habit of insisting that we repent and change direction
in our spiritual lives. Repenting is not
something we look forward to. We do not
like to leave our comfort zones or to change directions in our lives, but that
is exactly what it means to repent. It
means to “turn around.” When we are at
our wits end, we may find that a change in direction is the only way out.
I find that the call to repent—to turn around—can
operate on different levels.
First, there is the big decision to claim the
name of Jesus Christ. This is a huge
step; but it is only the first step on our spiritual journey. Many people mistakenly feel that they can
offer a prayer of commitment, seeking forgiveness for sins, and walk away with
an eternal insurance policy. If that is
all the further they develop in their spiritual lives, they miss out on the
opportunities God offers to transform them and change them.
This sort of repentance is an everyday
thing. It also begins with a decision—but
it is not a decision simply to try harder to live a more moral, ethical life
(although morals and ethics do matter!).
This sort of repentance is a daily surrender of every aspect of our
lives to God, giving God control over our lives and opening ourselves up to
receive God’s transforming power in our lives.
Last Friday evening, Carol and I went out to
dinner with David, Nicole, Ethan and Grace.
Ethan was having a tough time sitting still—restaurants can become
boring to a three year-old. David
finally had to have a heart-to-heart talk with Ethan and told him that if he
had any hope of getting cookies after dinner, Ethan had to “turn it around.” He had to change his behavior. It was only because Ethan was able to make
the decision to change his behavior that he was able to enjoy the rest of the
evening with the family.
The same thing happens to all of us, but the
stakes are much greater than a cookie.
God invites us to open our lives to change so that we can experience
what Jesus called “living abundantly” (John
10:10).
On this day, you have some extra minutes to
rest. You can choose to spend those
minutes caught up in business “as usual.”
But I hope that instead, you will seize the opportunity to offer your
heart and life to God’s transforming love.
Are you looking for a change?
Look for God—Emmanuel, God is with us!
May it be so!
Closing
Prayer: Our closing prayer this morning is a song, Change My Heart, O God (#2152 in The Faith We Sing).
Change my heart, O God,
make it ever true.
Change my heart, O God,
may I be like you.
You are the Potter,
I am the clay.
Mold me and make me,
this is what I pray.
Change my heart, O God,
make it ever true.
Change my heart, O God,
may I be like you.[4]
Blessing: May the life-changing grace of Jesus Christ
transform you, may the love of God embrace you, and may the power of the Holy
Spirit fill you this day! Amen.
Go in peace!
Copyright © 2013 by Thomas E. Frost. All rights reserved.
[1] The Call to Worship, Prayer of Confession and Words of
Assurance are taken from Kimberly Braken Long, ed., Feasting on the Word: Liturgies
for year A, Volume1, (Louisville:
Westminster John Know Press, 2013),p 5-6.
[2] Charles Wesley, Come, Thou
Long-Expected Jesus,” in The United
Methodist Hymnal (Nashville: The
United Methodist Publishing House, 1989), 196.
[3] Matthew 3:1-12 in The Holy Bible: New International Version (Grand Rapids,
Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House,
1985), 1499.
[4] Eddie Espinosa, “Change My
Heart, O God,” in The Faith We Sing
(Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2000), 2152.
No comments:
Post a Comment