Over the past few weeks, I've been giving a lot of thought to our upcoming Advent season. In our tradition, we typically add Wednesday worship times to our regular Sunday times. What I have typically done is have two separate themes, one for Sunday and one for Wednesday. This year is the same.
For Sundays, my plan is to focus on the words that we hear each week from one of the Old Testament prophets. Just for kicks, I'm going to call my "series", "Voices on the Edge." I chose this name because that is really what the prophets were. They were not the well-liked, acceptable people that we so often tend to think they were. They said things that people didn't want to hear. They were often despised, and their messages often placed their lives in danger. They truly were voices on the edge of society.
The thing that has struck me throughout my time of preparation for this series is just how "on the edge" God's voice really is. So often we tend to think of God as someone we would want as our best friend. Many of our hymns and songs paint a picture of God walking alongside us, gentle and caring and not saying anything "mean" to anyone. And while there are elements of that which contain a degree of truth, the fact is, God also says things that so often seem to push His voice to the edge.
That's one of the interesting things I see in Jesus. People wanted to be close to Jesus. So many people liked what He said and what He did. And yet, it seems that they were turned off by the things He said and did just as much as they liked them. Jesus would proclaim things like God's compassion and grace, but would also proclaim God's justice and wrath at sin and wrongdoing. Because of these dual messages, people found themselves drawn to Him while, at the same time, repelled by what He was saying.
That same message is found throughout the prophets. As we hear the familiar words which come with the Advent and Christmas seasons, it would do us good to be reminded that the words they said weren't exactly loved and accepted by the people of their time. It is only in retrospect that we can see the importance and impact that their words had on the coming Savior, whose birth we will be celebrating in about a month.
Those voices on the edge show us God in the various ways that He reveals Himself. Sometimes they draw us to God, especially as we see His compassion, grace, and promise. Sometimes they repel us, as we hear about God's justice and the wrath that comes because of our wrongdoing. And then, sometimes, we find ourselves joining those voices out on the edge, clinging to God and His spokespeople through faith.
For Sundays, my plan is to focus on the words that we hear each week from one of the Old Testament prophets. Just for kicks, I'm going to call my "series", "Voices on the Edge." I chose this name because that is really what the prophets were. They were not the well-liked, acceptable people that we so often tend to think they were. They said things that people didn't want to hear. They were often despised, and their messages often placed their lives in danger. They truly were voices on the edge of society.
The thing that has struck me throughout my time of preparation for this series is just how "on the edge" God's voice really is. So often we tend to think of God as someone we would want as our best friend. Many of our hymns and songs paint a picture of God walking alongside us, gentle and caring and not saying anything "mean" to anyone. And while there are elements of that which contain a degree of truth, the fact is, God also says things that so often seem to push His voice to the edge.
That's one of the interesting things I see in Jesus. People wanted to be close to Jesus. So many people liked what He said and what He did. And yet, it seems that they were turned off by the things He said and did just as much as they liked them. Jesus would proclaim things like God's compassion and grace, but would also proclaim God's justice and wrath at sin and wrongdoing. Because of these dual messages, people found themselves drawn to Him while, at the same time, repelled by what He was saying.
That same message is found throughout the prophets. As we hear the familiar words which come with the Advent and Christmas seasons, it would do us good to be reminded that the words they said weren't exactly loved and accepted by the people of their time. It is only in retrospect that we can see the importance and impact that their words had on the coming Savior, whose birth we will be celebrating in about a month.
Those voices on the edge show us God in the various ways that He reveals Himself. Sometimes they draw us to God, especially as we see His compassion, grace, and promise. Sometimes they repel us, as we hear about God's justice and the wrath that comes because of our wrongdoing. And then, sometimes, we find ourselves joining those voices out on the edge, clinging to God and His spokespeople through faith.
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