Presby-Musings

The passage of Scripture that I read today for my daily Bible reading came from the book of Revelation chapter 7.  I'm reading through the New Testament again this year, and am nearing the end, so I'm making my way through the rambling writings of John the Revelator once more.   The passage I read today describes a scene of cosmic worship and praise.  The Revelator writes:  I looked again. I saw a huge crowd, too huge to count. Everyone was there—all nations and tribes, all races and languages. And they were standing, dressed in white robes and waving palm branches, standing before the Throne and the Lamb and heartily singing: Salvation to our God on his Throne! Salvation to the Lamb! All who were standing around the Throne—Angels, Elders, Animals—fell on their faces before the Throne and worshiped God, singing: Oh, Yes! The blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving, The honor and power and strength, To our God forever and ever and ever! Oh, Yes...

This Sunday we will be celebrating what is officially known as "The Epiphany of our Lord," the day that ends the season of Christmas (the famous "12 Days") and begins the season of Epiphany in the Church.  I didn't make these things up, people.  Christians have been celebrating this stuff for a good long time, and I kind of dig it, to be honest. But what does "Epiphany" actually mean, and why should we even care about any of this stuff anyway?   To begin with, "epiphany" is a word that essentially means "realization," or more specifically, "inspired realization."  When you have an epiphany you know it.  You feel it in your bones.  It's more important than realizing that you took a wrong turn on the way to Albuquerque and ended up in Hoboken.  That would be a seriously wrong turn, I might add.   An epiphany is when you realize something that has the potential to change your life, the way you think about ...

This Sunday is marked on the official church calendar as "Baptism of Our Lord Sunday"---the day that the church universal reflects on the meaning and implications of baptism, and looks to the example of Jesus to figure all of that out.   So, pretty important day. Which makes the choice of my main Scripture a tad interesting, since I am basically focusing on what happens AFTER Jesus' baptism---an account in Luke chapter 4 where Jesus is led into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. I'll get to why I am preaching from that passage instead of the passage before it in just a moment. Before we do that, however, let's get a little bit of the "story behind the story," so to speak: 15 The people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in their hearts if John might possibly be the Messiah. 16 John answered them all, “I baptize you with[a] water. But one who is more powerful than I will come, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to...

When I was a kid, one of the characters in the Bible that intrigued me more than most was John the Baptist .  I remember reading the description of this wild man from the desert, who preached that the Messiah was coming and baptized people in a river, and my imagination was sparked.  John the Baptist looked, dressed and acted like a lunatic. It was said that he wore camel hair clothes---not the cool, hipster sort of camel hair, but real, gross, wiry camel hair that smelled like camels.  And he had a leather belt tied around his waist to hold the smelly camel hair in place.  I always imagined this belt was big and wide---the sort of belt that a pirate would wear to stuff his pistols and sword into while he swashbuckled. Then came the kicker:  John the Baptist ate locusts and wild honey.  This freaked me out as a kid. Heck, it freaks me out as an adult.  I ate a chocolate covered grasshopper once.  It was crunchy and tasted like chocolate, but...

What motivates your faith? Fear? Desire to be a better person? Tradition?  Ritual? I was thinking a lot about that this week as I am preparing for my last sermon of this season of Advent, and given the time of year my thoughts wandered a bit to Christmas-y memories.  When I was a kid my faith in Santa Claus was founded on one thing and one thing only.  If I wasn't a good boy, he wasn't giving me jack for Christmas.  There are songs about this belief.  Hymns, to it, if you will. "You better watch out, you better not cry, you better not pout, I'm telling you why...  Santa Claus is coming to town...." Does anyone else find this creepy, but me?  And the song got worse, right? "He sees you when you're sleeping, he knows when you're awake, he knows when you've been bad or good, so be good for goodness' sake..."   You know, it doesn't really matter how we try to sugar coat this whole Christmas/Santa Claus thing---in the end it al...