|
Submit Your Own! Can you Hear me Now By della mitchell Scripture Text: Mark 10:46-52 Can you hear me now @ While studying this passage of scripture a few questions came To mine. 1) Why did the writer use the setting of a road that’s crowded And leading to a city that’s rich, when so many people are Overwhelmed with and trust in their possessions. It wasn’t uncommon to see beggers on this road, but there was one in Particular beggar by the name of Bartimaeus sitting on the road- Side. Jesus and his disciples and many others were traveling on this road leading through Jericho to go to the Passover, while Walking Jesus began to tell his disciples of his purpose for being here and theirs which is to serve and to suffer. Bartimaeus just like you and I have heard of this Jesus who is the Son of David and the great miracles he has done, but when it got into Bartimaeus’s ear that Jesus was coming, he got excited and began to call out ‘Jesus Son of David’ of course he was rebuked and told to be quiet. But he called the more louder because he knew Jesus had the power to deliver he heard about him delivering the lame, the demon possess-ed, the woman with the issue of blood, Jarius daughter, the woman at the well and many others. Bartimaeus was in a place in his life he no longer wanted be, so he cried out for the only one he knew could help him, he got undignified despite his physical condition he didn’t even cared who saw him, I believe his gesture was I don’t care who your are or what you say if you can’t help me get out of my way. You see his belief and faith were so great Jesus saw his faith. You see when you get to a place were you have nothing else but faith even the size of a mustard seed the power of God will come along side that faith and mountains can be moved. My next question is did the disciples think that Jesus was to busy to meet this begger’s situation or were they so engrossed in what Jesus was telling them about his purpose. He was telling them that he had come to set the captives free, release the prisoners, and bind up the brokenhearted, like many of us when Jesus is telling us what we should be doing we miss the mark because we are preoccupied with earthly things, when we see one of our brothers or sisters hurting we tend to look the other or immediately start judging them for what we see on the outside. When Jesus has delivered you from something it’s not just for you, you should be telling someone else about the Jesus that healed you. I know a young man who is stricken with what I call the present day leprosy, when he was diagnosed with this disease he wanted to commit suicide, his family was ill informed about the disease they really didn’t want him around afraid they might be stricken with the disease, but God in his infinite wisdom had some years ago led one of the family members to the medical field this family member had first had advice about the illness, God used this family member to speak life into this young man. When God put someone in your path to lead them to him it’s because he knows you know the power of deliverance. Jesus saw the need of Bartimaeus and his great faith got the attention of Jesus the scripture say that Jesus stopped right in his track. When we get the attention of Jesus this means our approach, reverance and acknowledgement of him is real. Jesus then asked the ultimate question “WHAT CAN I DO FOR YOU”. He said oh that I might see. I believe he got more than he bargained for not only was his physical eyes opened but his spiritual eyes were open as well as with other patriarchs of the bible who demonstrated great faith Abel offered God a better sacrifice than Cain by faith he was commended as a righteous man, Abraham’s faith was counted as righteousness for him, Noah’s faith allowed him to condemn the world and he became heir of righteousness. It’s impossible to please God without faith, because faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. If the truth be told we all are desperate, blind and poor without Jesus, just like Bartimaeus. Many are saying why you say that preacher. Because all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, sin entered into the world by one man Adam who is the father of all. But God loved us so much he didn’t let us stay there without a chance This is what Jesus’ ministry was about he was born of a virgin, he was without sin yet tested and tried found guilty is the sight of man, hung on the tree crucified for the sins of the world that we might be free Thank God he loves you and me CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW @ @ Gabriel By David von Schlichten Sermon on the Coming of Christ On the Fourth Sunday of Advent, Year C, December 20, 2009, at St. James Evangelical Lutheran Church, Youngstown, PA with the Reverend Dr. David von Schlichten (word count: 820)
Voices of Christ’s Coming Sermon Series Part Four: Gabriel [use step ladder from home; wear choir robe, no cincture; remove stole for sermon] (The first half of this sermon is made-up.) I have been alive for 15 billion, five-hundred and five years. When God created me, he gave me an angel friend who quickly became my best friend. We used to have fun together. Up in heaven, we would go jogging for hours on end. We used to sing in choir together. Sometimes we’d perform duets. He had a gorgeous tenor voice, clear and pure. It floated. He could sing a high C like it was nothing. He was hilarious, too, the funniest angel in heaven. We’d have open-mike nights, and he’d get up and tell jokes. He’d have God rolling on the floor with laughter. My best friend was the funniest, cleverest, and most talented angel in heaven. He was also over-confident. One day, during second breakfast, he put down his spoon and said to me across the table. “Gabriel?” he said in a low voice. “Don’t you ever think that you could do a better job running heaven than God could?” I put down my spoon, cleared my throat. “Uh, no. No one can do a better job than God.” My friend said, “I guess you’re right.” He drank some orange juice. Then, without looking at me, he said, “I could do a better job than God.” I watched him eat. I got up and cleared my place-setting. As I placed my bowl, glass, and silverware in the dishwasher, I said to him, “Lucifer, you’re my best friend, so I have to tell you that you shouldn’t talk that way. No one is better than God.” He kept eating. Then he got up and walked out of the room. Over the next couple days, he gathered an army and led a campaign to overthrow heaven. Michael and I gathered our troops. We all met on this vast, grassy battlefield on the border between North Heaven and South Heaven. Our army was on the north side; Lucifer’s army was on the south side. I did not want to fight my best friend, but my loyalty to God came before my loyalty to friends. Michael announced, “Lucifer, we do not want to fight. Surrender now. Please.” “Never,” Lucifer said. “Lucifer! You and I have always been so close. Why are you doing this?” I yelled. He turned his head. God appeared over all of us. He sighed. He announced, “Lucifer, since you have defied my will, I shall cast you out of heaven. I hope that you will see your error and want to repent and return. You are always welcome. I love you.” With that, the ground beneath Lucifer and his army opened, and they dropped into the void beneath them. I sobbed for a week afterward. That was about fifteen billion years ago, a couple days before this universe, including the Earth, was created. Ever since then, Lucifer, or Satan, as often calls himself, has been trying to hurt God and creation. In the Garden of Eden, Satan tempted Adam and Eve to reject God. From that moment on, the whole creation has been polluted with sin. Because Adam and Eve gave in to Satan’s temptation, all of you have suffered with evil, misery, illness, and death. But, all the while, God had a plan. The plan was for the Son to come into the world, and I received the honor of announcing the Good News. My wife, the beautiful, dark-brown-eyed angel named Perfect Love, suggested that I volunteer to announce the Good News. So when God asked for someone to tell Zechariah that he would be the father of John the Baptist, I stepped forward and said, “Here am I; send me!” When God asked for someone to tell Mary that she would be the mother of the Messiah, the Son, I stepped forward again and said, “Here am I; send me!” Why? Because I understood that the coming of the Son would be the beginning of the end of Satan’s horrible rampage of bloodshed. I want to help stop Satan, so I volunteered to be the messenger to Zechariah and Mary. I volunteered for this job, too. This is the night. This is the night when the Son will be born in Bethlehem. This is the night when God sets in motion the beginning of his plan for putting a stop to my former best friend. Maybe he will finally see the error of his ways. Maybe he will finally repent and give up this insane rebellion. I want to be a part of all that. So I volunteered for this job. Down below, right down there, is a group of shepherds, tending to their sheep. They’re drinking, cussing, chewing, telling jokes. Kind of a crude group, but that’s whom God wants to hear the Good News first. I am going to swoop down, appear to the shepherds, in this warm, dark, starry night, and tell them, right now, that Christ is born, the Son. Tonight, Satan loses. Christmas is a defeat for Satan. Christmas is a victory for us. Mary By David von Schlichten Sermon on the Coming of Christ On the Third Sunday of Advent, Year C, December 13, 2009, at St. James Evangelical Lutheran Church, Youngstown, PA with the Reverend Dr. David von Schlichten (word count: 870)
Voices of Christ’s Coming Sermon Series Part Three: Mary If I tell you something totally insane, do you promise not to freak out? Okay. Okay. I feel really weird saying this. I’m kind-of pregnant. I know, right? I can’t believe it, either. Yes, I am sure. The doctor confirmed it. When I first got the news, I totally freaked out. I thought, “I’m sixteen. I’m only a sophomore. I can’t even drive, although I did get my permit. Anyway, what do I know about being a mom? I really need your support. Thanks. You’re the best. Who’s the father? Ah, yeah, good question. No, it’s not Joseph. He doesn’t even know yet. I don’t know how I’m going to tell him. He is totally going to freak out, especially when I tell him who the father is. You see, the problem is, there sort-of is no father, at least not a regular father. Okay, please promise that you won’t think I’m insane. Well, you know that I’ve always been pretty religious, right? I go to temple every Friday night. I’m actually pretty good friends with our rabbi, Rabbi Dave. He’s been teaching me Hebrew. I keep kosher. I pray, like, all the time, especially during geometry. I know lots of teenagers hate going to temple or church or whatever, but I actually look forward to it. So anyway, a few weeks ago, I was home by myself. Mom and Dad were out. Joseph was away. I was home watching the Penguins, and suddenly the TV shut off. And then standing in front of me was this tall man. He was probably, like, over six feet tall, and he was old, like forty. He was wearing a white suit and had a green glow to him. My heart was going like crazy. I was terrified. I was like, “Please, God, protect me from this guy.” Then the guy spoke to me. He had a voice that was sort of like a trumpet. He said, “Mary of Youngstown, do not be afraid, for you have found favor with God.” I figured this was probably an angel or something. I breathed deeper like I was meditating, cleared my head, put my trust in God. The angel sat next to me on the couch. He put a hand on my shoulder, and I felt this pulsing warmth all throughout me. He said, “Mary, God has chosen you to become the mother of the Messiah, the Savior. You will become pregnant, and you will have a son and name him Jesus. He will be great, because he will save his people.” You know what? I believed him. For some reason, I just knew that this was for real, but I wondered, like, how that could be. I’ve never had sex, so I didn’t know how I could become pregnant. So I said, “How will this come about with me being, like, you know, a virgin?” He laughed. “Good question. The Holy Spirit will overshadow you and make you pregnant. So the child will be holy, the Son of God.” I nodded, but I was imagining people at school calling me a slut. I imagined how Joseph would take the news. I imagined my parents freaking out. My rabbi. What would people say? How would I continue going to school? And once he was born, how was I going to have time to go to school and be a mom? And how do you even begin to raise the Son of God? It’s hard enough to be a mom when you have a regular kid. Would raising the Son of God be easier or harder or both? I wondered about all that in an instant, but I knew that, if God were behind this, then this would all somehow work out, right? So I sat up straighter, swallowed hard, looked the angel right into his eyes, which were dark brown but also glowing green, and I said to him, “Here I am, God’s servant. Whatever he wants, let it happen.” The angel and I hugged. Then he left, and the TV came back on. You think I’m crazy, right? I think I’m crazy, it’s real. I know it is. I told Rabbi Dave, and he believes me. I’ve been throwing up, and I’ve been having these weird dreams. Like, last night, I had a horrible one, a nightmare. I saw this man, and I could just tell that he was my son all grown up. I saw him standing in a room, surrounded by a mob. They were shouting for him to be killed, and then some big guys walked up to him and started slapping him around. I screamed and woke up. What’s that about? But you know what’s really crazy? I’m sixteen, I’m pregnant, my boyfriend’s not the father, the Holy Spirit is the father, my son’s going to be the Son of God, I’m having nightmares about him. I should be freaking out, and I am. But you know what ? I can’t wait. I’m ready. “God, I am ready.” John By David von Schlichten Sermon on Advent On the Second Sunday of Advent, Year C, December 6, 2009, at St. James Evangelical Lutheran Church, Youngstown, PA with the Reverend Dr. David von Schlichten (word count: 533)
Voices of Christ’s Coming Sermon Series Part Two: John In a couple hours I’ll be dead. I can feel it. I’ve been rotting here in this dungeon for months, waiting for death. It’s just a matter of time. Herod is corrupt and cowardly. He respects me, but he doesn’t have enough of a backbone and integrity to set me free. He’ll kill me. Any day now. I guess I could have kept myself out of jail if I had shut my mouth, but I wasn’t about to do that. God has chosen me to be his prophet, his messenger, who prepares the world for Christ’s coming, so that’s what I did. I stood in the wilderness. I lived off the land, eating locusts I roasted over a fire and then dipped in wild honey. I yelled at people, “Repent! Get it together! The savior is coming, and you need to get ready by cleaning up your lives.” Hundreds of people would shuffle forward in a line so that I could dunk them, one by one, into the golden river, fish darting around us, the water warm and brilliant. “Repent, be baptized, prepare for his coming. Ready the royal road!” That was my message. When company’s coming, you clean your house. Christ is coming, so clean your heart. Repent, pray, serve the neighbor. Get ready. Many of the scribes, Pharisees, and other religious big-shots hated my message, because I was often critical of them. “You brood of vipers!” I said to them, “who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” They hated my harshness, but that was what the Holy Spirit pushed me to proclaim. I smell like soil. I sleep in a cave alone. A part of me longs for a wife to lie next to and kiss, for children, a house to live in, a regular profession. But this is the calling that God has put around my neck. God called me to this mission even before I was born. An angel appeared to my father Zechariah when he was an old man. The angel told him that I would be born. Dad didn’t believe it, because he and mom were elderly. So the angel struck him mute. Dad could not speak until after I was born and he announced that my name would be John. That was at my bris. Mom told me that when Dad started talking after having been silent all that time, you could have heard a pin drop. And Dad told everyone there about me, that I was going to be the prophet of the Most High, who would go before the Lord to prepare his way. That was my mission, sent from heaven, my destiny, and I have lived it out. I have been lonely and in pain, but I have no regrets. I have lived doing the right thing: preparing people for Christ. Now a guard enters the prison. He tells me to lay my head on this flat rock in front of me. “Herod wants your head,” he says. This is it. I am finished. The guard will cut my head off, and I will be in the arms of God in heaven. “Father, into your hands I commit my spi-” SATAN By David von Schlichten Sermon on the Second Coming On the First Sunday of Advent, Year C, November 29, 2009, at St. James Evangelical Lutheran Church, Youngstown, PA with the Reverend Dr. David von Schlichten (word count: 859)
Voices of Christ’s Coming Sermon Series Part One: Satan
Over and over across billions of years I have tried to ruin God’s plans, and, ultimately, I always fail. You would think that I would stop trying, but I refuse. Way back, millions of years ago, when Adam and Eve committed the first sin, I thought I had beaten God. His precious, beautiful humans had sinned. Now there would be death and misery. I figured that God would get angry and destroy his creation. I was ready to roll on the ground laughing at God’s failure. I love when God fails. Nothing brings me lower joy. But God did not destroy creation, or even Adam and Eve. He was angry, all right, but he chose to preserve creation. In fact, God came up with a Plan B that was far better than Plan A. Plan A was for humanity to live in the Garden of Eden forever, and Adam and Eve derailed that. Plan B was for the Son to come into the world, die on the cross, and rise from the dead so that everyone could live forever in heaven. Think about it. Instead of humans living forever in Eden, an earthly paradise, now, because of Christ, humans get to live forever in the heavenly paradise, which is infinitely better than any Garden of Eden could ever be. Incredible! God takes Adam and Eve’s blunder and transforms it into an opportunity to do something even better for the human race! God’s always doing things like that, taking human sin and transforming it into blessings. How does he do that? I hate it! God drives me insane. He loves torturing me with his ideas of how to love humans even when they hate him. It’s terrible. You should feel sorry for me. I am the biggest victim in the universe, because God is forever ruining my plans. I try to stop him, I achieve some victories, but, in the long run, he always manages to warp my victories into defeats for me and even greater victories for him. I am a prisoner. I am a prisoner to a God who lets me win the short run but dooms me to failure in the long run. My hands are tied, literally. Way back on the first Good Friday, after he died and before he rose, Christ came down here and tied my hands behind my back down here in hell. He said, “Reject evil, follow me, and I’ll untie your hands.” But I refuse. I will not give in. What makes matters even worse is that, one of these days – I have no idea when – Christ will come back and finish me off. It is a certainty. I am doomed. My days are numbered. So why don’t I just give up? If I gave up and turned back to God, God would untie my hands and save me from destruction. The universe would become a much better place. Everyone would be happier, including me. If I would just turn back to God. But I refuse to turn back to God, and you know why? Pride. I am way too proud to turn back to God. I will never, ever give in to him. I refuse. So while I wait for Christ to return to earth to defeat me once and for all, I am doing whatever I can to make life as miserable as possible for the human race and the rest of creation. I start wars, stir up natural disasters, enable drunkenness, drug abuse, and affairs. Even better is that, when one of these awful events happen, I get people to blame God and turn away from him. I love it! People suffer, and instead of blaming me, they blame God. Perfect! Hey, I maybe be doomed to fail ultimately, but at least I can have fun while I await my annihilation. Speaking of Christ’s second coming, one way I have fun is by getting people all panicky about the end of the world. I love doing that! I start rumors about the Maya calendar, Nostradamus, and the book of Revelation, and soon people are going crazy. Then some of them start being judgmental with each other. They start saying things to each other like, “You’re going to hell and I’m not; I am way better than you.” People being self-righteous and judgmental is music to my ears. I love when the air reeks of doom and gloom anxiety about the end of the world and the snobby self-righteousness that grows out of it! It’s great! Hah! Take that, God! Take that – no, look who it is! Agh, God always does this to me. When I get all worked up like this, God sends this angel. Her name is Perfect Love. God sends her down here to try to subdue me. She is the most beautiful angel I have ever seen. Her large, dark brown eyes, her halo of gold – so gorgeous! I cannot look into the eyes of Perfect Love or my hatred will soften. I look away. I am Satan! I refuse to look into the eyes of Perfect Love. I refuse to give in to God. [First Page] [Prev] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 [Next] [Last Page] Return |
