RoboPreacher

transform my tragedy A sermon on Jesus' inexplicable baptism Today is the Baptism of Our Lord . It marks the completion of the season that began in Advent. If Lent is 40 days leading to Easter , Advent and Christmas are roughly the same thing leading up to today , the Baptism of Our Lord . Nevertheless, or perhaps because of this, we are unsure of what to do with this day. The strange thing, though, is the biblical witness is unequivocal . Jesus was baptized by John . This is something all four Gospels report. And I know that may seem obvious. But when you set each Gospel side by side, you realize it’s an anomaly when something turns up in all four Gospels, not just two or three of them.   However , when you compare how Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John report Jesus’ baptism, you begin to suspect they, too , are a little uneasy with Jesus ’ baptism. In today’s Gospel, for instance, you get the distinct impression Luke is trying to rush you along. Luke, who has a penchant for st...

i can learn to be easy The holy Gospel according to St. Luke the 3rd chapter ! Bypassing all the usual lackeys, the Word of God goes right up the line. Past the governor, and finally even over the head of the Emperor himself! In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius the word of God comes to not a single one of those men in power …   Neither , though, does the word of God come to the High Priest in the temple . Instead , the word of God comes to John .   John, the son of a priest. John, who apparently has nothing to do with the priesthood, though . John who’s doing ministry outside the temple, in the wilderness .   Yet, it is him , of all people, that the word of God comes! And the word of God comes to him, no less, while he’s out there in the wilderness .   Whatever else it is, the wilderness is the opposite of civilization . The wilderness is what lies on the other side of our tamed world. And it is there that the word of God comes every time. J...

upon our eyes Sermon on Jesus' Baptism; Luke 3:1-22 : There’s a book I haven’t read. A movie was made of it, though; and I have seen that. “Big Fish.” It’s basically a Father/Son story. The son, a consummate practicalist; and the father… The father who is, well, always telling these tall tales .  The son can’t stand it, and wishes for nothing more than his father to face up to reality.  It all comes to a head in the father’s last days. As his death comes, the son expects his father to finally give up the charade . The father, though , doesn’t . The father doesn’t, predictably, because of another one of his far-fetched stories… …When he was a boy, says the father, he and some buddies dared one another to run to the door of a dilapidated building on the edge of town. Rumor was, a witch lived there. And if you looked her in the eye, you’d see you own death… As the father tells it, he went to the door. And when the witch jumped out, he calmly asked her t...