Intersections

What are you looking forward to doing tonight? Hopefully, this is the highlight of Christmas Eve for most of you. I know it is for me. I am blessed to be worshipping and celebrating the birth of our Lord & Savior, Jesus Christ. After the service, my family and I will go to Tadj’s cousin’s house to visit with family we don’t see as often as I think we would like. We’ve packed the kids’ pajamas, so we know we’ll leave late. Those kids need to get into bed once we get home because you know who will stop by.  We’ve been preparing for weeks, and now here we are. I hope tonight lives up to all the ads which have been touting how you’re supposed to feel on Christmas. I hope you’re warm (especially tonight) and loving, even if your wallets are empty. Tonight is a night for peace and joy.  Several years ago, when Aaron was just a baby, we went through Franke Park for the light display. But we went on Christmas Day, at five o’clock, right after it got dark - or maybe it was seven. But we wer

Two men made their way to the city’s edge one day. One was quite young, only 20 years old, but with an awesome responsibility on his shoulders. The other was more mature. He’d been around for a while and seen a few things. As they walked, he tried to encourage the young man. He had advised for a long time that Judah should stay out of entangling alliances, promising that God would intervene, God would protect the descendants of David, and that God was their hope. The year was 735 BC. The older man was the prophet Isaiah. The younger was Ahaz, King of Judah. When he came to power, the Assyrian Empire was asserting itself far to the north. Nearer at hand, the kingdoms of Syria and Northern Israel, from whom Judah had split a generation before, were feeling threatened by Assyria and forming an alliance to protect each other. These small kingdoms wanted Judah to join them. King Ahaz, like his father and grandfather, realized that any such alliance might threaten Egypt to the south and caus

               Let me start out this morning with what seems to be an obvious question - we are about two weeks from Christmas - how many of you are FILLED to the BRIM with JOY? Now, we are an authentic community, so let’s be real with one another - is there anyone here who can say they are overflowing with joy that we can come to you to be filled?   It’s hard not to have your heart be moved by our scripture today - this whole 35th chapter of Isaiah. Even the title makes our ears perk up a little bit - the Joy of the Redeemed. Well, I’d like to be redeemed, and I’ll have some of that joy too, please? I’m pretty sure that’s what we are all doing here. Starting with this scene in the desert, that this land will be GLAD, and rejoice and blossom. Why? Because the Lord is coming. The barren, the weak, the scared, the sick, all will be redeemed. They will be able to wear this joy as a crown. Verse 10, especially the end, is one that I’d like to sear into my memory banks - “They will enter

  There was this giant tree in my parents’ backyard when I was growing up. It was probably the height of the two-story house we lived in, and I climbed that tree so much, although - not really ever very high. After I moved out for college, it was dying, and so they had to have it chopped down. When I came back, it was weird having this empty space where the mighty trunk with long branches stood. Then, after a couple of years, I saw a little shoot popping up out of the middle of it. I thought that was amazing! From this mighty tree, in its weakened state, there can be life coming out of it once again.   This is kind of what Isaiah is talking about in the scripture today. God promises that there will be new life given to a stump, representing the kingdom of Israel through Jesse, who is the father of King David. There are kind of two parts to this scripture today, verses one through five, and then six through ten make the other. The first part is about the reign of God and how there