Sermon Illustrations for Lent 4 (2025)
Illustration
Joshua 9:5-12
Elizabeth Kwak-Hefferan wrote a piece on the Yellowstone National Park website about “Old Faithful.” The geyser was discovered in 1870 by the Washburn Expedition and was named for its frequent and somewhat predictable eruptions, which number more than a million since Yellowstone became the world’s first national park in 1872. In the article Kwak-Hefferan notes, “Old Faithful in Yellowstone, currently erupts around twenty times a day. These eruptions are predicted with a ninety percent confidence rate, within a ten-minute variation, based on the duration and height of the previous eruption.”
For many years, “Old Faithful” has been just that. In Joshua 5, we see the faithfulness of God on display. Throughout the 40-year wandering in the desert, God has kept his word by providing the Israelites manna and quail. However, on the fourteenth day of the month, they keep the Passover in the promised land. That night, they eat of the produce of the land. On that day the manna ceased. God had kept his promise to bring them to a good and spacious land. God is faithful. May we join the people of God throughout history in singing, “Great is thy faithfulness, Lord unto me.”
Bill T.
* * *
Joshua 5:9-12
The Hebrew language plays with words. Words not only move, they dance. Names of people and places burst into meaning. Take the place where God’s people celebrated their first Passover in forty years after wandering in the desert. It is called Rollover (Gilgal) because finally, we learn, God has “…has rolled away from you the disgrace of Egypt.” So it’s no coincidence that the people, eating “the produce of the land” no longer get manna. It ceased on that day when they achieved self-sufficiency.
Make no mistake. This passage is not written as a criticism against anyone who receives assistance from the government, friends, or the church when it comes to food, medicine, health care, employment, erasure of debt, or any other kind of help. It should call to mind the words of Moses in Deuteronomy, how the society ordained by God in the law is designed to protect the most vulnerable, assist the poor, and care for each other, creating a just society. God’s people no longer need to lean of God for assistance. We are meant to lean on each other.
Frank R.
* * *
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
The great modern reformed theologian Karl Barth profoundly explains the nature of God’s forgiveness evident in this text:
The act of the divine forgiveness is that God sees and knows this stain [of human sin] infinitely better than man himself, and abhors it infinitely more than he does even in his deepest penitence – yet he does not take it into consideration, he overlooks it, he covers it, he passes it by; he puts it behind him, he does not charge it to man. (Church Dogmatics, Vol.IV/1, p.597)
Describing the new life in Christ, John Wesley writes:
He has new life, new sense, new faculties, new affections, new appetites, new ideas and conceptions. His whole tenor of action and conversation is new, and he lives, as it were, in a new world. God, men, the whole creation, heaven, earth, and all therein appear in a new light and stand related to him in a new manner since he was created anew in Christ Jesus. (Commentary On the Bible, p.525)
Famed New Testament scholar Rudolf Bultmann well explains why we need such a new beginning (what our sinful condition is like):
… man forgets in his selfishness and presumption… that it is an illusion to suppose that real security can be gained by men organizing their own persona and community life. There are encounters and destinies which man cannot master. He cannot secure endurance for his works. His life is fleeting and its end is death. History goes on and pulls down all the towers of Babel again and again. There is no real, definitive security, and it is precisely this illusion to which men are prone to succumb in their yearning for security. (Jesus Christ and Mythology, pp.39-40)
Mark E.
* * *
Luke 15:1-3,11b-32
Referring to God’s extraordinary forgiveness and love exhibited in this text, John Wesley once observed: “So does God frequently cut an earnest confession short by a display of his pardoning love.” (Commentary On the Bible, p.446) To us elder sons/daughters who think we deserve special commendation for our faithfulness, Augustine claimed that:
And consequently a good will, by which we love God, cannot be in man, save in whom God also worketh to will. This good will therefore, that is, a will faithfully subjected to God, a will set on first by sanctity of that ardor which is above, [is] a will which loves God and his neighbor for God’s sake… (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol.3, p.534)
What we have in Christ, Martin Luther claims, is an inheritance that we did not gain by our works (Complete Sermons, Vol.2/1, p.349)
Mark E.
* * *
Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
I came across an odd story in the UPI archives. It happened in Los Angeles in 1981. A thief stole a car and was fleeing from authorities. In the car was a box of crackers. That doesn’t seem like a big deal, but these were not ordinary crackers. These crackers were laced with strychnine. The car owner was from Texas and was using some of the crackers to kill rats back home in Texas. The police and the owner of the Volkswagen Bug were more interested in apprehending the thief to save his life than in recovering the car.
This is the story of the prodigal. He ran away with his inheritance to experience the world. He woke up one day with his head in the pig trough wondering how he had fallen this far. The prodigal thought there was freedom in being away from the father, when the reality was his best life was with the father. It is true for us, too. Often when we run from God, we feel it is to escape his punishment. But what we are actually doing is eluding his rescue. The journey back home begins with one step of repentance. Will you take that one step?
Bill T.
* * *
Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
The title of a story can alter the way we hear and see it. You may have read, The Adventures of Sherlocks Holmes, and understand the great detective to be the subject of the narratives. But if they were titled, The Adventures of John Watson, M.D. we might think of them as stories about Watson observing Sherlock Holmes. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a title that keeps our focus on Huck, but should it really be called Jim’s Escape to Freedom. Isn’t he the one who’s risking life and limb to escape slavery while being willing to sacrifice it all to preserve Finn? And biblically, I’ve always felt Luke’s Volume II, “The Acts of the Apostles,” should really be called “The Acts of the Holy Spirit” because it is really a history of the Holy Spirit in the early church and if that were its title, we’d stop worrying because the author doesn’t keep his focus on any one apostle and never finishes any of the story threads because it’s not really about them anyway.
We call this parable, “The Prodigal Son,” but I think it might just as well be called “The Resentful but Faithful, Hard-Working Son.” Or “The Permissive Father.” Or should we call it “The Unobservant Father,” because perhaps he is so consumed by his own loss (Where is Mom, after all? Isn’t it likely she died in giving birth to the youngest son?) that he’s not noticing how he’s not treating the two sons equally and fairly? Maybe the so-called prodigal is grieving the loss of his mother, and his father is too consumed with the same loss that he doesn’t know how to love? The grieving son?
The parables come with no titles. We assign them titles, which tends to pin them down to only one or two facets, instead of allowing us to focus more fully on the several great possibilities inherent in some of the great parables of Jesus.
Frank R.
Elizabeth Kwak-Hefferan wrote a piece on the Yellowstone National Park website about “Old Faithful.” The geyser was discovered in 1870 by the Washburn Expedition and was named for its frequent and somewhat predictable eruptions, which number more than a million since Yellowstone became the world’s first national park in 1872. In the article Kwak-Hefferan notes, “Old Faithful in Yellowstone, currently erupts around twenty times a day. These eruptions are predicted with a ninety percent confidence rate, within a ten-minute variation, based on the duration and height of the previous eruption.”
For many years, “Old Faithful” has been just that. In Joshua 5, we see the faithfulness of God on display. Throughout the 40-year wandering in the desert, God has kept his word by providing the Israelites manna and quail. However, on the fourteenth day of the month, they keep the Passover in the promised land. That night, they eat of the produce of the land. On that day the manna ceased. God had kept his promise to bring them to a good and spacious land. God is faithful. May we join the people of God throughout history in singing, “Great is thy faithfulness, Lord unto me.”
Bill T.
* * *
Joshua 5:9-12
The Hebrew language plays with words. Words not only move, they dance. Names of people and places burst into meaning. Take the place where God’s people celebrated their first Passover in forty years after wandering in the desert. It is called Rollover (Gilgal) because finally, we learn, God has “…has rolled away from you the disgrace of Egypt.” So it’s no coincidence that the people, eating “the produce of the land” no longer get manna. It ceased on that day when they achieved self-sufficiency.
Make no mistake. This passage is not written as a criticism against anyone who receives assistance from the government, friends, or the church when it comes to food, medicine, health care, employment, erasure of debt, or any other kind of help. It should call to mind the words of Moses in Deuteronomy, how the society ordained by God in the law is designed to protect the most vulnerable, assist the poor, and care for each other, creating a just society. God’s people no longer need to lean of God for assistance. We are meant to lean on each other.
Frank R.
* * *
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
The great modern reformed theologian Karl Barth profoundly explains the nature of God’s forgiveness evident in this text:
The act of the divine forgiveness is that God sees and knows this stain [of human sin] infinitely better than man himself, and abhors it infinitely more than he does even in his deepest penitence – yet he does not take it into consideration, he overlooks it, he covers it, he passes it by; he puts it behind him, he does not charge it to man. (Church Dogmatics, Vol.IV/1, p.597)
Describing the new life in Christ, John Wesley writes:
He has new life, new sense, new faculties, new affections, new appetites, new ideas and conceptions. His whole tenor of action and conversation is new, and he lives, as it were, in a new world. God, men, the whole creation, heaven, earth, and all therein appear in a new light and stand related to him in a new manner since he was created anew in Christ Jesus. (Commentary On the Bible, p.525)
Famed New Testament scholar Rudolf Bultmann well explains why we need such a new beginning (what our sinful condition is like):
… man forgets in his selfishness and presumption… that it is an illusion to suppose that real security can be gained by men organizing their own persona and community life. There are encounters and destinies which man cannot master. He cannot secure endurance for his works. His life is fleeting and its end is death. History goes on and pulls down all the towers of Babel again and again. There is no real, definitive security, and it is precisely this illusion to which men are prone to succumb in their yearning for security. (Jesus Christ and Mythology, pp.39-40)
Mark E.
* * *
Luke 15:1-3,11b-32
Referring to God’s extraordinary forgiveness and love exhibited in this text, John Wesley once observed: “So does God frequently cut an earnest confession short by a display of his pardoning love.” (Commentary On the Bible, p.446) To us elder sons/daughters who think we deserve special commendation for our faithfulness, Augustine claimed that:
And consequently a good will, by which we love God, cannot be in man, save in whom God also worketh to will. This good will therefore, that is, a will faithfully subjected to God, a will set on first by sanctity of that ardor which is above, [is] a will which loves God and his neighbor for God’s sake… (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol.3, p.534)
What we have in Christ, Martin Luther claims, is an inheritance that we did not gain by our works (Complete Sermons, Vol.2/1, p.349)
Mark E.
* * *
Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
I came across an odd story in the UPI archives. It happened in Los Angeles in 1981. A thief stole a car and was fleeing from authorities. In the car was a box of crackers. That doesn’t seem like a big deal, but these were not ordinary crackers. These crackers were laced with strychnine. The car owner was from Texas and was using some of the crackers to kill rats back home in Texas. The police and the owner of the Volkswagen Bug were more interested in apprehending the thief to save his life than in recovering the car.
This is the story of the prodigal. He ran away with his inheritance to experience the world. He woke up one day with his head in the pig trough wondering how he had fallen this far. The prodigal thought there was freedom in being away from the father, when the reality was his best life was with the father. It is true for us, too. Often when we run from God, we feel it is to escape his punishment. But what we are actually doing is eluding his rescue. The journey back home begins with one step of repentance. Will you take that one step?
Bill T.
* * *
Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
The title of a story can alter the way we hear and see it. You may have read, The Adventures of Sherlocks Holmes, and understand the great detective to be the subject of the narratives. But if they were titled, The Adventures of John Watson, M.D. we might think of them as stories about Watson observing Sherlock Holmes. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a title that keeps our focus on Huck, but should it really be called Jim’s Escape to Freedom. Isn’t he the one who’s risking life and limb to escape slavery while being willing to sacrifice it all to preserve Finn? And biblically, I’ve always felt Luke’s Volume II, “The Acts of the Apostles,” should really be called “The Acts of the Holy Spirit” because it is really a history of the Holy Spirit in the early church and if that were its title, we’d stop worrying because the author doesn’t keep his focus on any one apostle and never finishes any of the story threads because it’s not really about them anyway.
We call this parable, “The Prodigal Son,” but I think it might just as well be called “The Resentful but Faithful, Hard-Working Son.” Or “The Permissive Father.” Or should we call it “The Unobservant Father,” because perhaps he is so consumed by his own loss (Where is Mom, after all? Isn’t it likely she died in giving birth to the youngest son?) that he’s not noticing how he’s not treating the two sons equally and fairly? Maybe the so-called prodigal is grieving the loss of his mother, and his father is too consumed with the same loss that he doesn’t know how to love? The grieving son?
The parables come with no titles. We assign them titles, which tends to pin them down to only one or two facets, instead of allowing us to focus more fully on the several great possibilities inherent in some of the great parables of Jesus.
Frank R.
