Sermon Illustrations for New Year's Day (2019)
Illustration
Ecclesiastes 3:1-13
The Byrds hit “Turn, Turn, Turn, Turn,” of course comes to mind with this text. But John Wesley better interprets the main point of the text. The turning we do is aimless, Wesley says, for “all things below are vain, and happiness is not to be found in them, because of their great uncertainty and mutability and transitoriness...” (Commentary On the Bible, p.314). To this he added:
Many events seem to be very irregular and unbecoming, as when wicked men prosper and good men are oppressed. But when men shall thoroughly understand God’s works and the whole frame and texture of them, and see the end of them, they will say that all things were done wisely. (Ibid.)
The famed French intellectual Blaise Psacal powerfully describes the sense of meaningless time we occupy:
I see the terrifying spaces of the universe hemming me in, and I find myself attached to one corner of this vast expanse without knowing why I have been put in this place rather than that, or why the brief span of life allotted to me should be assigned to one moment rather than another of all the eternity to which went before me and all that which will come after me. I see only infinity on every side hemming me in like an atom or like the shadow of a fleeting instant. All I know is that I must soon die, but what I know least about is this very death which I cannot evade. (Pensées, 437)
The father of Existentialism Søren Kierkegaard responds with the hope we Christians have in facing such meaninglessness and despair:
... when it comes to a question of faith, the only thing that helps is that for God everything is possible... The believer is in possession of the eternally certain antitdote to despair: possibility. Because for God, everything is possible at every moment. This is the truth of faith in which all contradiction dissolves. (The Lessons From Kierkegaard, pp.71-72)
Mark E.
* * *
Ecclesiastes 3:1-13
I have trouble with this passage talking about a time to love and a time to hate. That doesn’t sound like God speaking to me. He even wants us to love our enemy. How can you have a war when God asks for mutual love and forgiveness? This presents the problem of choosing what verses to obey. How often we only want to accept every statement or every scripture that agrees with our feelings when we read them. We need a church to help us sort out our problems and feelings. This is a wonderful discussion starter for a Bible study.
Some need that next verse: a time to keep and a time to throw away. Sometimes we never want to give up hoarding our junk. I think of that when I look at my desk.
Sometimes we may speak to our wife or husband, when it would be better to shut up. I know there were times when I should have shut up. I won’t even tell you what I shouldn’t have said!
One verse tells me what to do in my search. It says that there is a time to search and a time to give up. We may not want to accept that. Sometimes we never want to give up until we find what we are looking for.
After a hurricane, we may have to decide whether to tear down what is left of our home or build it up again.
I hope in our government, that we always want to build up. Sometimes one party is always trying to tear down what the other wants.
God made one of the mountains outside Denver beautiful, but then it’s time ended when miners came to dig up mineral wealth.
A church should be one place where we can get help in finding God’s way for us. That last verse could be our key. Nothing better than to do good. I think our happiness can come from doing good. I know how happy I was when I saw the joy on the face of the one I was helping when I gave a poor fellow a hundred-dollar bill. I saw the same joy in my wife’s face when I told her to buy the coat she wanted so badly.
Each verse in this lesson could make a sermon
Bob O.
* * *
Revelation 21:1-6a
Sometimes you just want a fresh start. I was in the second grade in the small town of Muncie, Kansas. It was toward the end of the school day and my teacher handed out pictures of a reindeer for us to color. As an inquisitive, but not artistic student, I was less interested in coloring reindeer and far more interested in drawing tanks, soldiers and guns on the back of the paper and in the margins. I didn’t realize that she was intending to hang them on the wall until I’d drawn a virtual battalion. All of a sudden, I felt awkward and embarrassed. I didn’t want others to see that I’d drawn all those crazy pictures instead of trying to do a nice job coloring. I hid the paper in my desk and wandered up to her desk. I was hoping that she’d just give me another sheet, no questions asked. I hoped for a clean sheet. I can remember the joy I felt when she did just that. I got a new paper, a clean one.
That’s a true story of a second-grade crisis. I’m convinced, though, that there are a lot of people who are looking for that clean sheet of paper. They are longing for all things to be new. In the text for today we find that, in Jesus, all things can be new. We also see that a day is coming when all things will be right. What a great day that will be.
Bill T.
* * *
Revelation 21:1-6a
Connect the dots. This passage is like a greatest hits collection of favorite quotations from the Hebrew scriptures. Virtually every one of these verses calls to mind words from the Law and the Prophets.
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. (See Isaiah 65:17; 66:22)
And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. (See Isaiah 52:1; 54:5; 61:10)
And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; (See Leviticus 26:11-12 and Ezekiel 43:7)
He will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away. (See Isaiah 25:8; 35:10; 61:3; 65:19
And the one who was seated on the throne said, "See, I am making all things new." Also he said, "Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true." (See Isaiah 43:19)
Then he said to me, "It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.
Why does this matter? Because John wants us to know that the new heaven and the new earth are the consummation of history, planned from the start, with roots in the past. The New Creation is different but recognizable.
The Gospel of John echoes the same theme with his poem about the Word, where it is made clear that God wasn’t improvising -- the Word was there at the beginning, in on the creation of everything, and that word was made flesh and tented among us.
In the previous chapter the good old earth was finally renewed and restored as it was meant to be from the beginning, before our sinfulness created a gulf between God, humanity, and creation. Earlier in Revelation the Anti-Christ rules for 3½ years. This is once again a case of the quality rather than the true quantity of numbers. Seven is considered a perfect or fulfilled number, so 3½ is a broken number that is never fulfilled. The same 3½ years is used as a symbol of the broken reign of God’s enemies in the Book of Daniel, and to demonstrate that the exact amount is not crucial Daniel defines the year in terms of both solar and lunar years, which comes out to two radically different numbers.
In contrast to the broken reigns of all tyrants, God rules a perfect thousand years, and God’s people rule with him. Satan’s rule is extremely limited. Meanwhile for a thousand years God’s people experience the world exactly as it ought to have been.
I love weddings. All brides are beautiful. All grooms are handsome. I’m not one for formality most times, but I’ve found whether the bride wears a dress worth thousands of dollars or a simple outfit put together as best as possible because of limited finances, she is transformed.
I hope that at weddings we see people as they are meant to be, as God created us, at our best. We’re imperfect, and none of us lives up fully to our vows, but we have very good intentions, most of us.
We as the church are the bride of Christ. We are transformed. We finally look every bit as good as we ought. And we should take delight in how we look, because Christ as the groom sees worth and value in us, regardless of our own lack of self-esteem. Love makes us what we are. Welcome to the wedding.
Frank R.
* * *
Matthew 25:31-46
Famed modern theologian Karl Barth claims that the point of this Parable is that Christ is not just at the right hand of the Father, but “that He is no less Present, though hidden, in all who are now hungry, thirsty, strangers, naked, sick and in prison.” (Church Dogmatics, Vol.III/2, p.507)
John Calvin claimed that Christ now reigns in heaven “for restraining His enemies and protecting the Church...” (Calvin’s Commentaries, Vol.XVII/1, p.175)
Calvin does a nice job of making clear that this is not a text that teaches salvation by works. He writes:
Christ does not here specify every thing that belongs to a pious and holy life, but only, by way of example, refers to some of the duties of charity, by which we give evidence that we fear God. For though the worship of God is more important than charity towards men, and though, in like manner, faith and supplication are more valuable than alms, yet Christ had good reasons for bringing forward these evidences of true righteousness which are more obvious. (Calvin’s Commentaries, Vol.XVII/1, p.179)
Mother Teresa puts the right perspective on this text, not on judgment but on the joy of caring for the poor:
I see God in every human being. When I wash the leper's wounds I feel I am nursing the Lord himself. Is it not a beautiful experience?
Mark E.
* * *
Matthew 25:31-46
It seems like it is up to Jesus to do the separating. His separation seems to be based on our actions -- a response to some one’s need.
As a former prison chaplain I have seen both sides. I have known victims and victims’ families who gave forgiveness to a criminal who hurt them. They even gave them help if it was needed.
How many times have we passed up a transient on the streets begging for help? Sometimes I was afraid it would just be used for drugs or alcohol. That was my excuse. We must decide who is Jesus in disguise.
You can’t always tell. When a transient came to my church asking for money to buy food, I would give them a ticket for the restaurant I could see across the street. Some would go in and have food, but some would stand outside and try to see my ticket. I told the manager to send them over to me for a real ticket which would give them a meal.
Every time I go out and see someone who is rich or poor, homely or nice looking, black or white or some other color, I tell myself, “Jesus loves them as much as he loves me.” If I pass up a bum who is asking for money, I ask, “Was that Jesus in disguise?”
Whatever we do for others, we don’t do it to earn our way to heaven. We should do good to others out of love for them and for Jesus’ sake.
We need to think about these passages and ask ourselves, when we see a Muslim, or a soldier in the wrong army or a prisoner being released, can they possibly be Jesus? Could he belong to the wrong denomination? What if someone comes to you for a donation to a social cause or, God forbid, asking for a donation to their political party? No, I don’t think everyone who comes to you is Jesus. Whenever we see a legitimate need, should we take a thought as to where we would like to spend eternity? Sometimes our church can help.
Bob O.
The Byrds hit “Turn, Turn, Turn, Turn,” of course comes to mind with this text. But John Wesley better interprets the main point of the text. The turning we do is aimless, Wesley says, for “all things below are vain, and happiness is not to be found in them, because of their great uncertainty and mutability and transitoriness...” (Commentary On the Bible, p.314). To this he added:
Many events seem to be very irregular and unbecoming, as when wicked men prosper and good men are oppressed. But when men shall thoroughly understand God’s works and the whole frame and texture of them, and see the end of them, they will say that all things were done wisely. (Ibid.)
The famed French intellectual Blaise Psacal powerfully describes the sense of meaningless time we occupy:
I see the terrifying spaces of the universe hemming me in, and I find myself attached to one corner of this vast expanse without knowing why I have been put in this place rather than that, or why the brief span of life allotted to me should be assigned to one moment rather than another of all the eternity to which went before me and all that which will come after me. I see only infinity on every side hemming me in like an atom or like the shadow of a fleeting instant. All I know is that I must soon die, but what I know least about is this very death which I cannot evade. (Pensées, 437)
The father of Existentialism Søren Kierkegaard responds with the hope we Christians have in facing such meaninglessness and despair:
... when it comes to a question of faith, the only thing that helps is that for God everything is possible... The believer is in possession of the eternally certain antitdote to despair: possibility. Because for God, everything is possible at every moment. This is the truth of faith in which all contradiction dissolves. (The Lessons From Kierkegaard, pp.71-72)
Mark E.
* * *
Ecclesiastes 3:1-13
I have trouble with this passage talking about a time to love and a time to hate. That doesn’t sound like God speaking to me. He even wants us to love our enemy. How can you have a war when God asks for mutual love and forgiveness? This presents the problem of choosing what verses to obey. How often we only want to accept every statement or every scripture that agrees with our feelings when we read them. We need a church to help us sort out our problems and feelings. This is a wonderful discussion starter for a Bible study.
Some need that next verse: a time to keep and a time to throw away. Sometimes we never want to give up hoarding our junk. I think of that when I look at my desk.
Sometimes we may speak to our wife or husband, when it would be better to shut up. I know there were times when I should have shut up. I won’t even tell you what I shouldn’t have said!
One verse tells me what to do in my search. It says that there is a time to search and a time to give up. We may not want to accept that. Sometimes we never want to give up until we find what we are looking for.
After a hurricane, we may have to decide whether to tear down what is left of our home or build it up again.
I hope in our government, that we always want to build up. Sometimes one party is always trying to tear down what the other wants.
God made one of the mountains outside Denver beautiful, but then it’s time ended when miners came to dig up mineral wealth.
A church should be one place where we can get help in finding God’s way for us. That last verse could be our key. Nothing better than to do good. I think our happiness can come from doing good. I know how happy I was when I saw the joy on the face of the one I was helping when I gave a poor fellow a hundred-dollar bill. I saw the same joy in my wife’s face when I told her to buy the coat she wanted so badly.
Each verse in this lesson could make a sermon
Bob O.
* * *
Revelation 21:1-6a
Sometimes you just want a fresh start. I was in the second grade in the small town of Muncie, Kansas. It was toward the end of the school day and my teacher handed out pictures of a reindeer for us to color. As an inquisitive, but not artistic student, I was less interested in coloring reindeer and far more interested in drawing tanks, soldiers and guns on the back of the paper and in the margins. I didn’t realize that she was intending to hang them on the wall until I’d drawn a virtual battalion. All of a sudden, I felt awkward and embarrassed. I didn’t want others to see that I’d drawn all those crazy pictures instead of trying to do a nice job coloring. I hid the paper in my desk and wandered up to her desk. I was hoping that she’d just give me another sheet, no questions asked. I hoped for a clean sheet. I can remember the joy I felt when she did just that. I got a new paper, a clean one.
That’s a true story of a second-grade crisis. I’m convinced, though, that there are a lot of people who are looking for that clean sheet of paper. They are longing for all things to be new. In the text for today we find that, in Jesus, all things can be new. We also see that a day is coming when all things will be right. What a great day that will be.
Bill T.
* * *
Revelation 21:1-6a
Connect the dots. This passage is like a greatest hits collection of favorite quotations from the Hebrew scriptures. Virtually every one of these verses calls to mind words from the Law and the Prophets.
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. (See Isaiah 65:17; 66:22)
And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. (See Isaiah 52:1; 54:5; 61:10)
And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; (See Leviticus 26:11-12 and Ezekiel 43:7)
He will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away. (See Isaiah 25:8; 35:10; 61:3; 65:19
And the one who was seated on the throne said, "See, I am making all things new." Also he said, "Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true." (See Isaiah 43:19)
Then he said to me, "It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.
Why does this matter? Because John wants us to know that the new heaven and the new earth are the consummation of history, planned from the start, with roots in the past. The New Creation is different but recognizable.
The Gospel of John echoes the same theme with his poem about the Word, where it is made clear that God wasn’t improvising -- the Word was there at the beginning, in on the creation of everything, and that word was made flesh and tented among us.
In the previous chapter the good old earth was finally renewed and restored as it was meant to be from the beginning, before our sinfulness created a gulf between God, humanity, and creation. Earlier in Revelation the Anti-Christ rules for 3½ years. This is once again a case of the quality rather than the true quantity of numbers. Seven is considered a perfect or fulfilled number, so 3½ is a broken number that is never fulfilled. The same 3½ years is used as a symbol of the broken reign of God’s enemies in the Book of Daniel, and to demonstrate that the exact amount is not crucial Daniel defines the year in terms of both solar and lunar years, which comes out to two radically different numbers.
In contrast to the broken reigns of all tyrants, God rules a perfect thousand years, and God’s people rule with him. Satan’s rule is extremely limited. Meanwhile for a thousand years God’s people experience the world exactly as it ought to have been.
I love weddings. All brides are beautiful. All grooms are handsome. I’m not one for formality most times, but I’ve found whether the bride wears a dress worth thousands of dollars or a simple outfit put together as best as possible because of limited finances, she is transformed.
I hope that at weddings we see people as they are meant to be, as God created us, at our best. We’re imperfect, and none of us lives up fully to our vows, but we have very good intentions, most of us.
We as the church are the bride of Christ. We are transformed. We finally look every bit as good as we ought. And we should take delight in how we look, because Christ as the groom sees worth and value in us, regardless of our own lack of self-esteem. Love makes us what we are. Welcome to the wedding.
Frank R.
* * *
Matthew 25:31-46
Famed modern theologian Karl Barth claims that the point of this Parable is that Christ is not just at the right hand of the Father, but “that He is no less Present, though hidden, in all who are now hungry, thirsty, strangers, naked, sick and in prison.” (Church Dogmatics, Vol.III/2, p.507)
John Calvin claimed that Christ now reigns in heaven “for restraining His enemies and protecting the Church...” (Calvin’s Commentaries, Vol.XVII/1, p.175)
Calvin does a nice job of making clear that this is not a text that teaches salvation by works. He writes:
Christ does not here specify every thing that belongs to a pious and holy life, but only, by way of example, refers to some of the duties of charity, by which we give evidence that we fear God. For though the worship of God is more important than charity towards men, and though, in like manner, faith and supplication are more valuable than alms, yet Christ had good reasons for bringing forward these evidences of true righteousness which are more obvious. (Calvin’s Commentaries, Vol.XVII/1, p.179)
Mother Teresa puts the right perspective on this text, not on judgment but on the joy of caring for the poor:
I see God in every human being. When I wash the leper's wounds I feel I am nursing the Lord himself. Is it not a beautiful experience?
Mark E.
* * *
Matthew 25:31-46
It seems like it is up to Jesus to do the separating. His separation seems to be based on our actions -- a response to some one’s need.
As a former prison chaplain I have seen both sides. I have known victims and victims’ families who gave forgiveness to a criminal who hurt them. They even gave them help if it was needed.
How many times have we passed up a transient on the streets begging for help? Sometimes I was afraid it would just be used for drugs or alcohol. That was my excuse. We must decide who is Jesus in disguise.
You can’t always tell. When a transient came to my church asking for money to buy food, I would give them a ticket for the restaurant I could see across the street. Some would go in and have food, but some would stand outside and try to see my ticket. I told the manager to send them over to me for a real ticket which would give them a meal.
Every time I go out and see someone who is rich or poor, homely or nice looking, black or white or some other color, I tell myself, “Jesus loves them as much as he loves me.” If I pass up a bum who is asking for money, I ask, “Was that Jesus in disguise?”
Whatever we do for others, we don’t do it to earn our way to heaven. We should do good to others out of love for them and for Jesus’ sake.
We need to think about these passages and ask ourselves, when we see a Muslim, or a soldier in the wrong army or a prisoner being released, can they possibly be Jesus? Could he belong to the wrong denomination? What if someone comes to you for a donation to a social cause or, God forbid, asking for a donation to their political party? No, I don’t think everyone who comes to you is Jesus. Whenever we see a legitimate need, should we take a thought as to where we would like to spend eternity? Sometimes our church can help.
Bob O.
