Sermon Illustrations for New Year's Day (2021)
Illustration
Ecclesiastes 3:1-13
I wonder how many funeral services for which this scripture is chosen. Seasons come and go, life, death, planting, harvest, laughing, weeping. It is a picture of human life in the world. Times come and go. Season change. What are the constants? Love, hope, joy, peace in our faith, in our God. The presence of God surrounding and enfolding us is one constant, at least one in my life. I couldn’t get up some days without knowing that I am among God’s beloved children. Somehow that knowledge makes all the other changing seasons and circumstances bearable. God is the constant, the anchor, the foundation of my life. I hope you feel God is the constant, the anchor, and the foundation of yours, no matter the changing tides and seasons of life.
Bonnie B.
* * *
Ecclesiastes 3:1-13
Good to bring an end to 2020. But let’s not get too excited about the new year. That is the message of the First Lesson, well expressed by the great French philosopher Albert Camus. He once put it this way:
Basically, at the very bottom of life, which seduces us all, there is only absurdity, and more absurdity. And maybe that's what gives us our joy for living, because the only thing that can defeat absurdity is lucidity.
Life really is absurd, just one meaningless cycle after another. An earlier famous French intellectual (the 17th century) Blaise Pascal also powerfully described how meaningless life is. Describing human life, he wrote:
Imagine a number of men in chains, all under sentence of death, some of whom are each day butchered in the sight of the others; those remaining see their own condition in that of their fellows, and looking at each other with grief and despair await their turn. This is the human condition. (Pensées, p.165)
The preacher’s advice in the face of this chaos seems so hopeless. Nothing more to life than to be happy and enjoy life with some partying like we did last night. Martin Luther echoed these sentiments while enjoying a few beers himself:
Having been taught by experience I can say how you ought to restore your spirit when you suffer from spiritual depression. When you are assailed by gloom, despair, or a troubled conscience you should eat, drink and talk with others. If you can find help yourself by thinking of a girl, do so. (Luther’s Works, Vol.54, pp.17-18)
Luther saw the whole of Christian life as a joyful party. Christians, he claimed, are drunk (intoxicated) with Jesus (Luther’s Works, Vol.31, p.349). What better way to deal with the meaninglessness of life than to have a good time with our Lord.
Mark E.
* * *
Revelation 21:1-6a
A.M. Hunter, writing in Christian Theology in Plain Language, relates the story of a dying man who begged his doctor, a Christian, to tell him something about the place to which he was going. As the doctor fumbled for a reply, he heard a scratching at the door. He smiled. “Do you hear that?” he asked his patient. “It’s my dog. I left him downstairs, but he has grown impatient, and has come up and hears my voice. He has no notion what is inside this door, but he knows that I am here. Isn’t it the same with you? You don’t know what lies beyond the door, but you know that your Master is there.”
The last book of the Bible, Revelation, describes the new heaven and the new earth. It is a powerful and breathtaking description. “Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away” (verse 4). The key part, as I see it, though comes just before that. “See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them” (verse 3).
No one can really describe exactly what heaven will be like and it sure is fun to speculate. As a new year begins with a lot of uncertainty, there is one thing we can know for sure. Those who have a relationship with Jesus Christ know that eternity will be spent in the presence of God. That’s a great thought.
Bill T.
* * *
Revelation 21:1-6a
And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. (Revelation 21:2)
In order to talk about this verse, originally written in Greek, I have to turn to a word derived from Latin: Pagan, which comes from “paganus,” which refers to someone who lives in the countryside or a small village. Early Christian writers like Tertullian or Augustine used that term to refer to non-Christians. Christians were big city folks. Pagans lived in the sticks.
You wouldn’t think that was the case if you looked at Thomas Kincaid paintings or sang hymns like “The Little Brown Church in the Dale.” But pay attention to scripture. History begins in the Garden but ends in the New Jerusalem. Now there are plenty of green places in this city, but it’s a city, nevertheless. The city is where all the people are, and the city is where all kinds of people are. Some people think of cities as centers of crime, poverty, and despair. Others wouldn’t live anywhere else. Scripture’s vision of history is that heaven is everyone living together in peace and harmony. There are still trees, gardens, and parks, plenty of greenery -- but it’s all within the vision of what the city should and could be.
Frank R.
* * *
Matthew 25:31-46
Famed New Testament scholar Rudolf Bultmann does a nice job of explaining what a text about Jesus’ second coming has to do with New Year’s Day. This preaching, he wrote, has to do with “being open to God’s future which is really immanent for every one of us... to be prepared, because this future will be a judgment on all men who have bound themselves to this world...” (Jesus Christ and Mythology, pp.31-32). If you enter 2021 thinking there’s nothing really new coming in the next 12 months, if you let all the years of your life bind you and you stay stuck in all the destructive patterns, then you miss the point of what God is doing in Jesus. He’s giving all of us a fresh start, and that fresh start is happening now.
This is the way to take those verses in our lesson that seem to suggest we will be judged by our works. Famed modern theologian Karl Barth nicely explains that this is not the meaning of this morning’s lesson. He writes:
Christian love is at one and the same time love to God and love to the neighbor — and it is love to the neighbor because it is love to God...
But it does not on that account contribute anything at all to the justification of man. And it is the glory of it that it cannot even think of trying to do so, because it derives from the justification of man, for the divine sentence of pardon... (Church Dogmatics, Vol.IV/1, pp.106-107)
The only reason Jesus says that those not seeing him in the poor and hungry will be punished is because the faithful are those who do good to the least of these, for the faithful are always seeing Jesus everywhere in new fresh ways while the unfaithful have remained in bondage to their old ways of looking at the world. The unfaithful are trapped by the present ways of the world which tells them and us that the poor and sick are useless. As such, the unfaithful have been imprisoned by who they are and have been. Salvation, then, is not the result of the works we do, but is about openness to the new way of looking at the world, openness to the future, that God in Christ is giving you and me. The great French Enlightenment scholar Blaise Pascal put it this way:
Our imagination so magnifies the present, because we are continually thinking about it, and so reduces eternity... Then Jesus Christ comes to tell men that they have no enemies but themselves that it is their passions that cut them off from God, that he has come to destroy these passions, and to give men His grace... (Pensées, p.164)
The message of the end of time, the message for 2021, is that the passions that stop us from caring for others belong to yesterday, and that now is the time for a fresh start for right now the end of all that divides us is in view.
Mark E.
* * *
Matthew 25:31-46
This is a passage of Matthew’s Gospel that I am prone to quote often. I believe it is the essence of how we show our love for God. How we treat the poor, the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the inform, the imprisoned is the measure of our adherence to the command to love God and to love our neighbor. There have been days when my stances in the areas of social justice have been called too political. This is the gospel passage I return to as I explain my call as a Christian. Yes, social ills can be viewed as political, but for me the care for the hungry, thirsty, naked, ill, imprisoned, the least among us, is a gospel imperative. My actions here are the measure of my ability to follow in the footsteps of Jesus. Pray God, I will continue to do so.
Bonnie B.
I wonder how many funeral services for which this scripture is chosen. Seasons come and go, life, death, planting, harvest, laughing, weeping. It is a picture of human life in the world. Times come and go. Season change. What are the constants? Love, hope, joy, peace in our faith, in our God. The presence of God surrounding and enfolding us is one constant, at least one in my life. I couldn’t get up some days without knowing that I am among God’s beloved children. Somehow that knowledge makes all the other changing seasons and circumstances bearable. God is the constant, the anchor, the foundation of my life. I hope you feel God is the constant, the anchor, and the foundation of yours, no matter the changing tides and seasons of life.
Bonnie B.
* * *
Ecclesiastes 3:1-13
Good to bring an end to 2020. But let’s not get too excited about the new year. That is the message of the First Lesson, well expressed by the great French philosopher Albert Camus. He once put it this way:
Basically, at the very bottom of life, which seduces us all, there is only absurdity, and more absurdity. And maybe that's what gives us our joy for living, because the only thing that can defeat absurdity is lucidity.
Life really is absurd, just one meaningless cycle after another. An earlier famous French intellectual (the 17th century) Blaise Pascal also powerfully described how meaningless life is. Describing human life, he wrote:
Imagine a number of men in chains, all under sentence of death, some of whom are each day butchered in the sight of the others; those remaining see their own condition in that of their fellows, and looking at each other with grief and despair await their turn. This is the human condition. (Pensées, p.165)
The preacher’s advice in the face of this chaos seems so hopeless. Nothing more to life than to be happy and enjoy life with some partying like we did last night. Martin Luther echoed these sentiments while enjoying a few beers himself:
Having been taught by experience I can say how you ought to restore your spirit when you suffer from spiritual depression. When you are assailed by gloom, despair, or a troubled conscience you should eat, drink and talk with others. If you can find help yourself by thinking of a girl, do so. (Luther’s Works, Vol.54, pp.17-18)
Luther saw the whole of Christian life as a joyful party. Christians, he claimed, are drunk (intoxicated) with Jesus (Luther’s Works, Vol.31, p.349). What better way to deal with the meaninglessness of life than to have a good time with our Lord.
Mark E.
* * *
Revelation 21:1-6a
A.M. Hunter, writing in Christian Theology in Plain Language, relates the story of a dying man who begged his doctor, a Christian, to tell him something about the place to which he was going. As the doctor fumbled for a reply, he heard a scratching at the door. He smiled. “Do you hear that?” he asked his patient. “It’s my dog. I left him downstairs, but he has grown impatient, and has come up and hears my voice. He has no notion what is inside this door, but he knows that I am here. Isn’t it the same with you? You don’t know what lies beyond the door, but you know that your Master is there.”
The last book of the Bible, Revelation, describes the new heaven and the new earth. It is a powerful and breathtaking description. “Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away” (verse 4). The key part, as I see it, though comes just before that. “See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them” (verse 3).
No one can really describe exactly what heaven will be like and it sure is fun to speculate. As a new year begins with a lot of uncertainty, there is one thing we can know for sure. Those who have a relationship with Jesus Christ know that eternity will be spent in the presence of God. That’s a great thought.
Bill T.
* * *
Revelation 21:1-6a
And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. (Revelation 21:2)
In order to talk about this verse, originally written in Greek, I have to turn to a word derived from Latin: Pagan, which comes from “paganus,” which refers to someone who lives in the countryside or a small village. Early Christian writers like Tertullian or Augustine used that term to refer to non-Christians. Christians were big city folks. Pagans lived in the sticks.
You wouldn’t think that was the case if you looked at Thomas Kincaid paintings or sang hymns like “The Little Brown Church in the Dale.” But pay attention to scripture. History begins in the Garden but ends in the New Jerusalem. Now there are plenty of green places in this city, but it’s a city, nevertheless. The city is where all the people are, and the city is where all kinds of people are. Some people think of cities as centers of crime, poverty, and despair. Others wouldn’t live anywhere else. Scripture’s vision of history is that heaven is everyone living together in peace and harmony. There are still trees, gardens, and parks, plenty of greenery -- but it’s all within the vision of what the city should and could be.
Frank R.
* * *
Matthew 25:31-46
Famed New Testament scholar Rudolf Bultmann does a nice job of explaining what a text about Jesus’ second coming has to do with New Year’s Day. This preaching, he wrote, has to do with “being open to God’s future which is really immanent for every one of us... to be prepared, because this future will be a judgment on all men who have bound themselves to this world...” (Jesus Christ and Mythology, pp.31-32). If you enter 2021 thinking there’s nothing really new coming in the next 12 months, if you let all the years of your life bind you and you stay stuck in all the destructive patterns, then you miss the point of what God is doing in Jesus. He’s giving all of us a fresh start, and that fresh start is happening now.
This is the way to take those verses in our lesson that seem to suggest we will be judged by our works. Famed modern theologian Karl Barth nicely explains that this is not the meaning of this morning’s lesson. He writes:
Christian love is at one and the same time love to God and love to the neighbor — and it is love to the neighbor because it is love to God...
But it does not on that account contribute anything at all to the justification of man. And it is the glory of it that it cannot even think of trying to do so, because it derives from the justification of man, for the divine sentence of pardon... (Church Dogmatics, Vol.IV/1, pp.106-107)
The only reason Jesus says that those not seeing him in the poor and hungry will be punished is because the faithful are those who do good to the least of these, for the faithful are always seeing Jesus everywhere in new fresh ways while the unfaithful have remained in bondage to their old ways of looking at the world. The unfaithful are trapped by the present ways of the world which tells them and us that the poor and sick are useless. As such, the unfaithful have been imprisoned by who they are and have been. Salvation, then, is not the result of the works we do, but is about openness to the new way of looking at the world, openness to the future, that God in Christ is giving you and me. The great French Enlightenment scholar Blaise Pascal put it this way:
Our imagination so magnifies the present, because we are continually thinking about it, and so reduces eternity... Then Jesus Christ comes to tell men that they have no enemies but themselves that it is their passions that cut them off from God, that he has come to destroy these passions, and to give men His grace... (Pensées, p.164)
The message of the end of time, the message for 2021, is that the passions that stop us from caring for others belong to yesterday, and that now is the time for a fresh start for right now the end of all that divides us is in view.
Mark E.
* * *
Matthew 25:31-46
This is a passage of Matthew’s Gospel that I am prone to quote often. I believe it is the essence of how we show our love for God. How we treat the poor, the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the inform, the imprisoned is the measure of our adherence to the command to love God and to love our neighbor. There have been days when my stances in the areas of social justice have been called too political. This is the gospel passage I return to as I explain my call as a Christian. Yes, social ills can be viewed as political, but for me the care for the hungry, thirsty, naked, ill, imprisoned, the least among us, is a gospel imperative. My actions here are the measure of my ability to follow in the footsteps of Jesus. Pray God, I will continue to do so.
Bonnie B.
