Emphasis Preaching Journal

Object: A painting, a book, and a rock.

* * *

John peeked around the corner. “Daughter of mine, is there any chance that Ollie is in the kitchen?”

“I haven’t seen him for a bit.” Amy started to get up from the table. “Isn’t he with you?”

“Nothing to worry about,” John said. “We’re playing hide and seek, and your son is hiding and I’m seeking.”

Amy pushed out a chair. “He’s not here and you look like you could use a break.”

“I sure can. I’m exhausted.” John slumped down in the chair. “Does he ever stop?”

1 Samuel 2:18-20, 26
In the mid-1990’s, Wendy’s restaurants had a promotion win which they would “biggie size” your drink, your meal, almost everything but the Frosty! Wendy’s decided to discontinue this promotion after getting some criticism from those who claim the fast-food industry was contributing to the nation’s obesity problem.

Call to Worship:

Jesus grew in wisdom and stature and in favour with God and men. Let us worship him today with dignity and love, remembering that he was once a child just as we have all been children.

Invitation to Confession:

Father God,

Lord, have mercy.

Father God,

Christ, have mercy.

Father God,

Lord, have mercy

Reading:

Luke 2:41-52

Each of us faces the choice of who and what we will become. Sometimes, we don't really know what we want to be when we grow up until we are forty-something. Our earliest models for making that choice are the people who raise and nurture us. Although we identify with the adults whom we admire most, each of us is unique and intended to become "our own person."

Tradition is defined as an inherited, established, or customary pattern of thought or action. Take for instance a cooking method. Sarah asked her mother, "Why do you always cut the turkey in half and put it in two small roasters?"

"Because my mother always did. It's a tradition handed down through our family," responded her mother.

"But Mom, did you ever think they didn't have big roasters back then?" Tradition -- a customary pattern or action. But who said traditions can't be changed?

In his book What's So Amazing About Grace? Philip Yancey tells of a conversation he once had with two scientists who had just emerged from the biosphere near Tucson, Arizona.1 For those of you who aren't familiar with what that is -- several years ago, an isolation experiment was conducted, in which a team of four men and four women lived inside a glass-enclosed structure, entirely shut off from the outer world. The general idea was to see if humankind might one day be able to exist on another planet by recreating a portion of the earth.