Proper 16
Preaching
Lectionary Preaching Workbook
Series III, Cycle C
The Church Year Theological Clue
Depending on the lectionary being followed and the calendar of this particular year, Holy Cross Day will soon be celebrated. It's a festival that is relatively new to many Protestants, but quite familiar to Roman Catholics. To celebrate the cross and the crucifixion of Christ in August or September seems like a liturgical anachronism; Jesus' passion and death are remembered annually in the spring of the year, along with Easter, of course. But Holy Cross day comes at a propitious time in the church year, halfway through the cycle/season of Pentecost, and it reminds us that the suffering and agonizing death of Christ on the cross is built into the every-Sunday celebration of Jesus' resurrection. The "little Easter" content of every Sunday is unitive, combining the death, resurrection, and ascension of our Lord as the foundation for Sunday worship and weekly work - our liturgy and our mission - in the world.
When one plays down the cross of Christ and emphasizes the resurrection by itself, the danger is that a theology of glory will result. Not a few well-known American preachers have been accused of preaching a gospel without the passion, suffering, and terrible demise of Christ. And it is true, of course, that - as the early Christian church insisted with Paul's arguments in 1 Corinthians 15 ("if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain") - the resurrection is essential to the gospel; without the Easter experience and its weekly renewal there is no hope whatsoever. But without the cross, on the other hand, the gospel loses touch with reality, with the pain and suffering of human beings which Jesus took upon himself in order to deliver people from sin and death. Without the cross there is no atonement, no reconciliation with God, and no release from the sentence of death that human beings have been under since Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden.
All of this suggests to me that the place of the cross as built into the Sunday worship should be allowed to surface and spell out the salvation that Jesus won for the world when he was lifted up on high. There is no real good news without the cross; one might as well look for the fountain of youth, or pin one's hope on scientific discoveries that will extend life beyond anything we have known so far, and have our bodies frozen and stored away until all diseases and human weaknesses are wiped out. But none of us will live long enough for that.
The Prayer Of The Day
The classic collect for the Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost will be familiar to many older Christians. It sounds as though it were prepared for a Sunday when 1 Corinthians 13 might have been the epistle for the day, but it is a cross-oriented prayer: "Almighty and everlasting God, give unto us the increase of faith, hope, and charity; and that we may obtain that which thou dost promise, make us to love that which thou dost command; through thy Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen."
The Psalm Of The Day
Psalm 46(E) - Lutherans almost have a corner on this psalm that was so dearly loved by Martin Luther and, through him, became the principal psalm of the Reformation. Luther's love of this psalm prompted him to write his hymn, "A mighty fortress is our God," which has been widely acclaimed and employed in various worship services. Recently, I heard a Roman Catholic radio program introduced with the use of this hymn. In many respects, it does speak to the situation of the whole church in the world, which is under attack from the forces of secularism, materialism and indifference. When combined with "a mighty fortress," it is often used as a preaching text for Reformation Sunday.
Psalm 117 (RC, L) - Here is a psalm which Christians can say or sing with even more vigor and passion than the pilgrims who went up to Jerusalem and worshiped God in the temple. That all the nations of the world might praise God for the things he has done for Israel can really only become a reality when people hear the gospel of Jesus Christ. The good news is for all people, not just for Israel, and this psalm calls upon those who have heard the gospel, particularly, to "Praise the Lord (and) laud him, all you peoples."
Psalm prayer (117 - LBW) - "Lord God, you have revealed your kindness to all people. Gather the nations into your church, that in all the various tongues of this world one hymn of praise may be offered to you; through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord."
The Readings
Isaiah 28:14-22 (E) - The prophet is speaking of a glorious day of the Lord, which is sure to come and will reverse the sentence of death that fell upon human beings through their alliance with sin and Satan. Historically, it is claimed that, during the threatened invasions by the Assyrians during King Hezekiah's reign, some of the rulers of Israel wanted to make an alliance with Egypt and, in that way, fend off the Assyrians. Isaiah tells them to put their trust in God, not in human beings or military alliances, and all will be well with them. God will be faithful and fulfill his part of the covenantal relationship between him and his people. In this, there is a Messianic projection, for the ultimate fulfillment of the covenant comes with the advent of Jesus Christ. He is the one who will release people from sin and death and the devil.
Isaiah 66:18-21 (RC); 66:18-23 (L) - In one of the older Lutheran lectionaries, the Twenty-seventh Sunday after Trinity, or the Last Sunday after Pentecost, was known as Judgment Sunday. This was one of the texts suggested for that date by Dr. John P. Milton, professor of Old Testament at Luther Seminary, St. Paul, some 40 years ago. (On the suggestion of a young pastor, who wondered why there were not Old Testament readings to go along with the epistle and gospel pericopes on Sundays, Dr. Milton prepared a set of readings from Isaiah for the whole year, including minor festivals and holy days. His use of Isaiah is interesting, in that the most frequent first reading in the three-year cycle of the "new" lectionaries, is Isaiah.) Isaiah (fourth) saw that God would gather all people before him - at Jerusalem, he believed - whereas the Christian church sees God gathering all people into his church and presenting them to Christ for judgment and blessing on his return to the earth.
Jeremiah 28:1-9 (C) - Here is the dramatic picture of the struggle that took place between two prophets, one of them, Hannaniah, a false prophet, and the other, Jeremiah, a true prophet of the Lord. Hannaniah spoke in the temple and gave the priests and the people false hopes, declaring that the "yoke of the Assyrians" had been broken, and that Jerusalem would be restored; the sacred vessels and the people who had been taken to Babylon in exile would be returned. Jeremiah, on hearing Hannaniah's words, utters an "Amen! May the Lord do so; may the Lord make the words you have spoken come true ..." He categorizes Hannaniah as a false prophet, because he is like the prophets who have proclaimed an awful fate to the enemies of God's people. The true prophet of God will pronounce peace. And the highest expression of peace will come, we know, in the Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ.
Hebrews 12:5-7, 11-13 (RC) - "Discipline" is the theme of this reading, spelling out the "testing" of the faithful in daily life, it would seem, rather than outright persecution. Christians are to keep the faith in the face of temptation to backslide from it, as well as to hold on to God and their faith in God, when there are severe persecutions and even the threat of death. In other words, this is an exhortation to keep the discipline of the faith when everything around one either annoys or distracts a person from living the Christian life. The writer of Hebrews is calling upon all Christians to be Christian all of the time.
Hebrews 12:18-19, 22-29 (E); 12:18-24 (L); 12:18-29 (C) - The writer of Hebrews points to the "city of the living God," the "heavenly Jerusalem," which the faithful will reach through the mercy of Jesus Christ. His sacrifice, through the blood shed on the cross, has been acceptable to God and renewed the covenant he made with his people long ago. It also means that Christians will see those things of God that his people always longed for. There they will encounter the angels and the "first-born," the martyrs who have died to witness to the faith, as well as others who have been "born again" in Jesus Christ and through their baptism. The reading belongs to an earlier exhortation by the writer, but it is also a word of promise and of hope in Jesus Christ.
Luke 13:22-30 (RC, E, L, C) - This reading has the ring of unpalatable "universality" to it, when Jesus answers the question put to him at the beginning of the pericope, "Lord, will those who are saved be few? "with" And men will come from the east and west, from north and south, and sit at table in the kingdom of God." Many will be saved, but the cost is great; Jesus had to die to accomplish salvation for all people in the world; there was no other way. Those who sit at the table are those who, in this life, have "eaten his flesh" and have "drunk his blood." He feeds and sustains the faithful on himself. And he gives the church time to preach the good news in all parts of the world so that many millions of people may be saved by believing the gospel and calling him Lord.
Sermon Suggestions, Synopses, Sketches, Stories
Luke 13:22-30 (RC, E, L, C) - "Blood On The Table." - Some years ago, when the congregation I served was developing plans for a new church building, the architect suggested that a bronze relief be planned and executed and placed in the center of the front of the alter-table. His suggestion was that it should be a very ancient symbol for the eucharist - a female pelican, who in a time of drought, had sliced open its own breast and was feeding its young on its own blood. And so, a contemporary church building maintained the faith and the imagery of the past for the faithful who worship there today.
On December 29, 1988, a front-page story carried a picture of a four-year-old girl, Gayaney Petrosyan, who was trapped with her mother in a collapsed building after the December 7th earthquake in Armenia. The headline read: "Entombed mother gave of self to feed girl." Mother and daughter had existed on a jar of jam for some time, but when it was gone the little girl cried, "Mommy, I'm so thirsty. I want to drink." Her mother, Susanna, was trapped flat on her back, her sister-in-law was lying lifeless beside her. The little girl said, "Please give me something." Her mother remembers, "I thought my child was going to die of thirst ... I had no water, no fruit juice, no liquids. It was then that I remembered that I had my own blood." Her fingers found a bit of broken glass; she sliced open her left index finger and gave it to her daughter to suckle. The drops of blood weren't enough. "Please, Mommy, some more," cried the little child. "Cut another finger." She made several cuts, squeezing her fingers to make more blood flow from them. She said, "I knew I was going to die. But I wanted my daughter to live." Both survived, miraculously. Later, she told how a television program she remembered was responsible for her action: "It was a program about an explorer in the Arctic who was dying of thirst. His comrade slashed open his hand and give his friend his blood to drink." So she gave her daughter her blood, and on the eighth day of their imprisonment they were rescued.
1. Christians are involved in something like a progressive dinner; it begins when they are admitted to the table of the Lord in baptism, and is repeated over and over, perhaps at many different churches - during their lifetime.
2. The first course is being fed by the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. That is more than an appetizer, because it satisfies the "hunger of the heart" of human beings. But it also creates the desire to be even closer to the Lord and to eat at his table, where he feeds people on his body and blood.
3. Earthly eating stops with death, but the feast continues at the table in heaven that has been set and prepared by Jesus Christ. That feast will be sumptuous, indeed, and will go on forever, until all are gathered around the table of the Lord God and "sup with him" in eternity.
4. So, let the feast begin today! Come, eat and drink of the body and blood of our Lord Jesus and, with him, live forever.
Isaiah 28:18-21 (E) - "God Is God Forever."
1. That's the message that Isaiah was trying to convey to the people of Jerusalem; God is God in every situation and forever. He was and is and always will be!
2. God has promised to be faithful and keep his part of the covenant that he made with his people. He is as good as his word. We are the ones who are at fault. We are the ones who bend and break the covenant.
3. The children of God are called to obey and serve the Lord and to trust him in every situation. God can and will see us through every situation. You can depend upon that.
4. God is God forever! - We can always bank on that, as the Lord has demonstrated in his death and resurrection. The covenant is renewed in Christ. Keep it in love and faith.
Isaiah 66:18-21 (RC); 66:18-23 (L) - "Signs Of The End Times."
1. The mission of the people of God is to praise the Lord and tell all people about the love and grace of God. It is our business to "make his name glorious."
2. God intends that all people should be gathered into his kingdom, not just Israel nor even the New Israel, the church - all people over the whole face of the earth.
3. He promises to make "new heavens and (a) new earth." Could anything be more timely in this age when we seem bent on destroying what there is left of space and earth? The signs are not simply signs of the end times, but of a new age.
4. It is God's intention that, in view of his mighty works and his love and mercy, particularly in Jesus Christ, that all people will come to know and love him and worship him forever.
Jeremiah 28:1-9 (C) - "A War Of Words."
1. Two prophets meet and conduct a "war of words." One preaches violence, the other preaches peace.
2. The false prophet has nothing to say except words of pain, suffering, and doom. The true prophet will point out sin and evil, but will also offer comfort and hope to those who listen.
3. The false prophet sees no future for the human race; it is simply destroying itself; the true prophet sees that God shows people a way out of their dilemma.
4. The false prophet offers humanity death and destruction. The true prophet offers what the false prophet never even dreams of a Savior, Jesus Christ, and a future on earth and in heaven.
Hebrews 12:5-7, 11-13 (RC) - See the comments and the sermon suggestion for this pericope in last Sunday's materials. The ORDO is really one week behind the other lection
aries in the use of this text.
Hebrews 12:18-24 (L); 12:18-29 (C); 12:18-19, 22-29 (E) - "Journey's End."
1. The pilgrim people of God will end their journey at the "city of God," "the heavenly Jerusalem." That is the final destination of the faithful.
2. A host of angels and the "first-born" of the faith - the martyrs, who witnessed for Jesus - will be there to greet those who complete the journey.
3. Heaven is a haven for people who have undergone all sorts of trials on the journey; it is a "city that cannot be shaken" or destroyed. It "is" forever. It is - through Jesus Christ - our journey's end.
4. Live in faith and hope!
Depending on the lectionary being followed and the calendar of this particular year, Holy Cross Day will soon be celebrated. It's a festival that is relatively new to many Protestants, but quite familiar to Roman Catholics. To celebrate the cross and the crucifixion of Christ in August or September seems like a liturgical anachronism; Jesus' passion and death are remembered annually in the spring of the year, along with Easter, of course. But Holy Cross day comes at a propitious time in the church year, halfway through the cycle/season of Pentecost, and it reminds us that the suffering and agonizing death of Christ on the cross is built into the every-Sunday celebration of Jesus' resurrection. The "little Easter" content of every Sunday is unitive, combining the death, resurrection, and ascension of our Lord as the foundation for Sunday worship and weekly work - our liturgy and our mission - in the world.
When one plays down the cross of Christ and emphasizes the resurrection by itself, the danger is that a theology of glory will result. Not a few well-known American preachers have been accused of preaching a gospel without the passion, suffering, and terrible demise of Christ. And it is true, of course, that - as the early Christian church insisted with Paul's arguments in 1 Corinthians 15 ("if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain") - the resurrection is essential to the gospel; without the Easter experience and its weekly renewal there is no hope whatsoever. But without the cross, on the other hand, the gospel loses touch with reality, with the pain and suffering of human beings which Jesus took upon himself in order to deliver people from sin and death. Without the cross there is no atonement, no reconciliation with God, and no release from the sentence of death that human beings have been under since Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden.
All of this suggests to me that the place of the cross as built into the Sunday worship should be allowed to surface and spell out the salvation that Jesus won for the world when he was lifted up on high. There is no real good news without the cross; one might as well look for the fountain of youth, or pin one's hope on scientific discoveries that will extend life beyond anything we have known so far, and have our bodies frozen and stored away until all diseases and human weaknesses are wiped out. But none of us will live long enough for that.
The Prayer Of The Day
The classic collect for the Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost will be familiar to many older Christians. It sounds as though it were prepared for a Sunday when 1 Corinthians 13 might have been the epistle for the day, but it is a cross-oriented prayer: "Almighty and everlasting God, give unto us the increase of faith, hope, and charity; and that we may obtain that which thou dost promise, make us to love that which thou dost command; through thy Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen."
The Psalm Of The Day
Psalm 46(E) - Lutherans almost have a corner on this psalm that was so dearly loved by Martin Luther and, through him, became the principal psalm of the Reformation. Luther's love of this psalm prompted him to write his hymn, "A mighty fortress is our God," which has been widely acclaimed and employed in various worship services. Recently, I heard a Roman Catholic radio program introduced with the use of this hymn. In many respects, it does speak to the situation of the whole church in the world, which is under attack from the forces of secularism, materialism and indifference. When combined with "a mighty fortress," it is often used as a preaching text for Reformation Sunday.
Psalm 117 (RC, L) - Here is a psalm which Christians can say or sing with even more vigor and passion than the pilgrims who went up to Jerusalem and worshiped God in the temple. That all the nations of the world might praise God for the things he has done for Israel can really only become a reality when people hear the gospel of Jesus Christ. The good news is for all people, not just for Israel, and this psalm calls upon those who have heard the gospel, particularly, to "Praise the Lord (and) laud him, all you peoples."
Psalm prayer (117 - LBW) - "Lord God, you have revealed your kindness to all people. Gather the nations into your church, that in all the various tongues of this world one hymn of praise may be offered to you; through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord."
The Readings
Isaiah 28:14-22 (E) - The prophet is speaking of a glorious day of the Lord, which is sure to come and will reverse the sentence of death that fell upon human beings through their alliance with sin and Satan. Historically, it is claimed that, during the threatened invasions by the Assyrians during King Hezekiah's reign, some of the rulers of Israel wanted to make an alliance with Egypt and, in that way, fend off the Assyrians. Isaiah tells them to put their trust in God, not in human beings or military alliances, and all will be well with them. God will be faithful and fulfill his part of the covenantal relationship between him and his people. In this, there is a Messianic projection, for the ultimate fulfillment of the covenant comes with the advent of Jesus Christ. He is the one who will release people from sin and death and the devil.
Isaiah 66:18-21 (RC); 66:18-23 (L) - In one of the older Lutheran lectionaries, the Twenty-seventh Sunday after Trinity, or the Last Sunday after Pentecost, was known as Judgment Sunday. This was one of the texts suggested for that date by Dr. John P. Milton, professor of Old Testament at Luther Seminary, St. Paul, some 40 years ago. (On the suggestion of a young pastor, who wondered why there were not Old Testament readings to go along with the epistle and gospel pericopes on Sundays, Dr. Milton prepared a set of readings from Isaiah for the whole year, including minor festivals and holy days. His use of Isaiah is interesting, in that the most frequent first reading in the three-year cycle of the "new" lectionaries, is Isaiah.) Isaiah (fourth) saw that God would gather all people before him - at Jerusalem, he believed - whereas the Christian church sees God gathering all people into his church and presenting them to Christ for judgment and blessing on his return to the earth.
Jeremiah 28:1-9 (C) - Here is the dramatic picture of the struggle that took place between two prophets, one of them, Hannaniah, a false prophet, and the other, Jeremiah, a true prophet of the Lord. Hannaniah spoke in the temple and gave the priests and the people false hopes, declaring that the "yoke of the Assyrians" had been broken, and that Jerusalem would be restored; the sacred vessels and the people who had been taken to Babylon in exile would be returned. Jeremiah, on hearing Hannaniah's words, utters an "Amen! May the Lord do so; may the Lord make the words you have spoken come true ..." He categorizes Hannaniah as a false prophet, because he is like the prophets who have proclaimed an awful fate to the enemies of God's people. The true prophet of God will pronounce peace. And the highest expression of peace will come, we know, in the Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ.
Hebrews 12:5-7, 11-13 (RC) - "Discipline" is the theme of this reading, spelling out the "testing" of the faithful in daily life, it would seem, rather than outright persecution. Christians are to keep the faith in the face of temptation to backslide from it, as well as to hold on to God and their faith in God, when there are severe persecutions and even the threat of death. In other words, this is an exhortation to keep the discipline of the faith when everything around one either annoys or distracts a person from living the Christian life. The writer of Hebrews is calling upon all Christians to be Christian all of the time.
Hebrews 12:18-19, 22-29 (E); 12:18-24 (L); 12:18-29 (C) - The writer of Hebrews points to the "city of the living God," the "heavenly Jerusalem," which the faithful will reach through the mercy of Jesus Christ. His sacrifice, through the blood shed on the cross, has been acceptable to God and renewed the covenant he made with his people long ago. It also means that Christians will see those things of God that his people always longed for. There they will encounter the angels and the "first-born," the martyrs who have died to witness to the faith, as well as others who have been "born again" in Jesus Christ and through their baptism. The reading belongs to an earlier exhortation by the writer, but it is also a word of promise and of hope in Jesus Christ.
Luke 13:22-30 (RC, E, L, C) - This reading has the ring of unpalatable "universality" to it, when Jesus answers the question put to him at the beginning of the pericope, "Lord, will those who are saved be few? "with" And men will come from the east and west, from north and south, and sit at table in the kingdom of God." Many will be saved, but the cost is great; Jesus had to die to accomplish salvation for all people in the world; there was no other way. Those who sit at the table are those who, in this life, have "eaten his flesh" and have "drunk his blood." He feeds and sustains the faithful on himself. And he gives the church time to preach the good news in all parts of the world so that many millions of people may be saved by believing the gospel and calling him Lord.
Sermon Suggestions, Synopses, Sketches, Stories
Luke 13:22-30 (RC, E, L, C) - "Blood On The Table." - Some years ago, when the congregation I served was developing plans for a new church building, the architect suggested that a bronze relief be planned and executed and placed in the center of the front of the alter-table. His suggestion was that it should be a very ancient symbol for the eucharist - a female pelican, who in a time of drought, had sliced open its own breast and was feeding its young on its own blood. And so, a contemporary church building maintained the faith and the imagery of the past for the faithful who worship there today.
On December 29, 1988, a front-page story carried a picture of a four-year-old girl, Gayaney Petrosyan, who was trapped with her mother in a collapsed building after the December 7th earthquake in Armenia. The headline read: "Entombed mother gave of self to feed girl." Mother and daughter had existed on a jar of jam for some time, but when it was gone the little girl cried, "Mommy, I'm so thirsty. I want to drink." Her mother, Susanna, was trapped flat on her back, her sister-in-law was lying lifeless beside her. The little girl said, "Please give me something." Her mother remembers, "I thought my child was going to die of thirst ... I had no water, no fruit juice, no liquids. It was then that I remembered that I had my own blood." Her fingers found a bit of broken glass; she sliced open her left index finger and gave it to her daughter to suckle. The drops of blood weren't enough. "Please, Mommy, some more," cried the little child. "Cut another finger." She made several cuts, squeezing her fingers to make more blood flow from them. She said, "I knew I was going to die. But I wanted my daughter to live." Both survived, miraculously. Later, she told how a television program she remembered was responsible for her action: "It was a program about an explorer in the Arctic who was dying of thirst. His comrade slashed open his hand and give his friend his blood to drink." So she gave her daughter her blood, and on the eighth day of their imprisonment they were rescued.
1. Christians are involved in something like a progressive dinner; it begins when they are admitted to the table of the Lord in baptism, and is repeated over and over, perhaps at many different churches - during their lifetime.
2. The first course is being fed by the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. That is more than an appetizer, because it satisfies the "hunger of the heart" of human beings. But it also creates the desire to be even closer to the Lord and to eat at his table, where he feeds people on his body and blood.
3. Earthly eating stops with death, but the feast continues at the table in heaven that has been set and prepared by Jesus Christ. That feast will be sumptuous, indeed, and will go on forever, until all are gathered around the table of the Lord God and "sup with him" in eternity.
4. So, let the feast begin today! Come, eat and drink of the body and blood of our Lord Jesus and, with him, live forever.
Isaiah 28:18-21 (E) - "God Is God Forever."
1. That's the message that Isaiah was trying to convey to the people of Jerusalem; God is God in every situation and forever. He was and is and always will be!
2. God has promised to be faithful and keep his part of the covenant that he made with his people. He is as good as his word. We are the ones who are at fault. We are the ones who bend and break the covenant.
3. The children of God are called to obey and serve the Lord and to trust him in every situation. God can and will see us through every situation. You can depend upon that.
4. God is God forever! - We can always bank on that, as the Lord has demonstrated in his death and resurrection. The covenant is renewed in Christ. Keep it in love and faith.
Isaiah 66:18-21 (RC); 66:18-23 (L) - "Signs Of The End Times."
1. The mission of the people of God is to praise the Lord and tell all people about the love and grace of God. It is our business to "make his name glorious."
2. God intends that all people should be gathered into his kingdom, not just Israel nor even the New Israel, the church - all people over the whole face of the earth.
3. He promises to make "new heavens and (a) new earth." Could anything be more timely in this age when we seem bent on destroying what there is left of space and earth? The signs are not simply signs of the end times, but of a new age.
4. It is God's intention that, in view of his mighty works and his love and mercy, particularly in Jesus Christ, that all people will come to know and love him and worship him forever.
Jeremiah 28:1-9 (C) - "A War Of Words."
1. Two prophets meet and conduct a "war of words." One preaches violence, the other preaches peace.
2. The false prophet has nothing to say except words of pain, suffering, and doom. The true prophet will point out sin and evil, but will also offer comfort and hope to those who listen.
3. The false prophet sees no future for the human race; it is simply destroying itself; the true prophet sees that God shows people a way out of their dilemma.
4. The false prophet offers humanity death and destruction. The true prophet offers what the false prophet never even dreams of a Savior, Jesus Christ, and a future on earth and in heaven.
Hebrews 12:5-7, 11-13 (RC) - See the comments and the sermon suggestion for this pericope in last Sunday's materials. The ORDO is really one week behind the other lection
aries in the use of this text.
Hebrews 12:18-24 (L); 12:18-29 (C); 12:18-19, 22-29 (E) - "Journey's End."
1. The pilgrim people of God will end their journey at the "city of God," "the heavenly Jerusalem." That is the final destination of the faithful.
2. A host of angels and the "first-born" of the faith - the martyrs, who witnessed for Jesus - will be there to greet those who complete the journey.
3. Heaven is a haven for people who have undergone all sorts of trials on the journey; it is a "city that cannot be shaken" or destroyed. It "is" forever. It is - through Jesus Christ - our journey's end.
4. Live in faith and hope!
