Imagine if you will, a household with two teenage sons. It’s a fall Saturday and the boys are vegging out in front of the TV playing their Xbox. They plan on there all afternoon. But their plan seems to hit a snag when dad walks in.
This might have been one of the hardest sermons I’ve ever had to write. Not hard in the sense that I didn’t know what I was going to write. But hard in the sense knowing how much I was going to have to leave out.
f someone described the life that you are called to live as a Christian as oxymoronic, how would you react? Would you think they were insulting you? Maybe that’s how it sounds initially, but actually an oxymoron is a literary term. An oxymoron takes two seemingly contradictory words and puts them together to describe something or someone. Jumbo shrimp, paid volunteer, and pretty ugly are all examples of oxymorons.
The intricacies of God’s creation never cease to amaze. Sure, you’ve got the spectacular views of the millions and billions of stars on a clear summer night or the variegated colors of the sunset as it sinks over the horizon. But, it’s some of the littlest things that are the most amazing.The intricacies of God’s creation never cease to amaze. Sure, you’ve got the spectacular views of the millions and billions of stars on a clear summer night or the variegated colors of the sunset as it sinks over the horizon. But, it’s some of the littlest things that are the most amazing.
The intricacies of God’s creation never cease to amaze. Sure, you’ve got the spectacular views of the millions and billions of stars on a clear summer night or the variegated colors of the sunset as it sinks over the horizon. But, it’s some of the littlest things that are the most amazing.
“The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.” That pretty much sums up 2020 so far, doesn’t it? Plan A, Plan B, and Plan C haven’t seemed to be enough this year.
If you’ve been following along with our series this summer as we look at Romans 101: One word at a time, today may be a first for many of you. We’ve already looked at words like Atonement, Righteousness, and Reconciliation. We’ve talked about concepts like baptism and sin. Yet, even if you’re new to the church, you’ve likely heard those words before in some setting, even if you didn’t know what they meant. Today, I’m guessing, is different.
When it comes to the place where Jesus was crucified, we often interchange the name “Golgatha” for Mt. Calvary. Maybe it’s just because it’s easier to say, but really both mean the same thing. Calvary means “skull” in Latin. Both Golgatha and Mt. Calvary mean “the place of the skull.
So many times in so many different situations, Jesus does the exact opposite of what we would expect. And that’s not more evident today than in our Gospel.
