Words of Welcome

Peter Bruegel, "The Wedding Dance," DIA Ephesians 1:3-14 During this season of Epiphany we’ve been reflecting on our “God-Talk.” Even though our words are inadequate to the task, we do speak about God.  We use metaphors and analogies and stories to give voice to what lies beyond human understanding. We are like Peter, who came up to Jesus after watching him being  transfigured on the mountain and offered to set up tents for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah. He made this offer because “he did not know what to say.”   Can you identify with Peter?  Do you find it difficult knowing what to say about God?  And yet, we do speak of God.  We speak of God the creator, the God who is love, the God who judges, and the God who saves. As Christians we often point to Jesus and say, whoever God is, God is like Jesus!  That is why most Christians use the word Trinity to speak of the God whom we experience in Christ and through the presence of the Holy Spiri...

John 1:1-5, 14-18 Rembrandt's Jesus -- DIA The Psalmist asks: “Who is the King of Glory?” The answer: “The Lord of hosts, He is the King of Glory” ( Psalm 24:10 ).  These past few weeks we have been asking the question: How do we speak of God?  We’re asking this question rather than who is God, because God’s essence remains a mystery to us. But, if we speak of God we do have some idea about God’s identity. Of course, as Christian Piatt reminded us on several occasions last weekend, whatever our conceptions of God, we should hold them loosely. Instead of seeking certainty we live by faith.  The Gospel of John begins with this declaration:  “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”  John later tells us that this Word “has become flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son” (John 1:1, 14). So, “who is the King of Glory?”  It is, John believes, the God revealed in...

1 John 4:7-12 When I was in high school, we often sang a song in Bible study that drew from the Song of Solomon.  It went like this: I am my beloved’s, and he is mine. His banner over me is Love.  ( Song of Songs 6:3; 2:4 ) Who is the beloved whose banner over me is love? If you read the Song of Solomon in a straightforward way, you’ll discover that this is a most explicit love song. But, down through the ages, Christians have read this song allegorically to describe Christ’s relationship with the church. Christ is the Beloved, and those over whom the banner of love flies belongs to him.      In one of the weddings at which I officiated, the Scripture text was taken from the Song of Solomon. Among the words shared that day were these: Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm; for love is strong as death, passion fierce as the grave.  Its flashes are flashes of fire, a raging flame. Many waters cannot quench love, n...

Luke 12:4-7    Several decades before the American Revolution, a preacher got up to preach a sermon that has lived on in infamy.  Some of you may have read it as a high school student.  Perhaps you liked what you read, but I expect that it didn’t resonate with most of you. That preacher was named Jonathan Edwards and the context was the First Great Awakening that shook the American colonies in the 1740s.  It was titled “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” You might think that a sermon like this was preached by a backwoods fire and brimstone preacher.  The fact is, the person who delivered this sermon is one of America’s greatest intellects.  It was an expression of a revival that swept New England, dividing the region’s Congregationalists into Old Lights and New Lights.   The question of the day was whether the people and even their spiritual leaders were actually Christians.  Although Jonathan Edwards did speak of God’s mercy,...