Advent 4 (preached at Second Presbyterian Church on Sun, Dec 18)
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There's a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in
--"Anthem" by Leonard Cohen
Sermon excerpt:
It should not surprise us that Jesus’ birth was cloaked in scandal because his death certainly was too. This is the Jesus Matthew sets before us—One who was born on a beautiful, scandalous night; who lived a beautiful, scandalous life, and who died on a beautiful, scandalous night.
And in this Advent season, as we watch for him to come again, Jesus is inviting us into that same kind of beautiful, scandalous life as we wait; one that cares much more for God’s commands than society’s conventions; one that is willing to love the unloveables and touch the untouchables.
To live this kind of life is to believe that God is at work in the world and that you want to be a sign of that reality for others. And it means embracing awkward situations and unexpected situations, and even embracing scandal in the eyes of the world knowing that there is something bigger, something wonderful going on in God’s divine plan.
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