https://www.christchurchnashville.org/media/service-archive/beginning-something-great/The Gospel of Mark opens with the details of Jesus being baptized before the start of His public ministry. Unlike the writings of Matthew and Luke, Mark doesn’t provide us with the Christmas narrative. There are no angels, shepherds, wise men, or even a babe in a manger. We find Jesus as a full-grown man around the age of 30 years old. We may assume that Mark wasn’t interested in the historical facts of Jesus’ early years. If we look closer, we discover that every path to greatness has a beginning.

As we start a brand new year, don’t overlook your beginnings.

https://www.christchurchnashville.org/media/service-archive/the-fullness-of-time/As Mary and Joseph took Jesus to the temple for his circumcision, they were met by two elderly people who had been waiting decades to see the Messiah. They both had lived their entire lives in order to give witness to this day. The apostle Paul, in Galatians 4, uses the phrase “fullness of time” to refer to the ways in which history builds to certain peeks in which everything changes. However, Simeon and Anna show that individuals have their own “fullness of time.” We must all discern wht part we play in life and prepare to be faithful to this moment. As we enter a new year, we each have the opportunity to discern our own calling, and, like Simeon and  Anna, become faithful to that calling.

https://www.christchurchnashville.org/media/service-archive/8610/I sometimes wonder how we can keep claiming that the events we celebrate today still have the power to change us. Indeed, I sometimes wonder how much they have changed me. I still have much that needs changed, after all. However, the grace released through the birth of Christ is what one author had called "A slow release miracle."

Something did happen, does happen and WILL happen because of what happened on this day.

https://www.christchurchnashville.org/media/service-archive/marys-song/Walking through Mary’s journey through Scripture, from nativity to Cana to the crucifixion. Discovering what we can learn together through the testimony and witness of Jesus’s mother.

https://www.christchurchnashville.org/media/service-archive/preparing-the-way/Last week we talked about how Christian faith looks forward rather than back to some supposedly golden age. We usually sing Isaac Watts’s carol, Joy to The World, at Christmas. But the song is about the second coming, and is a paraphrase of Isaiah 40.

Since the prophet tells us to prepare the way of the Lord, we must assume that there are things we are supposed to be doing to cooperate with God’s plan for the universe. We are not merely waiting passively. Each of us, in our individual lives. Our families, our churches, and our nations, are called to prepare for a new kind of world than the one we have today.

https://www.christchurchnashville.org/media/service-archive/learning-to-wait-2/Few of us like to wait on things. We are naturally wired for instant gratification and will, most of the time, choose lesser things that promise immediate fulfillment over things that take a long time to develop. But Christian faith is built on the idea that something - we are. It sure what exactly - is going to happen in the distant future that will utter transform all of history. And we wait for it.

We do celebrate the past, but we do not allow ourselves or become obsessed with the past. Angels with flaming swords block any return to Eden. Nostalgia is a sentimentality that reaches for us all but must be resisted. We move forward.

We wait in hope

We wait in Confidence

We wait expectantly

On Reign of Christ Sunday, we revisit Jesus’s comparison of the sheep and the goats to discover just how closely the King of Kings associates with the poor, suffering, and lonely. Those who follow Jesus are expected to see Him in those in need, and must realize that by serving others they are serving Christ Himself.

Looking at Jesus’s Parable of the Talents, is Jesus only inviting us to invest our money and gifts into the world? Or is He also inviting us to risk sharing our pain, our suffering, and our broken pieces with the world?

In today’s psalm, we promise God that we will faithfully transmit his covenant to our children and to their children; that we will not keep from the, what we heard from our ancestors about the mighty works of God. So what exactly DO we tell our children?

We tell them the stories we have received, the experiences we have had, the values we affirm, and the hope that we have. Advent is a great time to practice these things.

The early Christians believed that the office of deacon was the foundational ministry of the Church. The Apostle Paul pointedly said that no one should be appointed to any post who had not served as a deacon. Why is that? Way is service to others such a big deal in the New Testament. I believe that service to others reminds us of our mortality, leads us to adopt attitudes of grace, and dignifies both the one who serves and the one who is served.