St. Jude's Anglican Church

Longing. We have a longing for community, proximity, peace, blessedness and righteousness. And our experience in this world, on account the evil in her that flows from our own hearts also, reminds us that if we do have it here, it is in small portions and temporal. Zechariah’s prophecy speaks to this longing. And Jesus Christ satisfies it. This sermon was preached on the 2nd Sunday after the Epiphany at St Jude’s Anglican Church in Huntersville.

This is an audio recording of my article in the first newsletter of the year, concerning the Epiphany of Jesus Christ as Savior of the world. This feast is held yearly on Jan 6th according to western Christian tradition.

This recording concludes our lectures and discussion on the Book of Revelation. Join us for reading of the final chapters followed by a brief lecture and some Q&A (which always seem to come back to the relationship between faith and works :).

Seasons such as Advent are pedagogical, they teach us by relating our liturgical life and language to the longings of our hearts. Having begun the story afresh we begin with preparation; making ready for the coming of the Lord.

In accordance with our teaching and preaching over the last few months, we encounter readings from Daniel and Revelation that conclude the Church’s liturgical retelling of the Christian story with Christ the King Sunday. Here we exalt the King of kings and Lord of lord’s. We dream of his reign and fan into flame a longing for his appearing in our hearts.

We are quickly approaching the end of our lectures from Dr Nerness on the book of Revelation. Listen in as we dive deeper in the imagery found not only in these chapters of Revelation but in other apocalyptic works in the Word of God.

The lectionary for Nov 14th encouraged me to speed up the process a bit. That and the eve of the Advent season compel me to conclude our series on Daniel. While Daniel chapter 12 would be a series in itself we are able to glean timeless truths upon which to hang our hope.

This week we took a brief pause to cement the foundations of God as creator, and creation as inherently good, in accordance with the nature assigned to all things and beings at creation.. This is important because the work of evil, as seen in the beasts of the book of Revelation, is to, by way of deception, claim God’s power for themselves. This quickly leads to violence and ruin as it did in Genesis 6 and 11. And the way the beasts in Revelation do this is by blurring the creator / creature distinction. Therefore a return to the foundations laid at creation, in accordance with the creation account in Genesis, is rather helpful as we come to the home stretch of John’s Apocalypse in the weeks to come.

I’ve been eager to get to this chapter. We would do well to dwell long in it. My imagination has Daniel, living still in Babylon, turning to face the East, to Jerusalem. There he would picture the former glory of the Temple of God in the city of Jerusalem. And he would pray as Solomon foretold, as Moses prescribed. For Israel was suffering the curses that came with breaking their covenant with God Almighty. And now that history was unfolding before Daniel’s eyes in accordance with the word of the prophets, he was all the more eager to fast, pray, read and yearn for the fulfillment of God’s promises, a return of the remnant and therefore the favor of God. Hear what happens when the people of God humble themselves, repent and seek the Lord!

Today we read and discuss Revelation chapters twelve through fourteen. Join Dr John Nerness and the Rev Clay W Thompson for thoughtful reading and discussion of these vivid chapters from St John’s Apocalypse.