Union Church

The Hard Sayings of Jesus: Let the Dead Bury the Dead

Listen along as we continue looking at the hard sayings of Jesus.

Notes//Quotes:

Luke 9:57-62

Throughout history various religious traditions have used the imagery of pilgrimage or journey to describe spiritual development. These journeys were focused on an eternal destination, a spiritual transformation of the individual. Today, however, the “pilgrimage” is all about the individual’s own life journey.  The contemporary self does not have to literally be on the move to be on the road. Being on the road is primarily a state of mind, one that constantly is dissatisfied, looking for the next best thing, living in incompleteness, always engaged in a quest for a sense of significance. This search for meaning becomes even more problematic in a culture which flees from objective truth, which fears authority and the holding of belief too strongly. Mark Sayers

“we have a generation whose principal desire is to feel [God] rather than worship Him.” - Rabbi Shmuley Boteach

”By degrees, attachment to the law sank deeper and deeper into the national character…. Hence the law became a deep and intricate study. Certain men rose to acknowledged eminence for their ingenuity in explaining, their readiness in applying, their facility in quoting, and their clearness in offering solutions of, the difficult passages of the written statutes” Cyclopaedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature

“Prosperity knits a man to the world. He feels that he is finding his place in it, while really it is finding its place in him.” - CS Lewis, Screwtape Letters

How can the dead bury their own dead? This is normally taken metaphorically: "Let the spiritually dead bury the physically dead." This reading would make good on the change of life for which Jesus calls, particularly with regard to the reconstruction of one's dispositions and behaviors and of one's self-identity. Contemporary Jewish funerary customs make possible another reading. The practice of primary burial (in which the corpse is placed in a sealed tomb) followed by secondary burial (following a twelve-month period of decomposition the bones were collected and reburied in an ossuary or "bone box"') is well attested, with the additional twelve months between burial and reburial providing for the completion of the work of mourning. According to this reckoning, Jesus' proverbial saying would refer to the physically dead in both instances: "Let those already dead in the family tomb rebury their own dead." In either case, Jesus' disrespect for such a venerable practice rooted in OT law is matched only by the authority he manifests by asserting the priority of the claims of discipleship in the kingdom of God. In this way, Luke brings to a close his introduction to the journey narrative by asserting through the repetition of rigorous demands the nature of commitment required of those who would follow Jesus on the journey. Joel Green

“The Lord had not committed himself to my plans. The Lord had committed himself to me. Learning the difference was what was to make up the long arc of the Christian life. We are not most changed by what we think or feel or by what happened. We are most changed by what we depend on. And nothing has disfigured me more cruelly than my dependence on myself.” John Andrew Bryant

The Hard Sayings of Jesus: If You Want To Be Perfect

Listen along as we look at Matthew 19 and look at Jesus' interaction with the rich young ruler.

Notes//Quotes:

Matthew 19:16-30 - Faith

“It is wrong if eternal life is an additional “acquisition,” if one wants the spiritual as a complement to all the other good things one has—physical, financial, social, and the like. “I am a successful businessman, a good father, and respected in my community; now I want to be a success with God as well.” Service clubs sometimes seek such well-roundedness in their members, but the idea of eternal life as the acquisition of an upwardly mobile person is offensive to Jesus. Eternal life is not spiritual real estate for a person on the make.”
 — Dale Bruner 

“It is not difficult in such a world to get a person interested in the message of the gospel; it is terrifically difficult to sustain the interest. Millions of people in our culture make decisions for Christ, but there is a dreadful attrition rate. Many claim to have been born again, but the evidence for mature Christian discipleship is slim. In our kind of culture, anything, even news about God, can be sold if it is packaged freshly; but when it loses its novelty, it goes on the garbage heap. There is a great market for religious experience in our world; there is a little enthusiasm for the patient acquisition of virtue, little inclination to sign up for a long apprenticeship in what earlier generations of Christians called holiness…Everyone is in a hurry. The persons whom I lead in worship, among whom I counsel, visit, pray, preach, and teach, want short cuts. They want me to help them fill out the form that will get them instant credit (in eternity). They are impatient for results. They have adopted the lifestyle of a tourist and only want the high points. But a pastor is not a tour guide. I have no interest in telling apocryphal religious stories at and around dubiously identified sacred sites. The Christian life cannot mature under such conditions and in such ways. 
—Eugene Peterson 

“Americans profoundly underestimate how rich they are compared to the rest of the world. The average U.S. resident estimated that the global median individual income is about $20,000 a year. In fact, the real answer is about a tenth of that figure: roughly $2,100 per year….What explains these misperceptions? Human beings draw heavily on their own local, lived experience to make judgments about the wider world. As individuals’ own incomes rise, and therefore the incomes of those around them, so too do their overestimates of the global median income.”  
— Gautam Nair, PhD political science at Yale University

Questions:
1. Do I think that God has a price? Am I transactional with Him?
2. Am I attempting to speed God up?
3. If God were to ask me for __________ could I and would I give it to Him?
4. Am I generous with my wealth and what percentage of it goes to Kingdom priorities
 

The Hard Sayings of Jesus: Eating Flesh, Drinking Blood

Listen along as we look at John 6 and the hard sayings of Jesus.

Notes//Quotes:

John 6:52-60 - Jack A.

“Jesus offers himself as God's doorway into the life that is truly life. Confidence in him leads us today, as in other times, to become his apprentices in eternal living. "Those who come through me will be safe," he said. "They will go in and out and find all they need. I have come into their world that they may have life, and life to the limit.” In other words, eternal life is not primarily duration but quality of life, "life to the limit." It cannot be stolen from us, and so it does go on. But the focus is on the life itself. "In him was life," the apostle John said of Jesus, "and that life was the light of men.” - Dallas Willard

“There have been five chapters of John's Gospel leading up to this point; they establish the frame of reference into which eating Jesus' flesh and drinking his blood actually fits. Come to him and believe in him as Nicodemus was taught to do (John 3), as were the woman at the well and the other folk from Sychar in the next chapter. And in chapter five, you've got the reality of Jesus healing the cripple, and restoring to him a life that he didn't have before.The Jews were understandably bewildered because they didn't know that Calvary was coming, and so they scratched their heads and asked the question which at that stage was unanswerable, really: "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” The reference Jesus made to eating his flesh and drinking his blood is a metaphorical way of describing the person who draws on, claims, or lays hold of the reality of his atoning sacrifice by putting personal faith in him. We've constantly got to come back to that. It all adds up, you see. And this is something that I find myself wanting to say over and over again to people who ask me about difficult Scriptures. If you read what leads up to them in the book from which they come, again and again you'll find that the problem answers itself, because the foundation for resolving it has already been laid.” - JI Packer

Hebrews 11:1-3,6

If Christ be anything He must be everything. O rest not till love and faith in Jesus be the master passions of your soul! Charles Spurgeon

The Hard Sayings of Jesus: Not Peace, but a Sword - Matthew 10:34-39

Listen along as we continue our series looking at the hard sayings of Jesus.

Notes//Quotes:

Matthew 10:34-39 - Karen W Reading

“Don’t think I’ve come to make life cozy. I’ve come to cut—make a sharp knife-cut between son and father, daughter and mother, bride and mother-in-law—cut through these cozy domestic arrangements and free you for God. Well-meaning family members can be your worst enemies. If you prefer father or mother over me, you don’t deserve me. If you prefer son or daughter over me, you don’t deserve me.
 - Matthew 10:34–37 (MSG)

“Since the prophets always promise that under the reign of Christ there will be peace and tranquil times, what else would the disciples have hoped for, but that everything would at once be pacified, wherever they should travel?” - John Calvin

“Jesus enters earth, he enters the world, and he lays claim now, as a king from another kingdom, on every human heart. “I am worthy of greater affection, greater love, greater allegiance than any member of your family.” If all the family members respond to Jesus this way, you’ve got peace. But if they don’t, if there is anger because Jesus has become more important than family bonds and family affections, then a sword cuts right through the relationship. We’ve all tasted this in some ways.” - John Piper

“And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.”
- Colossians 1:18 (ESV)

“If you don’t go all the way with me, through thick and thin, you don’t deserve me. If your first concern is to look after yourself, you’ll never find yourself. But if you forget about yourself and look to me, you’ll find both yourself and me."
- Matthew 10:38-39 (MSG)

 “Jesus is not triumphalist about the future of Christian mission; he knows that his mission is a rugged minority movement, a tough, divisive affair, and he prefers to make this clear rather than to give false hopes. “The gate is wide and the way pleasant that leads to destruction, and many people [a majority] go this route; but the gate is narrow and the way is tough that leads to real life, and very few people [a minority] find this way” (7:13–14). The effect of this minority movement as it moves aggressively into the massive majority culture is bound to be friction. Jesus does not want his disciples to expect great triumphs and then, when persecution, hostility, and rejection are their experience, to feel betrayed. “This is the way it goes,” Jesus assures them; in fact, “this is the way I plan it to go.””  — Dale Bruner

Questions:
 1. Am I a jerk?

2. In what aspects of my life am I tempted to tell Jesus to take a back seat in? What threatens my allegiance to Him?

“Anything that becomes more important and nonnegotiable to us than God becomes an enslaving idol. In this paradigm, we can locate idols by looking at our most unyielding emotions. What makes us uncontrollably angry, anxious, or despondent? What racks us with a guilt we can’t shake? Idols control us, since we feel we must have them or life is meaningless.”  —Timothy Keller 

3. To whom am I truly aligned?

The Hard Sayings of Jesus: Did You Not Know? Luke 2:40-52

Listen along as we begin our new series through the hard sayings of Jesus.

Notes//Quotes:

Luke 2:40-52 - Mike Reading

“If you believe what you like in the Gospel, and reject what you don't like, it is not the Gospel you believe, but yourself.” - Augustine 

“You can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out God hates all the same people you do.” - Anne Lamott

“I can state unequivocally that childlike surrender in trust is the defining spirit of authentic discipleship. And I would add that the supreme need in most of our lives is often the most overlooked—namely, the need for an uncompromising trust in the love of God.” - Brennan Manning

A faith without some doubts is like a human body without any antibodies in it. People who blithely go through life too busy or indifferent to ask hard questions about why they believe as they do will find themselves defenseless against either the experience of tragedy or the probing questions of a smart skeptic. A person's faith can collapse almost overnight if she has failed over the years to listen patiently to her own doubts, which should only be discarded after long reflection. Believers should acknowledge and wrestle with doubts — not only their own but their friends' and neighbors'. It is no longer sufficient to hold beliefs just because you inherited them. Only if you struggle long and hard with objections to your faith will you be able to provide the grounds for your beliefs to skeptics, including yourself, that are plausible rather than ridiculous or offensive. And, just as important for our current situation, such a process will lead you, even after you come to a position of strong faith, to respect and understand those who doubt. - Tim Keller

“Doubt your doubts. Be skeptical of your own skepticism. Why? Because you realize that you are not completely objective.” Tim Keller

 

Becoming - Colossians 3:12-17

Listen along as we look at Colossians 3 and meditate on the invitation to transformation.

Notes//Quotes:

Colossians 3:12-17 Zyler Reading

“Spiritual formation in a Christian tradition answers a specific human question: 'What kind of person am I going to be?' It is the process of establishing the character of Christ in the person.” Dallas Willard

“How much misery we would avoid if we permitted “the peace of Christ” to umpire in our hearts. How many words we would hold back if he were the arbitrator in our lives. How many sleepless nights we would forego if we did that. How the Church needs this too, “since as members of one body you were called to peace.”
Kent Hughes

Revelation 3:20

“The Jesus way wedded to the Jesus truth brings about the Jesus life. Jesus as the truth gets far more attention than Jesus as the way. Jesus as the way is the most frequently evaded metaphor among the Christians with whom I have worked for fifty years as a North American pastor.” Eugene Peterson

“Spiritual formation is the slowest of all human movements.” - James Houston

“A black belt is just a white belt who never quit.” A saint is just an ordinary apprentice who stayed at it with Jesus.  John Mark Comer

The story of my life, which I am about to record, is one full of striking incident. Keener pangs, deeper joys, more singular vicissitudes, few have been led in God’s providence to experience. As I look back on it through the vista of more than eighty years, and scene after scene rises before me, an ever fresh wonder fills my mind. I delight to recall it. I dwell on it as did the Jews on the marvelous history of their rescue from the bondage of Egypt. Time has touched with its mellowing fingers its sterner features. The sufferings of the past are now like a dream and the enduring lessons left behind, make me to praise God that my soul has been tempered by Him in so fiery a furnace under such heavy blows. - Josiah Henson

Christianity is more than a theory about the universe, more than teachings written down on paper; it is a path along which we journey—in the deepest and richest sense, the way of life.
Kallistos Ware

“Your current habits are perfectly designed to deliver your current results.” James Clear

On the Incarnation: Resurrection and Return

Listen along as we wrap up our advent series and reflect on the resurrection and return of Jesus.

Notes//Quotes:

1 Cor 15:1-8

1 Cor 15:17-19

“A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic–on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg–or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse…. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come up with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.” C.S. Lewis

1 Cor 15:20-26 

No more let sins and sorrows grow,

Nor thorns infest the ground;

He comes to make His blessings flow

Far as the curse is found
Issac Watts 

I arrived to find myself already loved.
A forgiveness preceding, exceeding
my first crime and my last.
A prior mercy,
a predestined grace.
Anticipating my shame
a welcome offered,
a healing before the pain.

I had imagined it to be my task
to close the distance between us,
to cross the chasm,
scale the height.
My fault dictating my duty,
though futile and impossible.

But I looked up
hearing the angels sing
to find you already here.

-- Richard Beck Incarnation

John 3:16-17

1 Thess 4:13-18

We must remind ourselves yet once more that all Christian language about the future is a set of signposts pointing into a mist. Signposts don’t normally provide you with advance photographs of what you’ll find at the end of the road, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t pointing in the right direction. NT Wright

In a very deep sense, the entire christian life in this world is lived in Advent, between the first and second comings of the Lord, in the midst of the tension between things the way they are and things the way they ought to be. -Fleming Rutledge

Revelation 21:1-8

On the Incarnation: Death

Listen along as we continue our Advent series.

Notes/Quotes:

Mark 10:32-45 - Kim J

Title: Suffering Savior

 

“31 And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again. 32 And he said this plainly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.” (Mark 8:31-32)

 

“but that's not what's going on here at all. And why not, you may say? If God is really a loving God, why doesn't he just forgive everybody? Why did Jesus have to go through suffering into death? Why did he have to be a ransom?……Here’s the beginning of an answer: Jesus didn't have to die, despite God's love; he had to die because of God's love. And it had to be this way, because all of life-changing love is substitutionary sacrifice.”

- Timothy Keller

 

“The only way that Jesus could redeem us was to give his life as a ransom. God couldn’t just say, “I forgive everybody.” In the creation, God could say, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God could say, “Let there be vegetation,” and there was vegetation. God could say “Let there be sun, moon, stars,” and there were sun, moon, and stars (Genesis 1). But he couldn’t just say, “Let there be forgiveness.” That’s simply not the way forgiveness works. 

 

God created the world in an instant, and it was a beautiful process. He re-created the world on the cross —and it was a horrible process. That’s how it works. Love that really changes things and redeems things is always a substitutionary sacrifice.” 

- Timothy Keller

 

“The way up is downward That is not a contradiction, but it is a paradox. Sink, and you shall rise. Be willing to serve the very least, and you shall have honour amongst your brethren. Remember that the King of kings was the servant of servants.”

- Charles Spurgeon

 

Jesus can you take the time

To throw a drowning man a line

Peace on Earth

To tell the ones who hear no sound

Whose sons are living in the ground

Peace on Earth

Jesus in the song you wrote

The words are sticking in my throat

Peace on Earth

Hear it every Christmas time

But hope and history won't rhyme

So what's it worth?

This peace on Earth

— U2

On The Incarnation: Life

Listen as we continue our series through Advent.

Notes//Quotes:

Slide 1

 

Jesus was born to perfectly fulfill all of the commandments that Israel had failed to honor.

 

 

Slide 2

 

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them.”

Matthew 5:17

 

 

Slide 3

 

“And beginning with Moses and the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.”

Luke 24:27

 

 

Slide 4

 

“Jesus says that He came to fulfill the Law and the Prophets. In other words, Jesus’ purpose was to establish the Word, to embody it, and to fully accomplish all that was written. “Christ is the culmination of the law” (Romans 10:4). The predictions of the Prophets concerning the Messiah would be realized in Jesus; the holy standard of the Law would be perfectly upheld by Christ, the strict requirements personally obeyed, and the ceremonial observances finally and fully satisfied.”

Gotquestions.org

 

 

Slide 5

 

Jesus was born to reverse the damage that Adam had inflicted on creation.

 

 

Slide 6

 

“Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous.”

Romans 5:18-19

 

 

Slide 7

 

“All who are ordinary descendants of Adam are in Adam until by regeneration, faith, and repentance they move from being in Adam to being in Christ. If we are in Christ by faith alone, we receive forgiveness of sin and our Lord’s perfect righteousness, by which we are accepted by God…

In sum, those who are in Christ will get back what they lost in Adam, but more accurately, what we will get back will be better than what we lost. As John Calvin comments, “[Adam] by his fall ruined himself and those that were his, because he drew them all, along with himself, into the same ruin: Christ came to restore our nature from ruin, and raise it up to a better condition than ever.” Christ can do this because He is the last Adam, the federal head whom God appointed in His mercy to stand in for us so that we will become the glorified saints God intends us to be.”

Ligonier Ministries

 

Slide 8

 

Jesus was born to assure us that He understands our lives.

 

 

Slide 9

 

“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

Hebrews 4:15-16

 

 

Slide 10

“For thirty-three years Jesus felt everything you and I have felt. He grew weary. He was afraid of failure. He got colds, he burped, he had body odor. His feelings got hurt, his feet got tired, his head ached.

To think of Jesus in such a light is…well, it seems almost irreverent, doesn’t it? It’s uncomfortable. It is much easier to keep the humanity out of the incarnation. Clean the manure from around the manger. Wipe the sweat out of his eyes. He’s easier to handle that way. Something about keeping him divine also keeps him distant, packaged, and predictable.

For heaven’s sake don’t do it. Let him be as human as he intended to be. Let him into the mire and muck of our world. For only if we let him in, can he pull us out.”

Max Lucado

 

Slide 11

 

Jesus was born to be the mediator between God and mankind, to bridge the gap between us and God.

 

 

Slide 12 (both verses on one slide)

 

“For he is not a man, as I am, that I might answer him,

    that we should come to trial together.

There is no arbiter between us,

    who might lay his hand on us both.”

Job 9:32-33

 

“For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time.”

 

1 Tim 2:5-6

 

Slide 13

“Out of the deep darkness that surrounds this suffering saint, a ray of light breaks through. It is the first break in Job's gloom. What is needed is a mediator, an arbitrator who can come between us, who understands us both and brings us together, Job says. For the first time in this book we begin to see what God is producing in this man, why he is putting him through this protracted trial. For now Job begins to feel, deep in his bones, the nature of reality: the terrible gulf between man and God that must be bridged by another party.

We who live in the full light of the New Testament know that he is crying out and feeling deep within the need for just such a mediator as Jesus himself. Job is laying the foundation here in his own understanding for the tremendous revelation that comes in the New Testament when God becomes man. God takes our place, lives as we live, feels as we feel, solves the great problem between us and God, and brings the two—God and man—together. For the first time in Job, we begin to sense what God is driving at.”

Ray Stedman

 

Slide 14

 

Jesus was born to restore mankind to the exalted position for which we were created.

 

 

Slide 15

 

“Advent is a chance not only to celebrate Jesus’ taking of human flesh but also his keeping of it. It wasn’t a mere 33-year stint—impressive as that would have been. Jesus is forever the God-man. He is glorious not merely in assuming our human nature but in remaining our brother and continuing as the visible “image of the invisible God.”

 

To put it in the apostle John’s language, the Word became flesh. His humanity isn’t a costume. The eternal divine Son didn’t simply make a cameo in the created world. He forever joined our humanity to his divinity and for all eternity will be fully God and fully man.

 

David Mathis

 

Slide 16

One of the doctrines in the area of Christology that is difficult for some Christians to fully grasp is the permanent humanity of Christ. The impression often seems to be that the Son of God came down from heaven in incarnate form, spent three decades or so as a human, and then returned to heaven to revert back to his preincarnate state.

But this is Christological error, if not outright heresy. The Son of God clothed himself with humanity and will never unclothe himself. He became a man and always will be. This is the significance of the doctrine of Christ’s ascension: he went into heaven with the very body, reflecting his full humanity, that was raised out of the tomb. He is and always has been divine as well, of course. But his humanity, once taken on, will never end.”

Dane Ortlund

 

Slide 17

 

Have a wonder-filled Christmas

 

On The Incarnation: Birth

Isaiah 9:2-7

In general the whole Liturgical calendar is set up so that you never have celebration without preparation. Advent is focused more on preparation. Advent is designed to call us into rest, into reflection and into hope for what’s next. That’s what Christians are focusing on when they celebrate Advent. - Tish Harrison Warren

The entire thrust of this season is designed to bring us face-to-face with reality—reality about sin and death, reality about the human race, reality about God. Something ultimate has entered our world, something or Someone that calls us to attention, calls us out of our daily preoccupations and our routine points of view. That is what this season with its special biblical readings is designed to reveal - Fleming Rutledge

“It is because of His humanity and His incarnation that Christ becomes sweet to us, and through Him God becomes sweet to us. Let us therefore begin to ascend step by step from Christ’s crying in His swaddling clothes up to His Passion. Then we shall easily know God. I am saying this so that you do not begin to contemplate God from the top, but start with the weak elements. We should best ourselves completely with treating, knowing, and considering this man. Then you will know that He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” 
Martin Luther

May the Lord make you glad during this remembrance of the birth of His only Son, Jesus Christ; that as you joyfully receive Him for your redeemer, you may with sure confidence behold Him when He shall come to be our judge.
Book of Common Prayer (1928)

“Assyria’s masters are planning to conquer the whole earth (Is. 5:25-29) Her greed is reckless, her weapons devastating, her armies formidable, crushing all resistance, sweeping to victories. No one seems to question her invincibility except Isaiah, who foresees the doom of the oppressor, the collapse of the monster.” Abraham Heschel

“Look at how a single candle can both defy and define the darkness.” ―Anne Frank

This good news offers another opportunity for rebellious people to turn from trusting in political alliances, mediums, and the spirits of the dead because God is their only true source of hope. Neither Ahaz nor any modern political figure can ever hope to bring about an era of perfect peace and justice. Only God’s wonderful plans will bring about these ideals, not the plans of Ahaz (8:10) or any other fast talking politician. God’s promises will only be accomplished through his chosen messianic ruler, so placing trust in any other solution is folly. - Gary Smith

Matthew 1:9, 21-23, 2:5-6

I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears
I hid from Him, and under running laughter.
Up vistaed hopes I sped;
And shot, precipitated,
Adown Titanic glooms of chasmèd fears,
From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.
But with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbèd pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
They beat—and a Voice beat
More instant than the Feet—
‘All things betray thee, who betrayest Me.’ 
Francis Thompson

In the church, this is the season of Advent. It’s superficially understood as a time to get ready for Christmas, but in truth it’s the season for contemplating the judgment of God. Advent is the season that, when properly understood, does not flinch from the darkness that stalks us all in this world. Advent begins in the dark and moves toward the light—but the season should not move too quickly or too glibly, lest we fail to acknowledge the depth of the darkness. Advent bids us take a fearless inventory of the darkness: the darkness without and the darkness within. - Fleming Rutledge