On December 9 pretty much every house of worship in Durham and surrounding areas was closed because of a big snow - 9 inches at my house! We knew the snow was coming and in preparing the yard for the slush to come, and being pretty sure no one would ask me to preach, no sermon got written. I did spend some time in the texts, though.
Malachi 3:1-4
Luke 1:68-79 (as the Psalm)
Philippians 1:3-11
Luke 3:1-6
It's a shame, because this set of lessons is about John proclaiming the way. The Malachi lesson is prophecy that John would come. The passage from Luke 1 is Zechariah singing about the birth of his son John. And the passage from Philippians is one of those love letters that Paul wrote to his beloved people. Malachi said somebody like John would come. Zechariah said he had come. And John lived up to that promise, proclaiming.
The thing about the lectionary is that in three years these same texts will come around and I will have a chance to study and preach them then, whether to a group of living people, looking at me face to face, or in some other form. I can't wait to find out what the texts say to me then.
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