December 31, 2006
SCRIPTURE
Luke 2:41-52. During the family's annual Passover pilgrimage to Jerusalem, Jesus, now "of age," stays behind to engage in rabbinic debate with the teachers in the temple. The final verse is a direct reference to today's reading from I Samuel.
-This would have been a significant journey from Nazareth, taking about four days travel time each way in addition to the time spent at the festival itself. . Including the time spent in Jerusalem, they would be away from home for the better part of two weeks.
-until this time, Jesus' "father's business" was thought to be carpentry
-there were apocryphal gospels floating around in the earliest days of the church. Some of these books, later judged to be inauthentic by the church, are filled with tales purported to be from the childhood of Jesus. Mostly, though, these are silly stories that hardly rise above the level of an old episode of that TV series Bewitched. Jesus is shown as the Wunderkind who does funny things with his supernatural powers like turning some mud pigeons he had made into real birds. Other of these tales show Jesus turning a bunch of children into goats after they had teased him or performing a little household razzle-dazzle to help Mary get the cleaning and cooking done in record time.
-Twelve years old is the age of bar-mitzvah; he becomes an adult male, able to participate fully in the Jewish life.
-Alcoholics Anonymous Twelve Step program, we really stop trying to find our own way out, and we open our lives to simply being found that One who can truly find us and set us on the right path again. We admit our powerlessness, our lostness, and we turn our lives over to God, so that we might truly begin to find our way again.
Paul J. Nuechterlein-"Amazing Grace" (singing): "Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now am found; Was blind, but now I see."
-For Luke, Christ’s wisdom was the devotion “to his Father”
-The Presbyterian Church "Declaration of Faith" proclaims Jesus "born of woman as is every child, yet born of God's power as was no other. In the person and work of Jesus, God himself and a human life are united but not confused, distinguished but not separated."
-The story of two fathers! The story of conflicting loyalties!
-After Christmas, What? There is an easy answer for Christians. Let us be about our Father’s business! or we who are in our Father’s house, Christmas is not over this Sunday! It has only begun.
Dennis Bratcher-Ends and beginnings…there’s no such thing…there’s only middles.
Robert Frost-"Tomorrow is the busiest day of the year".
-You don't leave past and go to present. You draw past into present.
-We wonder at how a young man know with such certainty what he is called to be. We can also wonder about our own sense of calling: do we feel ourselves compelled to be who God is calling us to be?
sermon: The other half of Christmas ( after christmas) Lindy
-Mary and Joseph could not forget the other half: (list what went on following Jesus' birth.
baptism, lost in Temple, flee to Egypt, 30 years raising child. )
-Jesus couldn't forget the other half. Dealing with sick, bigots, rich, adulterers, crowds, risks,
suffering, loneliness, etc.,etc.
- We now start the other half of Christmas: Just as we shared Christ's light (Christmas eve) ,so
we share the job or redeeming the world. Serve the poor, the sick, etc...example what your
church is doing.
Happiness of Christmas is temporary but real joy is found in this other half when we give our ourselves.
-Try as we might, we never seem to save time, slow time, or stop time; we can only manage what happens between the clock's ticks.
-We cannot be a part of transforming the world unless we stand in its midst. That is the trouble with our traditional New Year's resolutions -- they never step outside the confines of our own self-centered existence. I challenge you to make some resolutions that will take you into the world. Mickey Anders
-The Jewish ceremonial New Year comes in the fall, on a day called "Rosh Hashanah"--which literally means "head of the year," or "beginning of the year."
-Family loves and loyalties have their life and place under the higher love and loyalty to God. Craddock
-Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is mystery. Today is a gift
QUOTES
- Behold I am doing a new thing. Paul
ILLUSTRATIONS
-our
sermons are based on a lectionary, a system of Scriptures for preaching and
reading the Bible. 900,000,000 Christians belong to churches that use this
lectionary system. Today, all over the globe, a potential of 900,000,000
Christians in some eight denominations will read and hear the story of Jesus in
the temple at age twelve. This is an incredible work of the ecumenical movement,
that so many Christians will read the same Scriptures today and fifty-two Sunday
of the year. … These appointed readings involve a three-year series, and we are
in Series C this year which means that the gospel readings primarily come from
the book of Luke. This year, I counted and we have a potential of 43 sermons
from Luke in this calendar year and nine other sermons can be based on John. But
our primary focus of our congregation and 900,000,000 other Christians will be
on the Gospel of Luke this year. … As a personal note, here in our congregation,
we use the lectionary 90 or 95% of the time, but we have the freedom to choose
other texts. … One advantage of the lectionary is that you are forced to preach
on the whole range of the Bible and not focus on any one pet theme.
HUMOR
-A Sunday school teacher asked her class why Joseph and Mary took Jesus with them to Jerusalem. A small child replied: "They couldn't get a baby sitter."
-Fund raising ideas for next year.
Organist Tip Jar
3 Drink Minimum at Communion
Sunday School Tuition
Handling Fee for Baptisms
Church Parking Meters
Paid Newsletter Subscriptions
Bulletin Classified Ads
-In one year and out the other
-Time sneaks up on you like a window on a bug.
- In case you miss New Years on January 1, 2003, you can catch Chinese New Years; January 22, 2004. This is the first day in the Year of the Monkay. It is Year 4701 by Chinese calendar.
--Andy Rooney said: “I've given up on resolutions and switched to revolutions. I'm revolting against the way I am.
-The
late Erma Bombeck made these New Year’s resolutions:
. I will go to no doctor whose office plants have died.
. I'm going to apply for a hardship scholarship to Weight Watchers.
. I will never loan my car to anyone I have given birth to.
. And just like last year...I am going to remember that my children need love
the most when they deserve it the least.
-
CHILDREN
-a children's sermon on the Church being a great big lost and found for people. (I did this once and snuck out one of the kids gloves when they were in S.S. Then when I asked if anyone had lost anything the little boy mentioned his gloves and I held them up. If the child does not speak uP then say..."I found this pair of gloves.....")
Lindy-A family was doing some last-minute Christmas shopping in the mall. Suddenly, in the midst of all the fun and excitement, someone noticed that little three year-old Matthew was gone. Terror immediately gripped his parents. They had heard stories about little children being kidnapped in malls, never to be seen again. They split up, each member of the family taking an assigned area of the mall to search for the child. As each one completed the search of their assigned area, they returned to the place where they had agreed to meet. No one, it seems, had been able to find the missing child. Then the boy's grandfather appeared, holding little Matthew by the hand. When they asked the grandfather where he had found the boy, he answered, "He was at the candy counter. You should have seen him -- his eyes came just about as high as the candy. He was standing with his little hands behind his back and moving his head back and forth, surveying all the delicious candy. "Matthew didn’t look lost. He didn’t even know he was lost -- and he certainly didn't think he was in any danger. After all, he was right where they left him! When Jesus was a young boy, his parents went to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Passover. After the feast was over, as Mary and Joseph were traveling back to their home, they began to look for Jesus, but he was nowhere to be found. When they could not find him, they turned around and went back to Jerusalem to look for him. Do you know where they found Jesus? He was in the temple. Do you think Jesus was worried or frightened? No way! When his parents found him, he said to them, "Why were you searching for me? Didn't you know I had to be in my Father's house? "Sometimes you and I lose Jesus. We get so busy in our daily routine that we never give him a thought. Then, one day we wake up and realize that he is gone out of our lives. Do you know what we need to do when that happens? We need to go back to the place we left him. That is where we will find him, right there waiting for us! Sermons4kids
PRAYER PHRASES