Scott E. Hoezee

Note: This article is slightly adapted from its first printing in The Banner(June 2010). Used by permission.

If you’ve ever recited the Athanasian Creed in a worship service, please send me an email to tell me about it!

In truth, I’ve never heard this creed used in church, and it’s not difficult to see why. Even a quick glance shows you that in addition to being much longer than either the Apostles’ Creed or the Nicene Creed, this creed is also sufficiently repetitive as to get tedious.

Week 1

Jesus Cleanses a Leper

Scripture

Mark 1:40-45

Week 1

The Mysterious Kingdom

Scripture:

Mark 4:26-34

Sermon Notes

The kingdom of God is never quite what we expect. We see this in two rather surprising back-to-back parables in Mark 4.

Every few years it happens, often around Easter. Questions about the life and ministry of Jesus are still so interesting to so many people that one, two, or even three of the major weekly newsmagazines in America will run cover stories about him. Few celebrities get their faces on the covers of such magazines all in the same week. Yet centuries after his death and resurrection, Jesus still generates a lot of press—not only for what he did or said but for the core question of who he is.

Human nature is such that we prefer the sweet to the sour, the easy to the hard, the light rather than the darkness. But for the light to seem bright, we first need to spend time in darkness. Similarly, we need Advent to comprehend the gift of Christmas. This series allows us to dwell in Advent, to notice that we’re living in between the two advents, to dare to look at the world’s darkness in order to better see the brightness of Christ’s light.

If you are a preacher in a typical Reformed congregation, you know that on most Sundays the congregation expects the table to be bare even as they expect the pulpit to be filled. Many people who wouldn’t bat an eye at a service without either of the sacraments would find a service without a sermon vaguely scandalous.

Some years ago Bill Murray starred in a movie that riffed on Charles Dickens’ classic story A Christmas Carol . Murray played the Scrooge figure in the film: a hard-nosed television executive who disliked everything about Christmas except for the fact that his TV network could make a lot of money off the holidays.

Literary Companion to the Lectionary: Readings Throughout the Year by Mark Pryce. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2002. xiii+143 pp. (paperback).

Literary Companion to the Festivals by Mark Pryce. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003. xvii+189 pp. (paperback). $11.90.