Sunday, December 10, 2006 – The Second Sunday of Advent
“Tell out my soul, the greatness of the Lord!” (UMH 200)
One scripture lesson for today has the disciples of John coming to Jesus and asking for a word to take back answering their master’s question: “Are you the One?” Jesus tells them to report what they have seen and heard while watching Jesus at ministry – blind folks healed, deaf folks hearing, the lame walking freely. Their answer is indirect. It is to compare what is happening to what the prophets had spoken about the Messiah.
WHAT DO WE HAVE TO TELL OTHERS ABOUT GOD’S WORK BEING DONE IN OUR CHURCH? Prayer: Lord, we want to know where your Messiah is right now, too! Help us understand that wherever your work is done, the Messiah is present, and then help us turn our hands to joining the tasks at hand, in Jesus’ name. Amen. Dr. John Clifford
We, too, want quick and simple answers to our searches. (Aren’t we hearing about student papers being copied from the internet without any real research?!) We do not always seem to be able to look at what is happening around us and discover our own answers from those events.
So we sometimes get caught up in the latest fads and fancies, even in the church. They sound good; but is the result what leads us to believe that the Kingdom of God might really be “near at hand?” To find out where God’s way is being prepared...that is the challenge we face daily. Is healing or hope coming to pass? Are people being reconciled to one another? Is justice being done?
Our dream for any church is that it would be a place where God’s work is happening. As we wait for the Messiah, we must sharpen our perceptions of the signs that indeed “He is the one sent from God.”