Today is the Third Sunday of Advent. The Rev. Donald Sensing has posted his sermon for today, on the intertwining of doubt and faith.
Challenges to faith sometimes arise from unmet expectations. The pressure of events and the ways of the world bear down us and others can force honest minds to ask, "Is there really a God who knows and cares? Does this God have a plan for the world? For me? Is Jesus the definitive revelation of that God, or should we look elsewhere for answers to ultimate questions?"Before we let our doubts become disbelief we would do well to remember that one lesson from John's story is that the Lord's coming among us was not to fulfill our expectations. The advent of the Christ is to carry out the will of God in ways we can grasp only incompletely and which frankly we may not much like. (See the book of Jonah, for example.)
Nonetheless, Jesus is indeed the Messiah. As the promised one, he is sometimes a stumbling block for us because he transforms our expectations as he fulfills them. To say that Jesus is the Messiah not only says something about Jesus, it transforms the meaning of Messiah as well. Faith does not grow from testing Jesus against our criteria to see if he measures up. It grows from testing ourselves against the Messiah so that by his grace we may measure up.
Forgot to mention last week's sermon. It's here.
Posted by Alan at December 12, 2004 08:15 AM