[Propertalk] Fwd: Sermon Resources for March 6 - Part 2

[Joe Parrish]

Children's Stories and Transformations
 
Children's stories are full of characters who move back and forth between different realms of reality. Take Cinderella, for example. You know the story of four mice pulling a pumpkin, whisking Cinderella away from poverty into an exalted moment of acceptance and glory. In one transforming moment, the servant is transformed into the queen of the ball. Suddenly, everyone can see Cinderella's beauty and worth. Or take the story of The Lion King, where Simba, a young lion cub, makes a series of selfish choices that lead to his father's death. He has to flee. After a long exile, he is challenged to return. While wrestling with the decision, he sees in a pond his own image, mysteriously transfigured into the image of his deceased father. In that moment, he sees the purpose of his life and discovers the courage to return. Or take Beauty and the Beast, where the beast is transformed by love back into a prince.

In these stories, reality is seen in a whole new way. As for the disciples, during these very mysterious moments on the mountain, the one they had followed up the mountain was transfigured before them.

B. Wiley Stephens, God Comes to Us
______________________________________
 
The Presence of a Hero

In the summer of 1941, Sergeant James Allen Ward was awarded the Victoria Cross for climbing out onto the wing of his Wellington bomber at 13,000 feet above ground to extinguish a fire in the starboard engine. Secured only by a rope around his waist, he managed to smother the fire and return along the wing to the aircraft's cabin. Winston Churchill, an admirer as well as a performer of swashbuckling exploits, summoned the shy New Zealander to 10 Downing Street. Ward, struck dumb with awe in Churchill's presence, was unable to answer the prime minister's questions. Churchill surveyed the unhappy hero with some compassion.

"You must feel very humble and awkward in my presence," he said,

"Yes, Sir," managed Ward.

"Then you can imagine how humble and awkward I feel in yours," returned Churchill.

Churchill knew he was in the presence of a real hero. So did the disciples. In fact, they knew they were in the presence of someone whose significance went beyond celebrity, even beyond heroic. He was their Lord, their Master, their King. If we are wise, he will be our Lord, our Master, our King. If we are wise, Christ will be our Hero, too.

King Duncan, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com 
_____________________________________

 The Preview
 
The story of the transfiguration of Christ is the biblical equivalent of Friday night at your local Theater. It is a preview of what it would be for Christ in the resurrection. Jesus' face shines like the sun, Matthew tells us, and his clothes become dazzling white. Jesus is glorified right before the very eyes of Peter, James, and John as he communes with Moses and Elijah.

Previews, unfortunately, don't last long by their very nature. If they did, they wouldn't be called "previews." They would be full-length movies. But then again, this is one of the Bible's true mountaintop experiences, and as we all know, mountaintop experiences don't last very long. Every once in awhile a moment comes along that we wish we could freeze for all eternity. It's the kind of experience that reaches down into the marrow of our bones and touches us with a special feeling. We wish it would last forever, but it doesn't.

Randy Hyde, The Preview
________________________________

Wonder: It Is So Exciting
 
In the comic strip Peanuts, Snoopy's brother Spike, the one who lives in the desert, is sitting with his back against a cactus, writing a letter that says, "At night the sun goes down, and the stars come out; and then in the morning the sun comes up again. It's so exciting to live in the desert." We've gotten used to sunrises and sunsets, mornings and evenings, the moon and the stars. We've gotten used to music and art, friends and family, joy and sorrow. We too easily grow accustomed to the wonders that surround us. Laziness keeps us from seeing the flashes of brightness.

Brett Younger, Glimpses of Glory
___________________________________

 Places I Wish I Could Have Stayed
 
I have visited some places I really wish I could have stayed. If it were my choice I would still be there right now. As much as I like it here, I would rather be there.

There is a tent, set on a hill at the top of a 1,500-foot cliff overlooking the Jordan Valley in southern Israel. When the sun comes up in the morning it breaks over the mountains a few miles to the east and literally shatters the darkness around you. The winds sail up the face of the cliff from the valley below and almost make you believe you could lean out into them and fly away. It is quiet. No phone. No traffic. It is the area that Moses wandered for 40 years. I could do that. I could stay there.

There was a day that I sat in the little green room at Decatur Memorial Hospital. I had just become a father. I sat in a chair holding this little blanket in my arms. Inside the blanket were two blue eyes. The eyes looked straight into mine and said things that I could not hear, but could feel more clearly than I had felt anything in my life. My daughter. MY daughter. I would like to go back there. I would like to spend some time there again, seeing those eyes. Oh, the eyes are still here, but now they are 12 years old and they look at many different things. Then, they looked at me. Only me. I am proud of my 12-year-old, but I could go back to that room again. I could stay there.

I think Peter would understand that. I think that whatever else happened in Peter's life - and we have an awful lot of it recorded - he would have given it all up to go back. And I think I know where he would have gone.

John B. Jamison, Time's Up!, CSS Publishing Company
____________________________________

 We Can't Live on the Mountaintop

A young woman made an announcement one morning to her co-workers, "My honeymoon is over and I am so relieved. Now we can get on with our marriage." That's the way it is with our mountaintop experiences. We can't live there forever. The light is too bright, the pace too frantic, and the demands too great. It is a relief to return to normal lives where we can be ourselves and let others be themselves, but that doesn't mean the honeymoon is forgotten. Just because we don't live on the mountain all the time doesn't mean we forget what happened on the mountain.

William B. Kincaid, III, And Then Came The Angel, CSS Publishing Company
________________________________________

Describe That Person Theologically
 
In order to become a minister in most denominations, a ministerial candidate must be examined and tested theologically. The church has a right and an obligation to know if a person is theologically sound before authorizing ordination, so theological questions are asked. I heard recently about a veteran minister who always asks the same theological question of every potential minister; indeed, he has been asking this question of every candidate for over 30 years.
 
He begins by asking the candidate to look out the window. The puzzled examinee peers out the window, and the old minister adds, "Tell me when you see a person out there."
 
"I see one," the candidate will haltingly announce.
 
"Do you know that person personally?"
 
"No, sir."
 
"Good. Now, my question is this: Will you please describe that person theologically?"
 
In three decades of experience in asking that question...
 
The conclusion to this illustration and for many additional illustrations and sermons for the Transfiguration can be accessed at www.Sermons.com.
    







 


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://stsams.org/pipermail/propertalk_stsams.org/attachments/20110301/47c2646a/attachment.htm>