Preaching the Scriptures

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson The Passion according to Mark Lonely Jesus In the end, on the cross, he was alone.   Just utterly and completely alone.   Everyone else, all those who promised to stay, left and he died alone. It wasn't always that way.   There used to be crowds – not mocking crowds, not gawking crowds.   Adoring crowds, at least fascinated crowds.   They used to follow Jesus and listen to his words and marvel at his authority, his charisma.   Days earlier, just a few days earlier, when he entered Jerusalem, they greeted him like a Messiah, like their Messiah, with palm branches and shouts of joy.   They celebrated him.   But not now.   The city of his triumphal entry is also the city of his passion and death.   Some of the same people are still around – but now they are yelling out insults, making fun of this, making light of something infinitely heavy.   They are there but they are no longer with him...

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson John 12:20-33   Seeds and Fruit Unless a grain of wheat falls to the earth and dies, it remains a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. His followers simply did not understand how these words could possibly be coming from the mouth of Jesus.   The crowd who gathered to hear his words, to see the signs, to join his revolution did not understand either.   It's twisted logic.   He's supposed to be the Messiah.   But what can a dead Messiah accomplish?   Nothing.   He was supposed to be their hope.   He has so much untapped potential.   It just cannot be.   Not him.   Not death.   Not now.    It's just not supposed to go down like this. But fair or not, sensible or not, Jesus knew: Suffering and death were built into the journey – inevitable, unavoidable.   His path would lead him to a cross.   The Messiah was the seed.   But while he would di...

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Numbers 21:4-9 Those Good Old Snakes They watched with eyes wide open and mouths agape. It was like watching a man possessed, a wild man. He started with their shrines and their sacred pillars – those monuments to outside influences, built for foreign gods that had migrated into YHWH's country. He shattered them, smashed them, broke them into a thousand pieces; he was merciless. Eyes still glued to this royal deity hunter, they watched as their king, Hezekiah, entered now the Temple. But for what could he possibly be looking? This was the Temple; this was no local shrine, no seat of idolatry.   Here was the earthly throne of YHWH.   But he continued to stalk and so they continued to watch, to see what might happen next. And then he found it; the predator king found his prey. There in the Temple it stood: an image their infidelity and disrespect had made graven. Silently it stared back at him, frozen, eyes ever open. It had a nam...