Preaching the Scriptures

  The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Luke 2:1-20   Small God   The mystery of Christmas is found in the packaging.   I don’t mean white paper boxes and whimsical gift wrap – although anyone who has ever tried to wrap a basketball or a bicycle knows that gift wrapping can be one of the world’s great mysteries.   I mean instead the mystery of how a very big God can be wrapped up in the soft skin of a tiny baby.   The God who inhabited the formless void of the universe, who danced in space before the planets were set in their courses, Stretched out in the close confines of a young womb.   The God whose voice said, “Let there be light,” Struggled to squawk out a primal, wordless cry.   The very hands that pulled humanity from the dust of the earth, Small enough to wrap a fist around Joseph’s rough finger.   The lips that kissed life into Adam, Suckled furiously at Mary’s tender breasts.   The feet that walked ...

  The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Matthew 11:2-11   John the Unsure   John was born to be a prophet.   Heaven chose his vocation long before his birth, long before the angel Gabriel struck his old dad dumb.   That is what the miraculous conception meant: that he was no accident; he was destiny - a miracle born to do the miraculous.   The song that broke his father’s silence, the song that interrupted John’s bris, was all about how John was the promised prophet of the Most High.   John’s future was scripted before he could even smile, before he realized he had fingers.   His was a dramatic introduction to the world.   And folks in the village never forgot.   People glanced his way when the stories of Elijah were read in synagogue.   He wore the outsized expectations like a mantle.     And he grew into those expectations.   John looked the part.   He dressed the part.   He said prophetic things. ...

  The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Romans 15:4-13   A Welcome Church   The wolf shall live with the lamb; the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and fatling together, and a little child shall lead them.   It is a pastel vision fit for a nursey wall.   It is also unrealistic in a way that hurts, that stirs up a kind of desperate unfulfilled longing most often reserved for prayers we dare not say out loud.   It is the kind of vision that makes one homesick for a place we’ve never known.   Isaiah always finds a way to set our best dreams to poetry.   His poetic visions are so fiercely beautiful that I named my son after him.   Because I want my son, my Isaiah, to dream these impossible dreams and hope for a future that is entirely unreasonable.   I want him to be the little child whose feet are firmly planted in the coming kingdom of God.   I love poetry – for all the ways in which is stirs the sou...