Preaching the Scriptures

  The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Habakkuk 1:1-4, 2:1-4   What are you waiting for?   What is he waiting for?   What is this ancient prophet, with his unusual name, waiting for?   What is this holy man, standing at his watch post, shouting from his tattered soul, praying from his deepest depths: what exactly is he waiting for?     Because nothing good is on the horizon; nothing good is coming his way.   Destruction and violence are before him.   Is he waiting for them to finally arrive?   Strife and contention are on the rise.   Is he waiting for them to reach their full stature?   A foreign army is at the gate, eager to seize dwellings that are not their own.   Is he waiting to hand over his keys?   The enemy is on a mission to gather captives like one might gather up the sand of a vast desert.   Is he waiting to be swept up and carried away?   What is he waiting for?   The prophet and h...

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Habakkuk 1:1-4, 2:1-4 How Long? I still remember the day so vividly. Friday, December 14, 2012. It was my day off and so I was home with my family – now three since Oscar was born the previous September. We sat in the family room, a bright, cool winter sun flooding into our space, and we turned on the TV. On the screen was a terrible nightmare that had escaped into the real world. Even now, almost four years later, it's still too horrible to think about. And yet parents lived it. Their little children frozen in time by a mad man with guns. I remember staring at the television screen, sick to my stomach, sick to the soul, the death toll growing: tiny lives that never fully blossomed, hopes and dreams never fully realized. Denial is the first stage of grief, but it wasn't that, it just seemed unreal, too terrible to be real. Never before, nor since, have I cried so much for people I did not know. I remember those tears,...