Preaching the Scriptures

The Rt. Rev. Jeremiah Williamson John 14:15-21   Never, Ever Alone Church of the Messiah, Glens Falls   I have a little sister.   She is two years younger than me.   When we were children, she had a favorite movie.   We watched it all the time.   I could recite all the lines; I knew the catchy songs.   I enjoyed the dumb dog.   I appreciated that the male lead was bald.     Annie, set during the Great Depression, was about the eponymous little orphan girl, remembered for her bright red afro, who is adopted by that wealthy bald man, Daddy Warbucks.   She lived a hard-knock life, in a smelly orphanage, with the great Carol Burnett, until, in the end, she finds her happily ever after.   It is little Annie whom I picture when I imagine an orphan.   I do not imagine eleven grown men – all free range, some with wives and children, some with parents who are, in fact, explicitly mentioned in the Bible doing thi...

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...