Preaching the Scriptures

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson John 3:1-17 Nicodemus This meeting wasn’t exactly planned.   It was more the direct result of a head full of thoughts – the kind of thoughts that present unresolvable problems.   The kind of impossible dilemmas that seem only to emerge once the bustle of the day is put to bed.   And so, on that rather ordinary night, at the end of a rather ordinary day, Nicodemus tossed and turned in his bed, and so did his mind. It was Jesus: Jesus was the impossible quandary, the stone in Nicodemus’ brain sandal.   His was the voice this local leader could not turn off.   And so, though it was dark, though the night was suggesting sleep and quiet, Nicodemus needed some answers to quell this particular case of insomnia.   Given that Jesus was the problem, he reasoned, Jesus must also be the answer. Some scholars suggest that Nicodemus came to Jesus under the cover of night to avoid the watchful eyes of his peers.   And ...

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Job 38:1-7, 34-41 The   Cause of Love This is kinda like the Sermon on the Mount, this passage from Job, if Jesus had a much more confrontational presentation style.   Instead of “Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your Heavenly Father feeds them” we get “Gird up your loins like a man and answer me this: who feeds the raven its prey?   I know: not you.”   So like I said, similar but different. Now I’m not going to assume that everyone here is an expert on the book of Job.   We’re dropped into the 38 th chapter today; 37 chapters worth of stuff has already happened, leading us up to this point.   He’s the quick and dirty summary: Job is wealthy and righteous.   He loses everything right at the beginning of the book.   Everything, that is, except his wife, who urges him to curse God and die.   He doesn’t do that.   Instead, he sits in ashes an...

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Isaiah 40:21-31   Where is God? Have you not known?   Have you not heard?   Have you not been told?   Have you not understood?   When you understand that the questions are rhetorical, you get that this is a confrontation.    A prophet confronting his nation.   A believer questioning the doubters.   But is it too much?   Surely the people have reason to doubt.   Just before the confrontational questions, the prophet made them a promise – God's promise through the prophet's mouth.   But the promise was an unbelievable promise – with no supporting evidence.   Isaiah promised the people that God would have the last word, that they would experience salvation, that things were about to be set right. But they were not alright.   Nothing was OK.   They were living in exile and had been there for decades – crushed under the weight of oppression, dominated by an unstoppab...