Seasonal Preaching

We're there already.

It's the holiday season - saw the first Christmas ad yesterday on TV, Bunny got her first "Black Friday" spoiler emails. Yep, the blur that is the American holiday season is here. I don't know about you, but I feel a little bit like the guy in the Capital One commercial - you know the one - where he's looking out across his deck and into his backyard and all of a sudden a Claymore sword thunks into the wood - followed by spears, more swords, and arrows.

Veterans Day
Thanksgiving
Advent
Christmas Eve
Christmas
New Years

They are all there, looming over my preaching preparation for the next few weeks. Here in America's Philippi, Veterans Day is a big deal. I'll definitely have to address it in pre-sermon time, perhaps show a video. In years long past, I'd have devoted a whole sermon loosely tied to some topic about courage, devotion, or faithfulness. People loved them, but they weren't anywhere near what I need to be doing - sparking transformational change in Jesus.

I never do Thanksgiving any more, even though I used to explain America's Pilgrim roots, talk about the miracle of their survival, even lay out Squanto's travels and how he was providentially placed.

There have been years I rigidly followed Advent and the Lectionary portions, years in which I did character studies of the parties involved in the Incarnation story, years where I traced the names of Messiah - well, I've done Christmas a lot of different ways.

Still praying about how to approach this year. For some reason I am feeling a kind of awe I haven't felt before - not about what Jesus found here, but what He left there. There's a "shock and awe" quality about the Incarnation as reflected in the accounts and the reaction of Herod, the shepherds, Joseph and yes even Mary that might be fertile ground.

We know the story - backwards and forwards. But how would someone outside our preconceived notions receive it - if they knew the Holiness and Majesty of God?

Stay tuned.