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A sermon for Epiphany 1: The Baptism of our Lord
January 8, 2023 The Rev. Mark Nabors, Vicar Readings: Matthew 3:13-17 I’ve only been snorkeling a couple of times. The first time, I went snorkeling in a muddy creek in Missouri. It wasn’t my idea. A friend of mine went all the time and loved it, so I went with him and his dad. We pulled the car off the state highway by a bridge and hopped into the very muddy water. You couldn’t see a thing. The water was brown and dirty, and full of who knows what. Before we got in, my friend’s dad warned us to watch out for cottonmouths. He then told us three or four stories of coming snout to snout with cottonmouths that were at least seven feet long. I learned later that he liked to exaggerate. But it didn’t matter: from the moment I stepped foot in the water, I was concerned about what I would meet.
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A sermon preached for the Feast of the Holy Name
January 1, 2023 The Rev. Mark Nabors, Vicar Readings: Philippians 2:5-11 “On the eighth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me…” How about a name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven, on earth, and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. That’s not as easy to sing as maids-a-milkin’, but it’s what we are given on this eighth day of Christmas, the feast of the Holy Name. A sermon for Christmas Day
December 25, 2022 The Rev. Mark Nabors, Vicar Readings: Luke 2:8-20 “But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.” Something in me prefers today’s service to last night’s. Now, I love a raucous party for the birth of Christ. I love the organ–the louder, the better. I love noisy children, excited that the day is finally here. Some churches have live nativities, complete with donkeys and camels. I would even love that, too. But the quiet of Christmas morning, the simplicity of a quite normal liturgy to mark such a big feast: there is a beauty in that that I love. It gives us time, like Mary, to treasure words and ponder their meaning. A sermon for Christmas Eve
December 24, 2022 The Rev. Mark Nabors, Vicar Readings: Luke 2:1-20 What is Christmas about? We start with that simple question. And I want us to answer it honestly, without pious pretension. And yes, we all know that Jesus is the reason for the season. But let’s trash the rhyming slogans for a moment, and really consider it. A Sermon for the Fourth Sunday of Advent
December 18, 2022 The Rev. Mark Nabors, Vicar Reading: Matthew 1:18-25 “Until Christ comes again, he is hidden among us.” We heard those words from Fleming Rutledge two weeks ago. Advent is not only about waiting to see Christ come again on the Last Day, it is also about seeing where Christ shows up now: in the Holy Sacrament, in the face of our neighbor, and in our own lives. Christ shows up in our own hearts, in our own lives, in the middle of our night, in the middle of our difficult spots and trials. Christ, the King of Glory, is hidden among us, even in our own hearts. A sermon for the Third Sunday of Advent
December 11, 2022 The Rev. Mark Nabors, Vicar Reading: Matthew 11:2-11 “As long as there are people, Christ will walk the earth as your neighbor, as the one through whom God calls you, speaks to you, makes demands on you. That is the great seriousness and great blessedness of the Advent message. Christ is standing at the door; he lives in the form of a human being among us.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German pastor and Lutheran theologian, said those words. He believed those words. In a time when Germany was turning neighbors against one another, rounding up Jews, Communists, atheists, Catholics, and other dissenters, Bonhoeffer lived those words. He saw Christ coming to him in his neighbor to call him, to speak to him, to make demands of him. A sermon for the Second Sunday of Advent
December 4, 2022 The Rev. Mark Nabors, Vicar Readings: Matthew 3:1-12 “Advent begins in the dark,” so says one of my favorite present day theologians, Fleming Rutledge. Advent begins in the darkness of the world, the darkness of the human soul, the darkness of sin and evil and death. She continues, “Advent is not [only] about the first coming of Jesus, it is about the second coming. It is about the final breaking in of God upon our darkness. It is about the promise that against all evidence, there is a God who cares. Where is God? Until he comes again, he is hidden among us.” A sermon for the First Sunday of Advent
November 27, 2022 The Rev. Mark Nabors, Vicar Readings: Isaiah 2:1-5; Romans 13:11-14; Matthew 24:36-44 It’s the most wonderful time of the year. No, I don’t mean Christmas. Here’s your annual reminder, my annual screaming into the void: Christmas doesn’t begin until the sun goes down and three stars are visible to the naked eye on December 24th, and it lasts for twelve days, through January 5th. Hold off, Mariah Carey. No, by the most wonderful time of the year, I mean Advent, our time of preparation for Christmas. A season that, in a sense, takes us out of time itself. Just as Lent prepares us for Easter, Advent prepares us for Christmas. It prepares us to await and see Christ’s advent, his coming: on the last day, in the holy Sacrament, in the face of our neighbor, and in our own hearts. By the end of it, we are prepared to return to Bethlehem to see Christ’s first advent, his first coming, as a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. |
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