As noted above, the Bible states that God sent Jesus into the world as an act of love. Jesus came into a world that desperately needed help because it was in the grips of sin. King Herod’s slaughter of the innocents captured this truth in a graphic way: Jesus had entered a world where greed …
Category: Isaiah
Nov 30
First Week of Advent: Hope
Advent Candle 1 stands for hope, and specifically, the Israelites’ hope that the promised Messiah would come. They had been waiting for the Messiah for centuries, wondering what he would look like and what he would do when he arrived. When Jesus was born, that hope was finally fulfilled – “a prophet like you” (Deuteronomy …
Nov 14
Send Me?
Isaiah 6:1-8 In the World War II movie Fury, Shia LaBeouf’s character, appropriately nicknamed as “Bible,” because of his penchant for quoting biblical verses, sits at the gunner position of a Sherman tank during the final weeks of World War II.1 As the crew awaits near-certain death from an approaching German battalion, “Bible” quotes to the …
Mar 01
Lent and Self Image
Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips,and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips;for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”(Isaiah 6:5) It seems in some circles that feeling bad about yourself is one of the greatest sins. …