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Sunday between December 4 and December 10 Old Testament Lesson Plans: Prepare the Way Scripture: Isaiah 40:1-11 Today we continue our Advent journey. Advent is a time when we prepare our hearts for the coming of Jesus at Christmas. During Advent, we reflect on the hope, peace, and joy that come with the birth of…
During Advent and Christmas, we will be using study prompts and other activities tied to the sermon for the week. Read the sermon aloud and follow-up with spoken responses to the two questions at the end. Find our full sermon compilation for individual, small group, or congregational use, Sermons for Advent and Christmas 2023 at…
[RCL] Isaiah 40:1-11; Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13; 2 Peter 3:8-15a; Mark 1:1-8 The first sentences of the Old Testament reading will be familiar to many as the opening words of Handel’s masterpiece, The Messiah. “‘Comfort Ye, Comfort Ye my people,’ says your God!” It would be difficult to estimate the millions of people who have heard orchestras,…
RCL: Isaiah 40:1-11; Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13; 2 Peter 3:8-15a; Mark 1:1-8 Pointing to Christ The perennial challenge during Advent and Christmastime is to hear anew the familiar story we all know. We all know the story. We’ve all seen the Christmas pageants. We’ve set up the Nativity crèche with the holy family, cow, donkey, and…
[RCL] Isaiah 40:1-11; Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13; 2 Peter 3:8-15a; Mark 1:1-8 The perennial challenge during Advent and Christmastime is to hear anew the familiar story we all know. We all know the story. We’ve all seen the Christmas pageants. We’ve set up the Nativity crèche with the holy family, cow, donkey, and shepherds. It’s become…
Isaiah 40:1-11 Many scholars identify this oracle as the beginning of “Second Isaiah” (Isaiah 40-55), in which a disciple of the earlier prophet Isaiah of Jerusalem takes up some of the themes of the oracles recorded in “First Isaiah” (Isaiah 1-39) and applies them to the later experience of the 6th-century BC exile in Babylon….
Comfort, O comfort. There is so much need for comfort in this world of heartbreak where we find ourselves. Every day, we hear new stories of how we have failed each other, how we have used our talents, gifts, power, and position to maneuver our way to “success” at the expense of so many others….
Isaiah 40:1-11 The book of Isaiah is one of the most well-known and well-loved prophetic books of the Old Testament. Scholars tend to recognize four major divisions within the book: First Isaiah (Chapters 1-39), Second Isaiah (Chapters 40-56), Third Isaiah (Chapters 56-66), and the Isaiah Apocalypse (Chapters 24-27). Our reading for today comes from the…
“Comfort ye! … Every valley shall be lifted up and every mountain made low.” What heart-lifting words we hear from our God shouted across the millennia into our very own day. Isaiah offers us images in just 11 verses that have become the focus of artists and musicians who have turned the words into pictures…
In 2009 the Dutch filmmaker Enno de Jonge returned to Rio de Janeiro to find the street children he had photographed eighteen years before. He started his search where he had begun the project, at St. Martin’s Foundation. St. Martin’s is a citywide program for street children run by the Roman Catholic Carmelite order in…
Isaiah 40:1-11 The chapel of the Good Shepherd here at General Theological Seminary has a really sweet-looking Jesus with a lamb in his arms behind the altar. He is gazing into its little lamby face with gentle love. On the outside of the chapel, however, is another image of Jesus the Good Shepherd; in that…
We encounter two voices crying out from the wilderness on this Second Sunday of Advent. The prophet Isaiah calls, “Comfort, O Comfort My People,” and John the Baptist shouts, “Prepare the Way of the Lord.” These stories are joined by more than the prophetic voice. In both our gospel reading and the reading from Isaiah,…
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