Waukesha, WI
St. Mark's Evangelical Lutheran Church
  • Home
  • I'm New
  • Staff
  • Events & News
  • Sermons and Special Music
  • OIKOS 2020
  • Pastoral Messages

and you will know I am the Lord....when?

12/3/2015

0 Comments

 
Picture
Scripture: 2 Kings 23:15-20

Observation: Josiah continues the destruction of the things that inhibit having a true relationship with God, including murdering the pagan priests, destroying the altars of their gods, and laying waste to pagan statues and temples.

Application: Some people get offended when God, or in this case, God's representatives, goes a little off the reservation concerning the practices we live by and the gods and idols we set up.  One of my favorite movies of all time is pulp fiction.  Jewels (Samuel L. Jackson's character) often misquotes the prophet Ezekiel when he murders someone, saying: "And you will know my name is the Lord when I strike down my vengeance upon thee."

Later on Jewels comes to a moment of clarity and realizes that is not what the prophet meant at all.

​In a time when the world feels like it is going to hell in a hand basket (again after another mass shooting) I sometimes wish God, or God's representatives could go off the reservation and say stuff like this.  But in reality, we are called to live out a different kind of radical righteousness....not of indignation but of + radical peace keeping in the midst of radical violence,
+ extreme love in the midst of extreme hatred,
+ monumental kindness in the midst of monumental chaos.

This advent season, we hold steadfast to the anticipation of the one who is to come and make all things new, all things right, all things just.

​That's the difficult thing of Advent is waiting for the hiddenness of God to be revealed.

Prayer: Come, Lord Jesus!

0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Gathered Together by God to Grow and Go Out.