So, what did you get?

Date: January 2, 2011

Liturgical Sunday: Second Sunday after Christmas Day

RCL Scripture: Psalm 147:12-20: Jeremiah 31:7-14: Ephesians 1:3-14: John 1:1-18

Sermon Title: So what did you get?

Knox Presbyterian [audio:https://wordsfromthemiddle.ca/wp-content/uploads/110102_-_Knox.mp3|titles=So, what did you get?]

St. Mark’s Presbyterian [audio:https://wordsfromthemiddle.ca/wp-content/uploads/110102_-_St_Marks.mp3|titles=So, what did you get?]

This is the first Sunday of calendar year 2011. This year change seems strangely less odd than those years with the “00” in the middle and even 2010 was; perhaps I’m getting used to being in this century.

For this first Sunday of the year and the Second Sunday after Christmas Day I decided to revisit a topic that I have preached before, it is a source of some chagrin that I did so but, as I note in the sermon, there is real value in revisiting some of the things that we already know . . . even in sermons.

Not to give away the “punch line” of the sermon but it is important that we remember that the first Christmas gift was from God to us and it was Jesus Christ. The question that follows that is, of course, “so what?”One of my preaching professors used to ask that same question at the end of our classroom sermons, his point, with which I am in complete agreement, is that if you don’t have a pretty good answer to that question, don’t preach that sermon, preach something else or nothing at all.

Today’s sermon is trying to get at the “so what” of Christ as a gift to us, what else comes with it? I’d love to get your comments if you feel like making any.

Blessings,

Barry