Gospel - Richard R. Crocker

Gospel
Feb 5, 2012
Rollins Chapel
Richard R. Crocker
Isaiah 40:21-31
Mark 1:29-39

We have before us today two passages that pique our interest and offer us help. The first is a wonderful passage from Isaiah. It is a passage of comfort – the concluding verses of that famous chapter that begins “Comfort, comfort my people.” Its message of comfort is essentially that although we have heard, we have not really known, how powerful God is – and how this all powerful God, creator of the world, cares for us: “He gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless. Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will be exhausted; but those who wait upon the Lord will renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”

Truly this message was a word of comfort for a people who were in exile; it was a promise of God’s power and constancy, even in a time of despair. It was good news to those who were weary and discouraged. And of course good news is what the word gospel means. Certainly these words were gospel to the people of Israel who were captives in Babylonia. And they are also good news for us, who may proclaim and exult in our freedom, but who are truly captive to so many things.

Sacred, Abundant, Life. - Kurt Nelson

Kurt Nelson
Rollins Chapel, 1/22/11
Romans 8: 14 - 22
“Sacred, Abundant, Life.”

Many popular novels these days –

at least, novels which are deemed “deep” or “about something” –

contain at the back,

 a question and answer with the Author.

Honestly, they’re not usually terribly interesting.

But it would be nice, I think,

if our scriptures contained something similar.

A little back and forth between the Harper Collins Editors,

and Jesus.

Or God.

Or even Paul.

“Grace seems like an important theme in your work.  Say more about that.”

Or

“Where exactly is this 'Kingdom of God'?

or

“Not just life, but abundant life?  Is that this messy thing we’re living now?

Or something else?”

Sadly, no such Q&A exists.

So we’re forced to muddle through on our own.

Wading through centuries of commentary

and scholarship and theology.

Plumbing the depths of our minds and hearts,

praying,

and gathering together

to ponder the question of life.

“Choose life” says Deuteronomy.

It is set before us.

And not just life,

but abundant life, says Jesus.

And we are left to wonder,

what exactly might that mean.

Two weeks ago Richard,

channeling his great spiritual forebear William Jewett Tucker,

reminded us that so often,

we equate “abundance”

with success.