Break Open the Word

  The Second Sunday of Advent, 6 December 2020   Isaiah 40:1-11 2 Peter 3:8-15a Mark 1:1-8 Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13   The Collect Merciful God, who sent your messengers the prophets to preach repentance and prepare the way for our salvation: Give us grace to heed their warnings and forsake our sins, that we may greet with joy the coming of Jesus Christ our Redeemer; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.  Amen.     Background: The Wilderness   So often in the Scriptures we find holy men and women going to (or should I say returning to) the wilderness. We must remember that the wilderness not only surrounded Palestine, but was also the stage upon which enormous events occurred: the freedom from Egypt, the giving of the Law, the pilgrimages up to Jerusalem, the return from the Babylonian exile, the retreat of the Essenes, the ministry of John the Baptist, and the place of spiritual refreshment for Jesus. The words that re...

  The First Sunday of Advent, 29 November 2020   Isaiah 64:1-9 1 Corinthians 1:3-9 Mark 13:24-37 Psalm 80:1-7, 16-18   The Collect   Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.  Amen.     Background: The Eschaton   The understanding of the Eschaton in the Hebrew Scriptures is rooted in the idea that YHWH created this world and cosmos and continues to intervene in these worlds and realities throughout history. The History of Salvation that begins in the Hebrew Scriptures is a telling of the Eschaton that God directs and instructs. There are two aspects to this interve...