The Vernal Equinox
On Tuesday, March 20, 2012, spring will arrive. At precisely 1:14 A.M. daylight savings time, the sun will cross directly over the earth’s equator. This moment is known as the vernal equinox in the northern hemisphere, the beginning of spring. In the Southern hemisphere it is the autumnal equinox.
Equinox means equal night. Because the sun is positioned at its zenith above the equator, day and night are approximately equal in length all over the world.
This brief moment of balance between light and dark occurs because the earth is tilted on its axis. Because of the tilt, we receive the sun’s rays most directly in the summer. The tilt of the earth gives us our seasons. Read more…
Questions Jesus Asks Us: “Who Do You Say I Am?”
On this fourth Sunday of Lent, we continue our series Questions Jesus Asks Us. Please keep your Bible open as we look at several passages in the course of this message. Turn with me to Matthew 16:13-17 as I read the text for today. Hear now the Word of the Lord.
13 When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”
14 They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”
15 “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”
16 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”
17 Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven. 18 And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. 19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” 20 Then he ordered his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.
This is the Word of God for the people of God.
Mark Twain recounts his travels to the Holy Land with a group of Episcopalians in his absolutely delightful book entitled Innocents Abroad. His tale of how the group traveled on mules is one of the funniest of all of his books. Before you plan a trip to the Holy Land, you should read Innocents Abroad. Twain pokes fun at every place and every person during his travels, especially the Episcopalians with him. He claims that Mary, the mother of Jesus, must have been a very homely looking woman because, he says, “I went to Nazareth, and there was not one good-looking woman anywhere in the whole village.”
On one occasion, Twain and the tour group visited the Temple Mount, a rock that is important to three of the world’s great religions. Abraham offered Isaac there as a sacrifice. David offered a sacrifice there as well, and Solomon built a temple in that same location. The Islamic faith also values that rock, which has been covered by a mosque called the Dome of the Rock. Muslims point to what appears to be a footprint on the rock and say that it was from there that Mohammed lept into heaven. When Mark Twain looked at that indentation, he teased, “If that is Mohammed’s footprint, he wore a size seventeen shoe!”
The one exception to Twain’s mockery in Innocents Abroad occurs when he tours the city of Paneas, another name for Caesarea Philippi. Mark Twain must have had a very devotional experience there because he writes in reverential tones as he describes this place of striking beauty. From the side of Mount Herman, the view of all of Galilee, the Jordan River Valley, is stunning.
Shamrocks and Purple Martins
On their farm in Barnwell County, South Carolina, Miss Maude and Creech lived by the calendar. Creech vowed that Irish potatoes and English peas should be planted by St. Valentine’s Day, about the same time the bluebirds arrive. He looked forward to the arrival of another of his favorite birds, the purple martin. Some years he saw purple martin scouts as early as mid-February. As a general rule Creech believed that his martin gourds should be cleaned and ready to receive occupants by St. Patrick’s Day. Read more…
Sermon: Questions Jesus Asks Us: “Will Worry Add a Single Hour to Your Life?” Text: Luke 12:22-31
Here on the third Sunday of Lent, we continue our series Questions Jesus Asks Us. Today the question “Will worry add a single hour to your life?” comes from the Gospel of Luke, Chapter 12. Turn there in the Scriptures, and we will read the passage together.
Hear now the Word of God.
22 Then Jesus said to his disciples: “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. 23 For life is more than food, and the body more than clothes. 24 Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds! 25 Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life? 26 Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?
27 “Consider how the wild flowers grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 28 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today, and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more will he clothe you—you of little faith! 29 And do not set your heart on what you will eat or drink; do not worry about it. 30 For the pagan world runs after all such things, and your Father knows that you need them. 31 But seek his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well.
Do you ever worry? I suspect that you do. Problems you encounter cause you to get worried and anxious. It is sort of the common lot of all humans. I see people almost every day who are apprehensive and fretful. Sometimes I see that person in the mirror. Read more…
Sermon: Questions Jesus Asks Us: “Which of These Three Do You Think Was a Neighbor?” Text: Luke 10:25-37
In his Lyman-Beecher lectures at Yale Divinity School, entitled Overhearing the Gospel, Fred Craddock said that Christians have heard the gospel so many times that they tend not to listen anymore. He stated that we have heard certain passages so often that we think we know everything about them. Certainly the parable we will consider today is one such example.
How many sermons have you heard about the parable of the Good Samaritan? How many sermons have I preached about the parable of the Good Samaritan in the past sixteen years? I invite you to come to this familiar narrative today with fresh ears. Let’s see if we can examine it in a new and fresh way for our day and ask what we can glean from our understanding. As we continue the series of sermons Questions Jesus Asks Us, we need to take seriously Jesus’ question, “Who is your neighbor?” Read more…
Leap Day – February 29
Wells Chapel Baptist Church is located on State Road 41 in eastern North Carolina, west of the town of Wallace in Duplin County. In the church cemetery is the grave of a woman who died at exactly forty years of age, although she celebrated only ten birthdays.
Mattie C. Ramsey Birth: Feb. 29, 1880 Death: Feb. 29, 1920
What are the odds? Someone figured out that the probability of a person’s birth and death occurring on Leap Year Day is one in 2,134,521 people.
In the Gregorian calendar most years that are divisible by four are Leap Years. The month of February has twenty-nine days instead of twenty-eight. Adding an extra day to the calendar every four years compensates for the fact that a solar year is almost six hours longer than 365 days. Read more…
Questions Jesus Asks Us: “Can You Drink the Cup I Am Going to Drink?”
Several weeks ago I was thinking about a theme for our sermon series during the season of Lent. I started looking through the four Gospels, paying attention to the questions Jesus asked his disciples. I was able to create a list of more than 135 inquiries from our Lord, many of which were very poignant. It occurred to me that the questions Jesus directed to his disciples in the first century are also relevant to his disciples in the twenty-first century, relevant to us today. Read more…
