Sermons

Introduction:

This morning we gather for the first Sunday of a new Christian year. It is the first Sunday of Advent, marked by the color blue. Advent is meant to be a time of preparation. It is easy for us to be focused on a joyous preparation, as we anticipate the celebration of Christ's birth later this month. It didn't take Advent for us to be thinking about this. Stores were already filling up with Christmas stuff the minute Halloween was over!

Unfortunately, the commercialization of the Christmas season can also cause us to place our focus everywhere but where it is meant to be: on Jesus Christ. In fact, the season of Advent has an additional purpose. It is also meant to be a time in which we are in preparation for the time when Christ returns. We don't know when that will be. Christ does not know when it will be. But when he does, he wants us to be ready...to be prepared.

During these four Sundays of Advent, we will be looking at the messages for four different Old Testament prophets. This morning we hear from the prophet Jeremiah. Writing to a people in captivity in a foreign land, he tried to offer them a message of hope for the future. In a war-torn, terrorism-filled, violence-laden world, we too seek a message of hope for the future.

How do we hold on to hope of a better future when it seems like the world is filled with so much violence and despair?