Recently, my dad, who is a pastor has been looking and preaching at different churches. This past Sunday, though, instead of preaching at a church, he went to the nearby YMCA to give a sermon on Sunday morning. His sermon was on the wise men that went to see baby Jesus. He started out by making the point that they were supernaturally led, they searched for Jesus thoroughly. After that he spent a few minutes talking about how the rich wise men humbly bowed down to Jesus and gave him treasures. They didn’t give him baby toys or something for him to play with, but they gave him things with a lot of value that they would normally give to a king.
The next few points that he made were about what we can learn from the magi (wise men). The first point went over the fact that the wise men left their home. My dad then asked the question “What do we need to leave?” The answer is that we need to leave anything that might damage our relationships with Christ.
The next point was about how the magi looked for Jesus. They looked tirelessly for him. This brought up the question “What is blocking my view of his presence at Christmas time?” the answer is simple. The thing that distracts us is all of the presents, the music, the decorations, and even the manger scene can block my view of the true meaning of Christmas, the salvation God sent to earth.
A third point that my dad made was how the wise men lowered themselves to worship Jesus. They bowed to him. The question that came from this is “How does my pride hinder my worship?” this is a personal question that can be answered differently between people. But there is another question; “Do I seek to surrender my life to God daily?” This is also a personal question that each individual person must answer for themselves.
In this Heinz condiments commercial, aired during the Super Bowl this past year, a group of dachshunds are shown in hot dog costumes running towards humans in Heinz ketchup and mustard costumes who end up catching the dogs as they leap into the humans’ arms and lick their faces. This commercial is a specific appeal to pathos as the dogs are dressed up and are meant to be cute. The phrase at the end of the commercial is “it’s hard to resist great taste” and this is stated while the dogs are licking the humans implying that the dogs like Heinz and that humans should buy it as well because the cute dogs in costumes did.
Those are some very deep questions. I like how your dad gave the story and then made relatable questions for the listeners to think about. Good job!
ReplyDeleteI liked your illustration you mentioned that Jesus was not given toys once he was born but kingly gifts, well because he was one.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the idea that we need to leave things affecting our relationship with christ, and i struggle with that sometimes.
ReplyDeleteMason