On Sunday I was in Kansas City spending the day with the great people at Jacobs Well. They had invited me to preach that day, unaware that the date fell on Ascension, which has been something of an obsession of mine this past year. Consequently, they got more than their fair share of Moltmann quotes, as this is a topic I’ve been in correspondence with him about in recent months. You can hear the sermon here if you’re interested. Thanks again to all the folks at JW for a wonderful and fun weekend!
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the link is bad but i found it on the jw site.
the “if u had been here…” thing is powerful. i dont pray maranatha bc im a little nervous about it since in amos 5:18 it reads “woe to you who desire the day of the lord! y would you have the day of the lord? it is darkness and not light.”
makes me wonder..
Hey Kent,
Link is fixed. I understand your point about the day of the Lord. As in just about everything (and I think I mention this even in the sermon), stuff about God is often coin-like, with two opposing sides. The “great and terrible day of the Lord” is something we fear because we recognize God as the just judge of the world, and we have plenty of places where that judgment will find us guilty. But we are also called to long for it and pray for it, because as God’s people we cannot in the end fear God’s justice, because it is the kind of justice that sets the world right in reconciliation. Judgment has a strong word for us, but it is not the last word. The last word is love. If there is darkness in judgment, we are also told that even the darkness will not be dark to God, and that darkness will not overcome God’s light. Is this not also true in relation to God’s own righteous judgment? If God is not someone whose presence we truly long for, is our God worth following or worshipping at all?
i agree about light and love. i guess its sorta like death. we all have to die and without it there is no resurrection but death still sucks. for me the day of the lord may well lead to light and love on the other side but getting there…? even jesus prayed for the cup to pass eh?