Sermon Archive
The Beauty Among the Beasts
By: Dr. Robert Petterson
Dec 26, 2010
We have idealized the shepherds. In reality, they were outcasts in ancient Israel. Worse than that, they were untouchables. The fact that they figured prominently in the nativity, was one of the scandals of Early Christianity. We hardly notice the barnyard beasts. But they may tell the greatest gospel story of all. That God in the flesh would be born among soulless, slobbering beasts of burden is so profound that it beggars the imagination. It also tells us something so earth shattering that it will transform the way we look at life.
A Closer Look in the Cradle
By: Pastor Trent Casto
Dec 19, 2010
We love the baby in the cradle. He is the central figure in the nativity scene, the last one that we put away until the next advent season. There is a profound problem in our view of the baby Jesus. He is not only the central figure in the nativity, he is the inescapable figure of world history. He was born in a stable to die as the Savior of the world. He rose from the tomb as the King of kings. He will not allow us to dust him off once a year as a perpetual baby in a crib, only to wrap him in tissue paper and hide him away in the attic for another year. He is not a safe little baby, but an awesome God who demands our whole life. This will be a powerful year-end challenge for a new season filled with his power and presence!
Black Magic at the Inn
By: Dr. Robert Petterson
Dec 12, 2010
The mystical magi give magical panache to an otherwise drab nativity scene. Who are these strange magicians from the far reaches of the Orient? We sing the familiar old carol, but they really weren’t kings. And there were probably more than three of them. Early traditions claim that they numbered twelve or more. Why did they come? How did they know where to come? What did they discover in the stars that alerted to know who Jesus really was? How did Persian pagans figure out what Hebrew scholars missed? In the answers to these riddles you will learn the deepest secrets of the gospel and world evangelism.
Simple Mary, Mother of God
By: Dr. Robert Petterson
Dec 05, 2010
Mary dominates the nativity scene as she looks serenely at the baby in her lap. But the nativity of Hallmark cards and Christmas Carols is a sanitized version of reality. Mary was an unwed teenage mother who gave birth to a baby in a cold cave, while lying on dirty straw filled with barnyard smells, surrounded by slobbering beasts, crying out in pain, and assisted by the calloused hands of a carpenter. She lived the rough life of a Palestinian peasant, got old too young, was repeatedly pierced by the sword of agony, and died in obscurity. But her life teaches us how to birth Christ into our world in such a way that the world will never be the same again.
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