A Two Goal Lead is the Most Dangerous Lead...

The Rev. Aron Kramer First Sunday After the Epiphany January 13 th , 2013 I feel like John, John the Baptist that is. I feel like John might have felt at the transitioning of his ministry into Jesus’ own. Surrounded by expectation surrounded by people who thought he was it, he was the guy. John was baptizing and healing, preaching and teaching, and had a reputation to go with it all. Then Jesus comes and you hear from John this shift, something about being unworthy, and unquenchable fire. There’s a little bitterness in there. You have to imagine, that as the heavens were torn open, and that amazing sound, or voice comes from heaven, you have to think that John was hiding in the corner thinking to himself, “Why didn’t I think of that!” Of course I am a little off, John was probably much more gracious and generous than I can imagine, after all, he is John the Baptist. So maybe it’s not so much John that I feel like, maybe I feel more like one of John’s di...

The Rev. Aron Kramer Epiphany January 6, 2013 The word 'epiphany' means 'showing' or 'shining forth.' It has to do of course, with the manifestation of God in human flesh, the revelation to the world of God’s love for all of us. It is, to put it simply, a tectonic worldview shift in our perspective of how God is at work in the world. Think about it, this God of ours has acted out of the ordinary since the very beginning. For most cultures the deity that is at the center of their religious landscape tends to burst onto the scene, kind of like Thor and Loki from the movie Avengers, and Thor. This idea of our Gods, our deities exploding into our lives is one that we embrace quite fully to this day, yet is contrary to our own biblical understanding of how God is at work in our lives and in our world. Even in our Hebrew Scriptures God never explodes on to the scene, God is always functioning behind the scenes. Ours is a God who ch...