Reverend Ref +

WHAT I WOULD HAVE SAID

I'm not preaching this Sunday. Instead, we have a return engagement from the Gideons. A representative came last year, and a few weeks ago I got a call asking if they could send someone again.

Knowing that I was taking Monday and Tuesday off for "Easter healing," and knowing that I was NOT going to be working on a sermon during those days, and knowing that I wasn't going to have the time necessary to craft a sermon, I said, "Sure, you can send someone on the 23rd."

So we have a Gideon-dude coming to tell us about how they place bibles in motel rooms across the country .... or something like that. This also means that I won't get the opportunity (this year) to preach on why Thomas was so stubborn (John 20:19-31).

But just because I'm not preaching doesn't mean that I haven't spent some time with the lection for Sunday; I did, afterall, have to pick out hymns for my organist (see post below). I was going over this passage and thinking, "What would I preach on if I were in fact preaching? It can't be Thomas, because everyone has heard that one before."

And then vss. 30-31 seemed to jump out at me: "Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name."

I'm not preaching Sunday, but if I were, I'd focus on these two verses. I'd say something like, "Not everything Jesus did was written down. Not everything God has done was written down. Scripture is not the be-all and end-all of God. Scripture is only the beginning. And if we insist that God only lives in the pages of the Bible and not in the here and now, we are missing something very important."

I'd say something like that. But, I'm not preaching on Sunday, but that's what I would say if I were.