The Man

One of the things we will continue to do on this blog is direct your attention to interesting pieces. Well, for the next few weeks, we'll be posting a sermon a week from the recent preaching series at the Society of St. John the Evangelist, the Anglican monastery in Harvard Square. The series itself took place in September and was called "Conversations on the Way: the Man, the Message, and the Movement."

Here's a link to the first sermon, called "The Man," which considers the life of Jesus, and was delivered by Br. Curtis Almquist.

And, here's a sneak peek:

He was simply called “Jesus,” not an uncommon name, and he was born into virtual obscurity.¹  Through our internal documents – what we call the Gospels and New Testament writings – we know about the shepherds and wise men who came to worship him in infancy; however there’s no reason to think his birth caused much of any other notice.  In the eyes of observant Jews, he was a disappointment at best and a bastard at worst...


...He had these very weird parents with this unbelievable story about his birth and destiny, a destiny which had seemed to have materialized.  Well, it did materialize, but Jesus had spent virtually his entire life, not living up to the prophecy.  Even the people who had not jeered him and his family because of his “birth story” surely would have abandoned believing the Messianic prophecy stuff long ago.  Jesus proved to be quite an ordinary human being who hadn’t found his way in life.⁵